Cunningham: Finocchiaro flags possible changes to Coroner’s Act to limit the length, cost of inquests

If the Coroner needs some advice on how she might do that without the need for government intervention, she could do worse than to consider the approach of her predecessor, writes Matt Cunningham.

Inquest into death in police custody of Kwementyaye Briscoe, 27, who died while in police custody on January 5 2012. Counsel assisting the coroner, Dr. Peggy Dwyer speaks with Northern Territory Coroner Greg Cavanagh at the Alice Springs Court House.

Kelvin Currie might be the most elusive figure to ever grace the Darwin court precinct. Many people involved in court cases have tried to avoid the waiting media in Nichols Place.

Most without success.

But Currie had an uncanny ability to avoid the cameras.

This is remarkable, given he has had such a high-profile role, acting as counsel assisting the coroner in dozens of inquests over more than a decade.

It was also of great frustration to the media, who needed vision of Currie to go with their TV packages when reporting on his inquiries.

Yet despite his prominent role, a Google image search of his name reveals just one shot, taken by the ABC a couple of years ago in Katherine, where his escape route must have been less familiar than the one he used in Darwin. Currie was clearly a man who wanted to be heard and not seen.

Currie often worked in tandem with Coroner Greg Cavanagh.

Together they ran an efficient but highly effective operation.

Grieving family members were comforted, witnesses were treated with respect, but anyone who tried to avoid being completely upfront and honest was quickly brought into line.

Many high-ranking public servants who ventured into Cavanagh’s courtroom were left bruised by the experience.

Cavanagh’s public inquiries were often held over just a few days.

But the brevity of these inquests didn’t stop the Coroner delivering damning findings. Cavanagh’s 2016 inquiry into the deaths of three Aboriginal women from domestic violence incidents in Alice Springs town camps – which held five days of public hearings – started a national conversation about an issue that had previously been taboo.

. Counsel assisting the coroner, Dr. Peggy Dwyer speaks with Northern Territory Coroner Greg Cavanagh at the Alice Springs Court House in January 2012.

“Domestic violence is a contagion,” Cavanagh wrote in the opening sentence of his findings. “In the Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory it is literally out of control.”

Police and other government departments were often excoriated in Cavanagh’s findings.

He was damning of the police’s “abject failure” to properly investigate the death of an eight-year-old Aboriginal boy in Borroloola in 2007, where officers made an early assumption he had drowned, even though rocks were found in his shorts.

And in his 2018 inquest into the death of Sasha Kwementyaye Green in Tennant Creek, he described police as “incompetent” over their investigation, which focused on self-harm even though there was evidence she had been murdered.

“There is no doubt that incompetent management of this case from all levels contributed to the very poor outcome,” Cavanagh said in his findings.

“It was so poor that prosecution would only have been possible if the killer confessed.”

It’s fair to say Coroner Elisabeth Armitage has taken a different approach since her appointment in 2022, following Cavanagh’s retirement. Her recently concluded inquiry into the death of Kumanjayi Walker, who was shot dead by former police constable Zachary Rolfe at Yuendumu in November 2019, sat for 71 days, if you include Supreme Court sittings to hear challenges to some of her rulings.

NT Coroner Elisabeth Armitage on a site tour of the Humpty Doo Community and Child Care Centre where 22-month-old Ebony Thompson suffered a fatal medical incident on August 31, 2023. Picture: Zizi Averill

An inquiry that was meant to take three months took almost three years. Last week it was revealed the cost to just two NT government departments (the Department of Attorney General and Justice and the NT Police) for the inquest was $7.4 million. The Government has since confirmed the cost to NT Health was more than $550,000. None of this is to say Walker’s death didn’t warrant thorough investigation, or that the Coroner’s inquiry didn’t uncover serious issues, particularly relating to racism within the ranks of the NT Police. But this was an inquiry that at times seemed to veer a long way from the stated purpose of a coronial investigation, which is to establish how a person died and any relevant circumstances, including those relating to public health, safety, or the administration of justice. The length of time taken to reach its conclusion has only added to the angst for Walker’s family and continued to crush the morale of the NT Police.

Since the Coroner’s final report was delivered at Yuendumu earlier this month, the Government’s strongest response has not been in relation to the implementation of her recommendations (it says it is still considering them), but rather in relation to the length and cost of the inquiry.

In interviews on Mix FM and the ABC this week, Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro flagged possible changes to the Coroner’s Act to limit the length and cost of future inquests.

If the Coroner needs some advice on how she might do that without the need for government intervention, she could do worse than to consider the approach of her predecessor.

Originally published as Cunningham: Finocchiaro flags possible changes to Coroner’s Act to limit the length, cost of inquests