Court of Conscience Community Legal Issues in Redfern Issue 12, 2018 Court of Conscience respectfully acknowledges the Bedegal, Gadigal and the Ngunnawal Peoples as the custodians and protectors of the lands where each campus of UNSW is located. Editor-in-Chief Designer Vijay Prakash Callum Agnew Managing Editors Artist Kate Sinclair Thea Perkins Henry O’Callaghan Hannah Lawson Editorial Team Social Justice Vice President Perkins Lui Nick Parker Ben John Lilian Wan Bonnie Huang Jacob Lancaster Cameron Wright Crystal Ji UNSW Law Society With special thanks to Finn O'Keefe from Redfern Legal Centre. Contents Foreword 4 David Dixon My Redfern Story 6 Juanita Sherwood Knock-Down, Rebuild, Redfern Waterloo 12 Ned Cutcher Australian Policing in Context: Neo-Colonialism and the Suspect 16 Targeting Management Plan Michael Siciliano A Meeting Place for Aboriginal Families to Support Aboriginal 22 Families Trent Shepherd Truth, Justice and the Redfern Way 30 Joanna Shulman Redfern Legal Centre and the Prisoners Legal Service: A Short 34 History Frances Gibson Redfern Legal Centre: Challenging Everyday Police Powers 40 Vicki Sentas Policing in Redfern: Histories and Continuities 46 Thalia Anthony Racist Policing in Redfern and Beyond 56 Uncle Ken Canning (Burraga Gutya) 3 Foreword David Dixon Professor & Dean 2006-2016, UNSW Law Judge Bob Bellear's family standing in front of his portrait in UNSW Law's Moot Court The choice of Redfern as the focus ofCourt of night of torrential rain, an Aboriginal man had been Conscience’s collection on community legal issues is hit by a car on Cleveland Street. He lay in the gutter both welcome and appropriate. UNSW Law’s special with (at least) a badly broken leg, water streaming relationship with Redfern goes back to our earliest around him. An officer who, not long before, had days, when our founding dean, Emeritus Professor taken part in the station abuse of Aboriginal people, Hal Wootten worked with leaders of the Redfern knelt in the streaming gutter shielding the badly community, notably Bob Bellear, to establish the injured man from passing cars and trying to make him Aboriginal Legal Service. Soon afterwards, Redfern comfortable without moving him, while waiting for Legal Centre was established, again by a combination an ambulance. The injured man’s colleague shambled of UNSW academics and students and community around a second police officer on the pavement, lawyers and activists. That tradition has been continued drunkenly mumbling abuse and blaming the police in the leading role of UNSW Law colleagues in the for his friend’s predicament. It was a scene of utter formulation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart – misery and hopeless contradiction. Gabrielle Appleby, Sean Brennan, Gemma McKinnon Nothing is simple in Redfern. Just as and of course the extraordinary Megan Davis. changing police seems to mean two steps forward, one In recent years, our connection with RLC step back, so the urban regeneration discussed in Ned has been renewed through the Police Powers Clinic, an Cutcher’s and Jo Shulman’s essays involves both the initiative led from RLC by David Porter and Joanna necessary removal of appalling living conditions and Shulman (an alumna who is now the Centre’s director) the opportunism and exploitation which so often goes and from UNSW by Dr Vicki Sentas, someone who along with development. exemplifies the combination of socially committed Just as there is shadow, so also there is light, and engaged research and teaching which has been the light provided by the people of Redfern themselves. such a proud part of the UNSW Law tradition. The For UNSW Law, an iconic figure is our alumnus Bob complaints and cases which the Clinic deals with are Bellear, a man who became a lawyer in order to fight depressingly familiar to anyone who knows the history the injustice he saw around him in Redfern and who of policing in Redfern. While much has changed both went on to be the first Aboriginal judge in Australia. in the area and in the NSW Police, too much remains As well as his role in the ALS, Bellear established the same, as essays by Michael Siciliano, Vicki Sentas, the Aboriginal Housing Corporation in Redfern in and Thalia Anthony show. However, more is involved 1972, and throughout the 1970s was a director of than direct racial discrimination (although there has the Aboriginal Medical Service. His portrait now hangs been plenty of that). in our Moot Court. Students wanting to understand For anyone unfamiliar with Redfern’s the complexity of Redfern could start well by studying history, Jenny Brockie’s film Cop it Sweet is an the proud face of a man who is an example not just to essential introduction to the structural nature of the young people of Redfern, but to us