Coronavirus: Pandemic no time for protests, doctor warns, as jail rates surge

Victoria’s Chief Health Officer has urged Black Lives Matter protesters­ to stay off the streets as anger swells. 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday. Picture: AAP

Victoria’s Chief Health Officer has urged Black Lives Matter protesters­ to stay off the streets as public anger over the rising number­ of indigenous Australians in jail swells and Scott Morrison urged people not to “import” racia­l tensions from the US.

The calls to quell protests came as new data shows the indigenous population of the nation’s prisons has skyrocketed by 5 per cent in the three months to March and Aboriginal Australians continue to be far more likely to end up behin­d bars.

Black Lives Matter protests across the nation — inspired by anti-racism riots in the US sparked by the police killing of Minneapolis man George Floyd — continue to swell despite the coronavirus pandemic.

The Prime Minister defended the right for people to protest and said there were issues of racial inequalit­y, but those issues were being dealt with in Australia.

“We shouldn’t be importing the things that are happening overseas to Australia,” he told Sydney’s 2GB radio.

“What we don’t want is people dividing people­. We don’t need the division­s we see in other countries.

“We need to stick together and look after each other.”

Indigenous leader and Alice Springs councillor Jacinta Price backed Mr Morrison’s concerns on Thursday and said protesters should be as motivated about domestic violence against Aboriginal women.

“What disappoints me is the same people largely remain­ silent on domestic and family violence. Never do they take umbrage at black-on-black violence,” she said.

“That is far more prevalent than black people dying in custody or at the hands of white ­people … let’s not forget there are such high incarceration rates due to acts of violence, often against Aboriginal women and children.”

Large Black Lives Matter protests have occurred in Sydney and Perth, and more are expected at the weekend.

Thousands are due to descend on Victoria’s state parliament on Saturday.

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said on Thursday while he understood people wanted to protest and show their support, “unfortunately now is not the time for thousands of people to gather together, putting your and others’ health at risk”.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Thursday shows there are now 12,902 Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders in jail and the imprisonment rate is 2589 persons per 100,000 adults in the indigenous population.

In contrast, there are 223 ­people per 100,000 adults in jail in the non-Aboriginal population.

Indigenous leader and acad­emic Marcia Langton told The Australian that protests had to happen while indigenous Aus­tralians remained in jail in such high numbers and Aboriginal deaths in custody continued.

“The statistics show that indig­enous Australians are the most incarcerated people on Earth, with higher rates of imprisonment than African-Americans,” Professor Langton said on Thursday.

“There have been 432 deaths in custody since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991.

“There has not been one ­conviction.

“Indigenous Australians have to protest what is happening to us in this country.”

The federal government has spent nearly $245m in the past year to improve justice outcomes for indigenous Australians and is funding a system by which the Aboriginal Legal Service is notified­ when an indigenous person is in custody, to try to reduce deaths.

Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt said police and elders wanted to work together to cut incarceration rates, and the states and territories also had a bigger role to play, as they held “the policies and levers relating to policing and justice matters”.