Wadeye class action against lack of health, interpreter services abandoned

Residents of a remote Aboriginal community have dropped a long running class action against the Territory government for allegedly failing to provide essential health and interpreter services.

Wadeye Health Centre. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Residents of a remote Aboriginal community have dropped a long running racial discrimination case against the Northern Territory government for allegedly failing to provide essential health and interpreter services.

The decision to drop two related class actions comes alongside a commitment by the Territory government to improve medical and interpreting services in Wadeye, one of the NT’s largest and most troubled remote communities, about 420kms southwest of Darwin.

Lawyers first took the case to the Federal Court in 2019, following a 2016 incident in which the lead claimant Patrick Cumaiyi suffered a fractured skull while in police custody.

A second, related claim was launched in 2021, with Wadeye residents demanding an apology and damages from the government for allegedly breaching their human rights by failing to provide them with the same level of healthcare as non-Indigenous Territorians.

Wadeye from above. Picture: Jason Walls

They claimed they had been victims of institutional racism for years, denied adequate healthcare, education and legal services.

Prominent human rights solicitors Levitt Robinson filed the class actions on behalf of the eight Aboriginal Wadeye residents.

This week the Federal Court ruled that the case could be dropped, after Levitt Robinson advised the Wadeye group it was in their best interests to do so.

Both sides agreed to pay their own legal costs, and to publish a joint statement affirming the NT government’s commitment to improve services in Wadeye.

The statement says the government will do its best to reach an interpreter attendance rate of 85 per cent for the Murrinh Patha language, to allocate at least two full time rural medical practitioners to Wadeye, and to establish a local dialysis service within three years.