NT police anti-hygiene award was ‘no Indigenous slur’, Walker inquest told

Northern Territory police have acknowledged their most elite unit had an in-house annual award for lack of hygiene. The prize was an Aboriginal wooden weapon.

Zachary Rolfe arrives at the Alice Springs Local Court on Thursday for the inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker. Picture: Jason Walls

Northern Territory police have responded to racism allegations at the inquest for Warlpiri man Kumanjayi Walker by acknowledging its most elite unit had an in-house annual award for lack of hygiene called “Nugeda”.

The prize was a wooden weapon seized from rival Aboriginal clans after a riot in the remote West Daly region.

Former police officer Zachary Rolfe, who shot Walker dead in an attempted arrest in 2019, lashed the NT Police Force from the witness box on Monday while being questioned about his own use of the racist term coon in a text message.

He claimed racist language rubbed off on him while he was serving in Alice Springs, that it was normalised in the force, that a senior police officer had called an Aboriginal woman a fat gin and that the Territory response group held a “coon of the year” award at its annual party.

NT police have been reeling since Monday from Mr Rolfe’s allegations including that the award was for the police officer “exhibiting the most coon-like behaviour”.

In a statement to the inquest on Thursday, Senior Sergeant Meacham King – a member of the TRG from 2003 to 2023 – said there had been a prize that recognised “outstanding lack of excellence in either hygiene or behaviour”.

Sergeant King said the award was established after a TRG member on a remote job “failed to shower for over a week” and consisted of a piece of wood that looked like a club.

“The award is about a member who in any circumstance behaves in a way or does an act that shows limited intelligence and compromises their own or others hygiene by creating a biohazard,” he said.

“My understanding is that it was seized after TRG members went to a riot at the community in the West Daly region. It was taken during the seizure of weapons from rival clans and it was kept because it looked cool.”

Sergeant King’s statement suggested the award was intended to mock TRG members rather than Aboriginal people.

TRG members were sometimes derided as Neanderthals. Accordingly, the unit’s Darwin HQ is known as The Cave.

“TRG members have often been made fun of, on the basis that we are thought not to have any intelligence and that we are just good at lifting heavy things,” Sergeant King said in the statement.

“If there is a job to do that requires lifting or moving something, give TRG a call as they are good at moving stuff with weight but don’t ask them to do anything that requires using a brain.”

He said the name of the prize – Nugeda – was not a reference to a person or thing.

“From my understanding it is linked to ‘Neanderthal’, this reference is to a ‘cave man’,” he said.

The name of the award was changed to the “Voldemort award” in 2022 after a review.

“By then the unit was a lot better educated and more sensitive to the impact of perceptions and misunderstandings from the Walker coronial inquest,” he said.

“None of the awards have any connotation to race; the awards are not meant to be offensive. (But) I can understand how some people may be upset and confused by the awards. If at all it has offended anyone, I (take) this opportunity to apologise.”

On Thursday, Mr Rolfe was questioned about how and why his story changed on what happened in the moments before he shot Walker three times.

He rejected Peggy Dwyer SC’s accusation he knew his second and third shots were excessive so as the trial approached, he invented a lie that Walker had put a hand on his Glock. He said a memory expert would be able to explain what happens to recollections after a critical incident.