The Western Australian premier has promised to do more to prevent deaths of Aboriginal people in custody after protesters mounted a national day of action to press his government to act on the issue.
Protesters gathered in Geraldton, Perth, Adelaide, South Hedland, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra on Thursday, in support of the family of a 22-year-old Yamatji woman, known as Ms Dhu, who died in a South Hedland watchhouse in August.
Premier Colin Barnett went out to address the protesters in Perth and was mobbed on the steps of parliament. His security team was overcome by the crowd who pushed towards him.
Barnett made a “personal commitment” to work with ministers in reducing the number of Aboriginal people in the state’s jail system and deaths in custody.
“I will do that, you then judge me on whether I succeed or not, but I give you that commitment today,” he said.
Ms Dhu, who cannot be fully named for cultural reasons, was locked up to “pay down” about $1,000 in parking fines. An end to the practice of incarcerating people in lieu of paying fines is among the measures that her family and supporters are demanding.
Addressing Ms Dhu’s mother directly, Barnett said: “I promise you, whatever the truth is we will find it and I am very sorry for your loss.”
The protests come on the same day WA corrective services begin investigating the death of an Aboriginal man in Casuarina prison.
About 300 people gathered in Bourke Street, Melbourne, with placards calling for an end to deaths in custody. Chants included, “We won’t forget you, Ms Dhu” and “Touch one, touch all”.
Speakers condemned institutionalised racism and called for the implementation of 1991 royal commission recommendations, in particular that arrest should only occur when there is no alternative.
“We seem to have legislated racism in some parts of this country. People are locked up for drinking, which is a band aid treatment, like it’s the solution for a bigger problem that’s going on here,” said Viv Malo, a Goonyandi woman and activist. “This is a great Australian silence.”
Davie Thomason, a relative of Mr Ward, who died of heatstroke after being transported a long distance in a police van in 2008, said the death of Ms Dhu brought back memories.
He said: “Why didn’t someone step in? Why didn’t the doctors and nurses say she should be in hospital and not dying in a cell?”
About 70 people rallied outside the NSW state parliament in Sydney, with numbers later swelling as a nearby union rally against the proposed Medicare co-payment joined the ranks.
Sydney protest organiser Ray Jackson told Guardian Australia the national day of action was a call to the WA government to “stop locking the poor up”.
Jackson told the crowd the “Dickensian rules” had been changed by the NSW Carr government decades ago and that WA was “behind the times”.
“We call on the government of Western Australia to stop locking poor people up,” he said.
“This mob in here worked out another way, so why can’t Western Australia?”
NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge said Ms Dhu did not die because of a lack of medical treatment, but because of a “racist set of laws that puts Aboriginal people in jail in Western Australia because they haven’t got money to pay fines”.
Tepora Stephens, from the Redfern Aboriginal tent embassy, said Sydney protesters were there to support and grieve with Ms Dhu’s family.
“We also want to ensure the government stand up and listen,” she said.
Organisers said about 300 turned up in Perth, and 70 in South Hedland where Ms Dhu died.
Protesters are also calling for a second royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody as so few of the 339 recommendations from the first one in 1991 have been acted on.
Among the recommendations was the implementation of a custody notification phone service which requires police to call an Aboriginal Legal Service hotline whenever they arrest an Aboriginal person. Only NSW currently has such a phone service. Since it began operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there has been no death of an Aboriginal person in police custody in NSW.
The NSW service required new legislation, and included a provision which makes any confession obtained from an Aboriginal defendant by police inadmissible in court if they have not made the compulsory notification.
The chief legal officer of the Aboriginal Legal Service in NSW, John McKenzie, told Guardian Australia said this was the lynchpin of the program.
“That’s why it works. Very rarely now, but it still does happen that some police officer still does think, ‘Bugger that, I won’t make the call this time.’
“If they then try to use any evidence they obtained from that Aboriginal person, we’re very confident that any court will exclude that evidence,” he said.
“So it’s very much in the police officers’ own interests.”
McKenzie said any other state looking to set up compulsory custody notification must have a similar caveat at its foundation to be successful in an adversarial justice system.
WA police told Guardian Australia on Wednesday that while current state legislation afforded people in custody “certain rights” including seeking legal advice, the police force could not “guarantee the availability of legal service providers”.
But the police spokesman said: “WA police work closely with groups such as the Aboriginal Legal Service and are willing to develop protocols that may assist persons in custody.”
McKenzie said despite its success, the ALS had serious concerns for the future of the phone line, as well as other services provided by the organisation, because of federal government funding cuts.
“For the total cost of $500,000 a year, that’s what we run the service on. It’s just so sad that at the time it is properly being recognised as a life-saving measure, it’s in very grave danger of being defunded at next June,” said McKenzie.
Marc Newhouse, chief executive of the WA Deaths in Custody Watch Committee, told Guardian Australia on Tuesday the rallies were “just the beginning.”
“This will be an ongoing campaign,” he said. “We’re not going to leave any stone unturned and the pressure will be on nationally and internationally.”