Thousands spent to hear complaints about Leak cartoon

The Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia spent thousands of dollars to take complaints about a cartoon.

Paul Gazia, a senior officer at the West Australian Aboriginal Legal Service, leaves his office in Perth. Picture: Bohdan Warchomij

The cash-strapped Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia spent thousands of dollars to send a senior lawyer 2500km from Perth to Fitzroy Crossing to take complaints under the Racial Discrimination Act about a contentious Bill Leak cartoon.

Two Aboriginal men in the ­remote Kimberley town, Bruce Till and Kevin Gunn, have said they signed complaints about the cartoon after being approached by a man they identified from a photo as Paul Gazia, the Perth-based head of the ALS’s civil and human rights unit.

They said the man had asked them for their views about the ­cartoon.

Mr Gazia and a woman — ­believed to also be an ASL staff member — then prepared statements for Mr Till and Mr Gunn and asked them to sign.

The federally funded ALS has repeatedly refused to answer questions about how the complaint came about. It is therefore not clear if Mr Gazia and his colleague were in Fitzroy Crossing at the time to work on other matters or were focused on gathering complaints to send to the Australian Human Rights Commission over the Leak cartoon.

The cost of Mr Gazia’s flight to the Kimberley would have been significant for the organisation, which is facing major budget cuts next year.

It is unclear whether his colleague also travelled from Perth.

A standard return airfare ­between Perth and Broome is usually about $1200. If Mr Gazia had also flown from Broome to Fitzroy Crossing, it would have cost the ALS a further $1000. Alternat­ively, he may have hired a car for the four-hour drive to the town at a cost of hundreds of dollars.

It is understood that when Mr Gazia travels to Fitzroy Crossing he usually stays at the Fitzroy River Lodge, where basic accommodation is $230 a night and better rooms cost $340 a night.

He is the lawyer credited with fighting hard for the stolen wages of retired indigenous station workers across the north, including around Fitzroy Crossing. But the ALS’s role in that case is believed to have finished.

Mr Gazia has also worked ­recently on complaints — including one by Mr Till — over a Fitzroy Crossing hotel’s practice of breathalysing patrons on entry, most of them indigenous.

ALS chief executive Dennis Eggington this week denied the ALS had been “scouting for complaints” under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act over the Leak cartoon.

But he said he had yet to speak to either of the two employees who had arranged the complaints by Mr Till and Mr Gunn.

“All I can say is that the lawyers in the ALS ... are lawyers that have got hearts and souls for the people that they service,” he told ABC radio in Broome on Monday.

“Their integrity and professionalism is not questionable at all.”