Lex Wotton speaks out

Damien Carrick: Hello, Damien Carrick with you, welcome to the Law Report. It's almost 10 years since Cameron Doomadgee (also known as Mulrunji) died in police custody on Palm Island in North Queensland. In the aftermath the Indigenous community erupted in anger and burned down the police station.

Journalist [archival]: It started with the death of a man last Friday. This evening, with the local police station and the courthouse burning, police are considering whether to declare a state of emergency on Palm Island.

Man [archival]: If I go and kill somebody like that, they'd throw me off to prison quick, same as anyone else here! Put him in prison where he belongs!

Man: It was harrowing for the police, they were making phone calls to their loved ones saying their time is up, they believed their lives were coming to an end, they were going to be killed. The police station was to be burnt down, people were calling their names, they wanted to kill them.

Damien Carrick: Lex Wotton was jailed for inciting the riot. In September 2008, he was sentenced to 6 years jail. He received 19 months and was then released on 22 strict parole conditions. They included a ban on speaking to the media and a requirement that he obtain permission before attending any public meetings.

In 2012 he sought to overturn these conditions in the High Court, arguing that they impinged on his right to political communication. But this attempt was unsuccessful. Finally his parole is over and now he can speak out.

I meet Lex in the cafe on Palm Island. So does he regret his actions back in November 2004?

Lex Wotton: No, I don't regret a thing.

Damien Carrick: I've read that the police who were here when the riot broke out, they were terrified. I think some of them were calling up their families and saying goodbye. Do you ever put yourself in their shoes, what it was like to be on the other end of the riot?

Lex Wotton: No, honestly they actually swore an oath to uphold law and order. Some of them were sent here…but if you look at the case and you go through records, they knew where they were coming and what they were involved in. And there is video footage that shows that they were armed, maybe one or two might have actually rung, we don't really know, but there is also video footage of them actually being abusive, not terrified, smiling on the cameras and stuff like that. So yeah, there's two sides to the story when it comes to that.

Damien Carrick: There are of course many different perspectives about what took place on Palm Island in November 2004.

I approached Queensland Police for an interview. I was told the Queensland Police Commissioner and current officers serving on Palm Island won't speak because of a racial discrimination action recently launched by Lex Wotton.

The Queensland Police Union also declined to be interviewed.

I also approached two former Queensland police who were in the besieged station during the riot—they also declined an interview.

Stewart Levitt is Lex Wotton's lawyer. He represented Lex both in the 2012 High Court challenge to the parole conditions as well as the 2008 criminal trial for inciting riot.

Stewart Levitt: Well, Cameron Doomadgee, now known as Mulrunji out of respect, was walking home one day, intoxicated. He was singing, he was swearing. He was apprehended by Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley, there was a little bit of an altercation getting him into a van, and then he arrived at the police station. A couple of hours later he was dead. His liver was cloven in two and he had fractures and had generally speaking injuries consistent with him having suffered massive trauma and dying over a period of time when he was heard by witnesses in the cells to be moaning and groaning and was not offered any assistance.

And then in the week that followed there was a build-up of anger, suspicion, widespread belief on the island that Chris Hurley had killed Mulrunji, and that spilled over into a riot when the mayor of Palm Island, Erykah Kyle, delivered the autopsy report in the town square which effectively sought to cast the incident as an accident.

Lex Wotton made what could be described as an incendiary speech, although there is no evidence that he actually intended to happen what did happen, but he said, 'Things are going to burn and we're going to choose a time…basically we're a mad as hell, we're not going to take it anymore.' At that about 300 people marched on the barracks and on the police station and so forth…

Damien Carrick: The police station and the courthouse were both burnt down.

Stewart Levitt: Yes, and there were also rocks thrown and abuse directed at police. But it's a strange sort of riot because all the way through, Lex Wotton was actually negotiating with the senior police about providing them with safe escort off the island, basically saying that the Palm Islanders didn't want the police around anymore if that was the way they were going to conduct themselves and that they weren't going to protect the life and limb of Indigenous people.

Damien Carrick: Lex Wotton, how are relationships between the police and the locals now?

Lex Wotton: Well, I don't think too much has changed since then. There is still ill feelings towards coppers in a lot of areas, not just because of the death in custody, it's because they do not actually deliver law and order here in the community.