all. Redfern’s policing problems. The long final scenes In that spirit, I pay my respects to the record the interaction between a police officer and an elders past and present of the Gadigal people of the Aboriginal resident. The latter has been arrested for Eora Nation, forever custodians of Redfern and the offensive language, swearing at the police who were, land around it, and congratulate the editors of Court in his words, ‘studying the Block’. In this exchange, of Conscience for this fine collection of essays on the police officer patiently tries to obtain the man’s community legal issues in Redfern. name so that he can be booked in to the station. The man resists – ‘That’s for you to find out’ – but the officer snatches his wallet, and with it his dignity and autonomy. In this sad scene, these two men carry the weight of history, acting out parts in a pathetic drama. Watching Cop it Sweet again took me back to a low point of the time I spent doing fieldwork research on police in Sydney almost thirty years ago. On a 5 My Redfern Story Juanita Sherwood Juanita Sherwood is a Wiradjuri woman and is currently the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Indigenous) at the University of Sydney. Before becoming a Professor, Juanita’s early working years were spent supporting the women, men and children of the Redfern community as a nurse and teacher. This is her story of the challenges, strengths and people of Redfern then and now. Working Roles in Redfern Addressing Otitis Media Hearing Loss among I came to work in Redfern as a Child and Family Health Nurse for Redfern Community Health Aboriginal Children in Services at Rachel Forster Hospital in the 1980s. It Redfern was a white organisation that was not well aligned with the Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service (‘AMS’) As a Child Health Nurse, I attended preschools, or Redfern Aboriginal Health Services. This changed primary schools and high schools. My role was to over the years as we all started working together in the screen for hearing, vision and speech issues that may be area of child health. impacting on a child’s ability to learn in the classroom. I had trained as a Registered Nurse at St I was really concerned about the very high rates of Vincent’s Hospital from 1980–83. I worked for two Otitis Media (‘OM’) amongst Aboriginal children years as a Registered Nurse at the general hospital, and living in the inner city area in preschools, primary while I studied, I worked part-time at St Vincent’s and high schools. Otitis Media affects hearing and, Private Hospital. I studied primary school teaching at consequently, learning. Australian Catholic University (‘ACU’) North Sydney, Jennifer Bush, a Registered Nurse and completing it in 1987 and then looked for work in midwife; who was the twin sister of Alison Bush (who 1988. worked for Aboriginal Health Services Redfern) and I also became a member of the NSW I raised our concerns about the high OM rates. Our Aboriginal Education Consultative Group — a vital concerns were heard by the Aboriginal education team body that pushed for Indigenous education to be at Sydney University who recommended we connect taught in schools, and supported community initiatives with the Menzies School of Health Research (‘Menzies’) to build educational opportunities for our kids. in Darwin to explore a way forward. Jennifer and I I was very happy to be given the role of Child met with Terry Nienhuys from Menzies who agreed and Family Health Nurse as I believed it combined all that our high rates were a worry and that we needed my backgrounds very well. I was very keen to connect to record them. We undertook a research project with the Aboriginal Health Service and Redfern AMS, supported by the Redfern Aboriginal Interagency and where I had really wanted to work at and did so. I was Community in 1989. greeted with much warmth and support. The results indicated that we had a It was, however, within the schools that I was problem: 86 per cent of children we screened had an quickly guided to what my role really was about. The educationally significant hearing loss. Prior to our Aboriginal education assistants took me straight to The research, it was considered that OM was a remote Block to meet the Elders and community members. health issue. Clearly, our work shifted this long-held They were all very warm and encouraged me not to be thinking and health planning. The then President of shy; to come down and have a chat about anything. the NSW Aboriginal Education Consultative Group, Aunty Norma from Darlington Primary School Linda Burney, took the results to the then Minister became my key guide and support on the many issues of Education, who sprang into action under Linda’s I was to witness in the coming years.