Wednesday, 13 May 2026

 David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (10:05): It is 35 years since the release of the final report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The royal commission investigated 99 deaths and made 339 recommendations for reform. While a 2018 report claimed that around three-quarters of these recommendations had been implemented, the implementation appears to have been more paper-based than actual in many cases.

Since 1991 more than 630 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have died in custody. Deaths have in fact continued to rise, while deaths of non-Indigenous people in custody have declined. Only one police officer has ever been held criminally responsible for their role in the death of an Aboriginal person in their care. In Victoria we continue to see funding to community programs cut while we implement increasingly regressive laws that drive mass incarceration. Despite the harm they cause, our government boasts about their draconian, tough-on-crime laws. Hopefully the federal inquiry into racism, hate and violence directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will look into the failure of governments to bring about meaningful reform. A good place to start for our government would be to implement the Yoorrook for Justice recommendations.