Damien Carrick: You told the Townsville Bulletin, 'The police lock themselves down behind barbed wire and go out only when they need to do parole reviews, but don't get too involved in the community. How do you expect relations between the police and the community to develop?' It sounds like you want the police there in the community, you're not anti-police, you want them there out in the community protecting people. Is that your view?

Lex Wotton: It's not that they lock themselves in and then go out…parole thing, it's that they go out and do all of these little small things, go and searching our people for drugs and alcohol at the ferry, pulling people up for drunk driving and stuff like that, you know, a lot of things that are probably going on at the moment where people are being affected by crime on a daily basis. It is not seen to be delivered here in the community.

Damien Carrick: Tell me, what do you want the police to be doing?

Lex Wotton: We have a lot of people selling drugs here and that's one of the biggest things that's going, and they have names but they are not delivering on that area.

Damien Carrick: And how do you get on with the police now?

Lex Wotton: I've got a bit of a relationship with the sergeant of police at the moment, myself and him we're talking about delivering a program through rugby league in domestic violence because he started one of those programs in another community in the north and it was very successful, and hopefully we can try and deliver that here on the community so that we can alleviate some of the social problems in that area.

Damien Carrick: So that's through the local rugby league team, think they are called the Barracudas. And what's the idea, to get men to sit down and take responsibility for their actions and make sure that they are not abusing their partners and children?

Lex Wotton: Yes, well, that's more or less what we want to try and do, is alleviate some of the problems through attending programs. If you commit domestic violence then you are dropped from the side for a certain amount of games or whatever, and then you attend counselling services and stuff like that, so hopefully we can organise something where not only the Queensland police but Queensland health and everyone else get involved, so that we improve the lifestyle in a physical sense also.

Damien Carrick: Keeping people fit as well.

Lex Wotton: Yes, and mentally through counselling and other areas.

Damien Carrick: You've had a long involvement in community work before you went to jail…

Lex Wotton: Going back to '86…I was incarcerated at the age of 19, come out, and…

Damien Carrick: Why were you incarcerated?

Lex Wotton: Due to domestic violence.

Damien Carrick: So you hit your partner?

Lex Wotton: Yeah. Spent four months in prison, come out, decided that that wasn't the life for me. And then the only job that was available at the time was an apprentice plumber, so I took that on, and then went in from there on to become a member of council, and was also involved in rugby league, the ambulance service, justice group, and a few other different organisations over the years, youth and stuff like that, and then mainly just working and juggling between those, getting involved in those various organisations, trying to do some good in there to bring better outcomes I suppose towards the community.

Damien Carrick: It's 2014, you've been a fixture in the courts for a while now. There was a 2004 riot, your 2008 trial, 2011 there was the High Court where your lawyers challenged the restrictions that were placed upon you, even after you had been released from jail, after serving two years of your six-year term. In the next chapter you're the lead plaintiff in an action alleging institutionalised racial discrimination by Queensland police on Palm Island. Again, that's around the events of 2004, but it is also around the way the police came back onto the island after the riot. Tell me about that. What happened in your household?

Lex Wotton: I knew that they were going to come because it was on telly all night, so I got up, I had my cup of tea, had my pair of shorts on, and when I saw the lights coming around the corner…so when they came down to the yard I was actually…I just walked out and confronted them, and they started to surround me and the house. They asked me to get on my knees. Because I didn't do that, they tasered me. And then there was an officer, he gave orders to the anti-terrorist group to go into the house. But I was already in their custody, so when they went in they pointed guns to the children's head, they told them to get on the floor and stuff like that.

Damien Carrick: Were there many similar incidents to the one which took place in your house around the island?

Lex Wotton: Yeah, I've heard stories about how they just went into houses, knocked down doors and pointed guns to children that were unarmed or still asleep, looking for particular suspects.

Damien Carrick: This Racial Discrimination Act litigation is the latest chapter in a 10-year legal saga. In 2006, the Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions concluded there wasn't enough evidence to put Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley on trial for the death of Cameron Doomadgee.

At this point the then premier Peter Beattie asked his Attorney General to review the file, and a prosecution ultimately went ahead. In 2007, Chris Hurley was put on trial for manslaughter. He was found not guilty.

