Leanne Liddle tells Kumanjayi Walker inquest senior cop told her to ‘stop breeding’

Aboriginal Justice Unit director told an inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker a police officer advised her ‘the only hope you mob have is to stop breeding for the next 10 to 15 years’.

NT Aboriginal Justice Unit director Leanne Liddle said she was ‘devastated to see the fear and despair and hopelessness in the faces and voices of Aboriginal people’. Picture: Jason Walls

A remote NT Police senior sergeant told a top Aboriginal public servant the “only hope” for reducing Indigenous incarceration was for “you mob” to “stop breeding”, a court has heard.

In a statement tendered on Monday to an inquest into the 2019 police shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker, Aboriginal Justice Unit director Leanne Liddle said she had “lost count the number of times that I have confronted racism in the workplace”.

Ms Liddle said a series of more than 100 consultations with remote Aboriginal communities she undertook while drafting the Territory’s Aboriginal Justice Agreement was “one of the most depressing and saddest experiences of my life”.

“I recall on one consult, (what) a senior sergeant of a remote police station who, in front of his junior colleague, said to me when I asked him what did he believe was the answer to reducing incarceration of Aboriginal people,” she said.

“He said ‘The only hope you mob have is to stop breeding for the next 10 to 15 years’.

“The other officer, when questioned about hearing this statement, denied that he had heard it, but it was impossible that he did not – that tells me something about the culture of junior officers and their fear to report on senior officers.”

NT Aboriginal Justice Unit director Leanne Liddle speaks outside the Alice Springs Local Court in March at an inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker. Picture: Jason Walls

Ms Liddle said she did not want to see the sergeant working in an Aboriginal community again after the exchange but “to my surprise this officer was transferred to another Aboriginal community with a promotion”.

Ms Liddle said she was “devastated to see the fear and despair and hopelessness in the faces and voices of Aboriginal people, young, old, men, women and children in so many communities and towns” during the consultations, with residents reporting being “made to feel like they were subhuman”.

“I knew and thought we would hear issues about police and poor practice, but I can’t recall any community who told me what was working, let alone what service provider was delivering a program that worked,” she said.

“People told us that they thought that the treatment and responses they received by police specifically would not happen if they were non-Aboriginal. That they were treated differently because of their skin colour.”

Ms Liddle said the incident with the sergeant was just one of “many examples of systemic racism in the NT Police force”, including in Yuendumu where Mr Walker was killed by Constable Zach Rolfe in November 2019.

Constable Rolfe was acquitted on all charges laid over the shooting by a Supreme Court jury in March.

“Addressing systemic racism will allow Aboriginal people to engage with police and government services, they would then have a voice, which would empower them to be heard and to work with government and police to build, retain or restore a safe community,” she said.

“Police would have understood cognitive disability and recognised FASD symptoms and responded differently to an individual with such a disability.

“They could have approached him differently and treated his responses as a health issue; they could have attempted to de-escalate any tense situations rather than undertake a frightening raid.”

The inquest continues on Tuesday.