Attorney-General: Victoria’s justice system a ‘site of exclusion and oppression’ for Aboriginal people

Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes has acknowledged First Nations communities have been disproportionately impacted by a Victorian criminal justice system that is structurally racist and continues to perpetuate disadvantage and inequity.

In a historic moment for the state, Symes on Friday appeared before the Yoorrook Justice Commission, the country’s first truth-telling inquiry, which is examining injustices experienced by First Peoples in the criminal justice and child protection systems.

Victorian state Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes gives evidence to the Yoorrook Justice Commission.Credit: Chris Hopkins

Symes said laws that were targeted at Aboriginal people were unequally applied to them, and the refusal to enact ones to help advance First Nations communities had entrenched systemic and structural racism within the justice system and government bureaucracy more broadly.

”I acknowledge the fact that the justice system has both recently and historically been a site of exclusion and oppression,” Symes said in her witness statement. “I acknowledge also that the impact and structures of colonisation are far-reaching and intergenerational and are continuing to affect Aboriginal peoples’ interactions with the criminal justice system.“

Symes was grilled on the over-representation of Aboriginal people in prison, including deaths in custody, the disproportionate impact the state’s bail laws have had on First Nations people, decriminalisation of public drunkenness, calls for stronger police oversight, and her commitment to raise the age of criminal responsibility.

She revealed she would introduce legislation into Parliament in October to lift the age of criminal culpability to 12 with no exceptions, with a view to having it enacted by the middle of next year.

She also told the commission she was waiting to appoint a new Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission chief before progressing work on strengthening police oversight, a chief recommendation of the royal commission into Lawyer X, as well as a key demand of lawyers and advocates.

Currently IBAC is the independent oversight body, but it investigates relatively few police misconduct cases due to resourcing and legislative limits, leaving the bulk of probes with Victoria Police’s Professional Standards Command.

“I know a lot of people want a [separate police ombudsman]; it’s not that is not an attractive [model], but it’s not realistic right now,” Symes said.

The inquiry this week has heard from government witnesses about the disproportionate impact that the bail law amendments have had on Indigenous people since 2018.

In the year ending June 2022, 1190 unsentenced people were held in custody, according to data supplied in government submissions to the inquiry. In the same period, 735 Aboriginal men and women were discharged from prison, having been held in custody without being sentenced to a term of imprisonment.

The latest prison population figures revealed 783 Aboriginal men were in custody as of Monday, making up 13 per cent of the prison population, with 49 per cent of them unsentenced.

Symes appeared at the commission to speak about the over-representation of Aboriginal people in prisons.Credit: Chris Hopkins

There were 38 Aboriginal women in custody, making up 12 per cent of the female prison population, with 44 per cent on remand. There were 11 Aboriginal young people in custody as of Wednesday, nine on remand.

The attorney-general told the commission the government got the balance wrong in 2018 when it strengthened bail laws in response to the Bourke Street massacre.

“I’m seeking to recalibrate that balance to tip it back so that we are appropriately dealing with serious offenders. But the evidence is clear, we’ve cast the net quite wide, too wide, in the bail changes and we have picked up vulnerable cohorts, including Aboriginal people,” Symes said.

She acknowledged that self-determination would improve outcomes in the criminal justice system for Aboriginal people, but said it would take six years to implement, as forecast by the Department of Justice.

In her witness statement, Symes said one of the challenges in reforming the criminal justice system was identifying any single policy, law or operation that was the root cause of systemic injustice and structural racism.

“These issues are complex and multifaceted,” Symes said in her statement.

“I acknowledge that Aboriginal peoples face unique and pervasive inequities that go over and beyond those experienced by other vulnerable cohorts and indeed the broader community. This includes structural racism that is a product of the devastating effects of colonisation. Regrettably, our current structures, laws and policies can serve to compound those inequities.”

Responding to the Attorney-General’s submission to the inquiry, Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service’s CEO Nerita Waight said First Peoples were tired of hearing platitudes from government and instead urgently needed it to embrace the transformational change that Aboriginal communities want.

“Everybody knows the statistics and everybody knows they’re the result of invasion, colonisation, and the ongoing discrimination we face. Hearing government figures acknowledge these well-known facts does not help us,” Waight said.

“We have been asking for the same things for so long now. Aboriginal people know the solutions to the issues our communities face. As long as governments want to fix us, nothing will change.”

Police Minister Anthony Carbine and Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton will appear before the royal commission on Monday, while Corrections Minister Enver Erdogan will be grilled on Wednesday and Child Protection Minister Lizzie Blandthorn on Thursday.

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