The first coronial inquest concluded that Chris Hurley was responsible for Cameron Doomadgee's death. That finding was overturned. A second inquest in 2010 found it was impossible to reach such a firm conclusion because of a profoundly flawed investigation, in which police investigators colluded to protect Hurley.

A 2010 Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission report reached the same finding. It described the police investigation as 'seriously flawed' and recommended disciplinary action. This did not proceed.

Some years ago in a confidential settlement, Queensland Police paid compensation to the Doomadgee family.

Alf Lacey is the mayor of Palm Island. He says tension and mistrust between Queensland Police and Palm Islanders go back all the way to the beginnings of the community.

Alf Lacey: Look, it goes before Cameron's time, do you know what I mean? This is how this community was set up. The people were dragged here and chained here, and they were dragged and chained and put here because the authorities of the day, which were the police, dumped our people here. And certainly the 2004 event actually re-highlighted the issue of us not being listened to, but Lex did say it publicly in the Townsville Bulletin a few days ago in terms of there is some strained relationship and it needs to be fixed, and I think the only way we fix that is that we as a community work towards fixing it.

Damien Carrick: What would you like the police to do?

Alf Lacey: Well look, one of the things that our council have pushed very strongly for is that rather than implementing police liaison officers, and I've had this conversation with both the Police Minister in Queensland, the previous Labor government, the current new Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart, is that rather than introducing police liaison officers models particularly into Indigenous towns we should remodel and look at community policing models where the community have a greater say in terms of community policing, particularly a lot of the minor stuff, the school stuff, the family argument and really minor…serious stuff, look, that has to be the responsibility of the state, but I think minor community stuff before it becomes a massive issue…I've got a lot of confidence and I know other people have got a lot of confidence if there is a reintroduction of the community policing model…

Damien Carrick: And just so people understand the difference, police liaison officers are Indigenous people who work with police but they aren't police officers, they just kind of work together with them and liaise with the community, as opposed to community policing which is Indigenous officers in charge of certain areas of policing.

Alf Lacey: That's correct, yes, and they've implemented a new program in the Torres Strait, and I've just come back from the Torres Strait in the last few months, and their new policing model seems to be working pretty well. Certainly if that community policing model is working well in the Torres Strait with the Torres Strait Islanders, then why not introduce in partnership with us something similar for mainland Aboriginal communities?

Damien Carrick: I'm Damien Carrick and you're listening to the Law Report on ABC RN, News Radio and Radio Australia, or you might be listening on line at abc.net.au/rn or listening via podcast.

While no-one from Queensland Police or the Police Union would be interviewed for this program, Luella Bligh was happy to speak. She has close links to police and deep family roots in the community. After 2004, she moved to the island and worked for many years as a police liaison officer. She says relations between police and locals have improved greatly in the last 10 years.

Luella Bligh: Yes, they have. Because Sergeant Rutherford makes himself available to come to any community meeting that he is invited to. The officers mix in with the locals. My grandson passed away because…he was only nine years old but his formative years, he had been associated with the police through my working with them because he told the father at the Catholic school he wanted to be a policeman when he grew up. One of the officers threw his cap into his little grave, that was a big gesture. That wouldn't have happened before, that has never happened before here on Palm Island.

Damien Carrick: What happened post-2004 to change what was a toxic atmosphere?

Luella Bligh: That riot that day, it was like a big…

Damien Carrick: Hang on, we've just got a helicopter taking off over us.

Luella Bligh: That's a regular occurrence.

Damien Carrick: Why is that?

Luella Bligh: Because people deemed not fit enough to stay in the hospital here are shipped out to…taken by helicopter to Townsville. Anyway, that riot was a big pressure valve that was released. All the pent-up anger this community, the people of this community had experienced from when it was first started with the native police putting us down and being objects used by the white people to oppress us, all that come to the surface, all the anger this community had gathered up for about 50, 60, 70 years, and that day, when Lex did what he did…I don't like the fact Lex was jailed, but I think it was the right thing somehow, it seemed right, because he let the pressure out.

Damien Carrick: You're somebody who worked as a police liaison person for years and years and years post-2004, and that's your view?

Luella Bligh: But that's my view. This is my community so I could see that it needed to be done, and unfortunately it was poor Lex. But it had to happen so it could be made good again.

Damien Carrick: How was it made good again post-2004?

Luella Bligh: They opened up more to the people, they became involved in the community like officers would, like they would in mainstream. They built the PCWY, and that brought about good relations then between the police and community, and they'd have basketball and indoor tennis and all that and invite families in the community and make up a team. Yeah, it was good PR on the part of the police, you know, they knew they had to make it right, and they did a good job.

Damien Carrick: Around the corner from where we're sitting is a very large Besser brick blue-coloured building with a big corrugated iron roof, and that's the PCWY. You can always hear kids inside playing sport.

Luella Bligh: Yeah.

Damien Carrick: I was speaking to Alf before and he spoke about maybe there's scope for a different kind of policing model here. Instead of community liaison workers you could have community policing. Tell me what you reckon?

Luella Bligh: It's a lovely pipedream. It would be better if we had Indigenous people in the police force, but…

Damien Carrick: Do you have any?

Luella Bligh: No, not at the moment, no, they've all left.

Damien Carrick: What do you reckon, community policing, do you think that's a good idea?

Luella Bligh: No.

Damien Carrick: Why?

Luella Bligh: Because they've got to be actual police officers, because unfortunately you get community police and they'll turn the eye to what their relations and that are doing. I never did that when I was in the police service. I told my family; if you muck up, you're going to be treated no different from another person who has done the same as you. Over here on these communities, in any Aboriginal community, they put relations first, your bloodlines and everything first. They won't be impartial, they won't be unbiased. I don't see it working here.

Damien Carrick: It's difficult though because could you say that about all forms of Indigenous control?

Luella Bligh: They should just keep the police liaison officers. They used to have community police here before but they weren't any good, and I'll say that; they weren't any good.

Damien Carrick: It should be acknowledged that police liaison officers on Palm Island also have a controversial history. There were lot of questions raised in the community about the role of liaison officers in the events of 2004.

Former police liaison officer Luella Bligh, sitting at a picnic table close to the PCYC, the Police Citizens Youth Club.

Close by is the Palm Island Children and Family Centre. Josephine Nullager works here as a child care worker. Now 30, she witnessed the November 2004 riot.

Josephine Nullager: Lex is a strong person, and I do believe that he shouldn't have gone to jail. He shouldn't be convicted at all. I mean, a building is a building. You can't replace a life.

Damien Carrick: And are relationships between the police and the local people better in the last 10 years?

Josephine Nullager: Now? Yeah, I've seen it, it's changed a lot. I give the police a lot of credit, I do now. They were brave, just continuing doing their duties on Palm. Everybody was just mad at the fact of Cameron's death. But in the last two weeks I've seen a huge brawl, there was a big fight up Mango Avenue, and these three coppers jumped out of the car and stood there with their hands on their hips…because there was a huge crowd. So they stood there and they just watched the fight for a little bit, you know, there was nothing really they could do.

And there was this one copper, he was on a night shift, I mean he has been here for a while now and he was tired. He walked out of the big gates from the barracks and he says, 'Go on, all of youse, piss off!' And you know what, I stood there and I just smiled, I just could not believe how much respect that copper got. You know, he stood there with no uniform on and he told everybody to go, and they listened to him. Now, I'm talking about 30 to 40-odd people standing in the middle of the road, you know, watching a group of girls punch their heads out. And he just comes out and does that. He just got out of bed and it's just that respect that he earned from the community.

Damien Carrick: But many on the island, including Lex Wotton, don't think it's possible to move forward without first squarely facing the events of November 2004. Last week Lex Wotton's lawyers filed an amended statement of claim in the racial discrimination action against Queensland Police.

Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz works with Lex's lawyer Stewart Levitt. He's on Palm Island collecting witness statements. We meet on the sidelines of a rugby game.

Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz: Essentially it's a representative action in the Federal Court of Australia brought by Lex, also his wife and mother, but it's on behalf of the entire class of Indigenous people on Palm Island who were residents during the 2004 protests and the subsequent events.

Damien Carrick: As I understand it you're alleging institutionalised racism by Queensland Police for the events of that time.

Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz: Yes, we are essentially alleging that the whole process would have been different if this had happened anywhere else in Australia, and that was owing to the fact that they were Aboriginal.

Damien Carrick: And specifically you're talking about the way the police came back onto the island post the riot and, what, entered into people's homes?

Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz: That's definitely a strong element of it. But even the events around the death of the Aboriginal man Mulrunji or Cameron, the way that that was handled, especially given the seniority of the people who were involved, the fact that it seems like the entire Queensland Police Department were implicated in what has since been quite strongly criticised by a number of Queensland government bodies as a very poorly conducted investigation.

Damien Carrick: There was a report by the CMC, the Crime and Misconduct Commission, wasn't there, which had a lot to say about that investigation.

Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz: Yes, that's correct, and in fact that report came out in 2010 and I believe was part of the impetus behind the current proceedings. That report was very damning of the investigation and found that the police did not act in such a way as would encourage confidence in the police and in the justice system in Queensland. And essentially we're saying that as a result of that the community here on Palm Island have not been afforded the appropriate treatment by the justice system.

Damien Carrick: As I understand it a lot of people are angry about the way the police burst into houses. Lex has told me about…he says that guns were aimed at his children's heads. Is that something you've also heard?

Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz: Yes, and in fact what we're doing at the moment on Palm Island is hearing those stories and recording them to put them on record and to hopefully use them in the claim and to bring some justice to these people.

Schanara Bulsuy: Schanara, S.C.H.A.N.A.R.A, Bulsuy, B.U.L.S.U.Y.

Damien Carrick: Lawyer Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz takes a statement from Schanara Bulsuy,

Schanara Bulsuy: 25th of the 10th, '89.

Damien Carrick: Schanara, you are Lex Wotton's daughter?

Schanara Bulsuy: Yes.

Damien Carrick: So it's almost 10 years since the events of November 2004, so you were, what, 14, 15?

Schanara Bulsuy: Yes.

Damien Carrick: Tell me about the events of the day following the riot. Where were you?

Schanara Bulsuy: There was a noise coming through my window. After that I seen a whole heap of guards all suited up with their lights shining around the house. After I saw that I got out of my bed, asked my mum what has happened, she said the police is here to get Dad. He was already outside by the time they actually got there. At that point we all started screaming because they all came into the house. We all bunched up into Mum's room, and then they asked us to get down on the ground. My mum and my brothers, my uncle, were all in their bed while I was at the doorway screaming my head off and started crying. One of the police officers had had a gun towards my head. My mum tried to tell me to shut up but I just couldn't because he just had it right there.

Damien Carrick: How close was the gun to your head?

Schanara Bulsuy: Um…

Damien Carrick: Okay, you're holding your hand to your head and it's about two centimetres away from your head.

Schanara Bulsuy: Yes.

Damien Carrick: Stewart Levitt, what role do you think that Lex Wotton can play in the Palm Island community now that the gag has been lifted?

Stewart Levitt: Well, I think that he recognises the force of law is prepared to do something which involves leading the charge through proper legal channels. You know, he is not a person who riots, he is not a revolutionary, he's a person who is looking to change Australia and the way Australia treats Indigenous people. I think he's taking a very heroic role because he has demonstrated that he has the courage of his convictions and that if he has to get down and dirty he is prepared to do it, and he did that on 24 November 2004. Now he's taking the responsible approach of leading his community to seek vindication through the court system.

Damien Carrick: Mayor Alf Lacey says the Palm Island community has yet to take an official position on the new legal action.

Alf Lacey: No, we don't currently have a position on it at the moment. We'll probably, like everybody else, watch this space. It probably wouldn't be right for us to have a position at this point in time because we don't know what the legal observation of it all is, what needs to be done. We haven't been briefed by council legal firm properly, we don't know where that's going to end up, but I hope it doesn't end up opening up of old wounds, do you know what I mean?

Lex Wotton: Well, there needs to be some law and order from both within this state and from the community. The community needs to take action on some law and order here. Look, we can go a long way in a lot of areas, whether it's education, health or employment, it just needs leadership all around from locally and from outside.

Damien Carrick: Lex Wotton.

That's the Law Report for today. Palm Island is a complex place with a dark history, but it's also much, much more. It's incredibly beautiful and its people are tenacious and forward-thinking.

Next week we look at issues around land tenure and ownership and economic development on communities like Palm Island.

Thanks to producer Anita Barraud and also to audio engineer John Jacobs. I'm Damien Carrick, talk to you next week with more law.