ABC news presenter, Dan Bourchier spoke to the NT police commissioner and the most senior Indigenous woman with the NT police Leanne Liddle.
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00:00This comes after there have been numerous calls for action and a rethink about policing
00:08in the Northern Territory.
00:09The Northern Territory's Police Commissioner, Michael Murphy, and Leanne Little, who is
00:14co-leading that piece of work, join us.
00:15Good morning to you both.
00:16Good morning, Ed.
00:17How are you?
00:18Commissioner, what are you going to say today?
00:20Well, look, can I just firstly recognise it's great to be on the lands of the Gummatch people.
00:24It's brilliant to be here at Garma, such an immersive cultural environment, and it's great
00:29to be invited here.
00:32This afternoon I'll be speaking to a crowd at the Boongool Ceremony area, and it's basically
00:37recognising the injustices and the harms that Northern Territory Police have been involved
00:42in in the previous 154 years.
00:45So it's about recognising that, owning it, so we can move forward and unite and look
00:50at that healing and reconciliation into the future to work together for better outcomes
00:54for community safety.
00:55We see the closing the gap, the high rates of incarceration.
00:59That's not the answer.
01:00The answer is working together and making sure we have a safe community.
01:03We work alongside each other and look for better outcomes for all our community members.
01:08Commissioner, is this an apology?
01:10It will be an apology, yes.
01:11It will be an apology for a number of our involvements in policy positions and also
01:15some of our activities that we have undertaken as the Northern Territory Police in the past.
01:20There is a coronial inquest into the death of Kumund Jai Walker right now.
01:24Is that one of the events that you're responding to?
01:26Look, obviously the death of Kumund Jai Walker has provided an opportunity for us to reflect.
01:31Not just on that event, but the whole history of Northern Territory Police.
01:34It's a time to make a change.
01:36We need to own our past.
01:38As the Commissioner of Police, I'm responsible for the leadership of the agency and the future
01:42of it and where we're headed.
01:43This is a real opportunity to seize on that and make a difference for the future and make
01:47it a better place.
01:48Commissioner, what led you to this point?
01:52I think talking, listening to the community, hearing about the community.
01:56So the police are the community and we need to understand the community because we need
02:00to work together.
02:01And we did the police by consent.
02:04Having the advice from Leanne Little and Bettina Dangingbar and land councils and the community
02:09and our police officers, there's been a lot of hurt and there's been a lot of anger.
02:13So we need to do something different.
02:14We need to have the courage to actually do that.
02:16And this is where we're at.
02:17Leanne Little, you're an Arundel woman, a lawyer from Central Australia, a NT Australian
02:22of the year.
02:24You've taken on some incredible challenges in your time.
02:29What do you say to this apology that we're getting from the Commissioner, the head of
02:34the Northern Territory Police today?
02:36I think the timing's right.
02:39I think we need to recognise that there's been damage and hurt and pain by Aboriginal
02:45people and the apology will do something towards healing that.
02:50What are you hoping to achieve in this role?
02:53You are the most senior Aboriginal person in the Northern Territory Police and I understand
02:59that part of the work you'll be doing will be a racism review and an anti-racism strategy.
03:05How are you going to go about that work?
03:07So I'll be doing the anti-racism strategy.
03:11It's not a review as such, but also looking at an increasing 30% of Aboriginal people
03:19across all streams within the Northern Territory Police.
03:23So that includes officers, that includes public servants.
03:26So an increase in that area, we'll be looking at putting language speakers in our OOO call
03:32centre so we can better understand Aboriginal people's needs given the fact that we know
03:38there's 120 languages spoken here in the Northern Territory.
03:42And you know we've spoken about this before about the devastating over-incarceration of
03:46Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory that then it said leads to that recidivism.
03:51Is an apology going to make a difference?
03:54The anti-racism strategy will and the policy reforms that will come along with that.
04:00So what we hope to do is that people don't use biases, discrimination, judgement, prejudices
04:07when they work and talk to Aboriginal people and that they're able to diffuse situations
04:14in an appropriate way that's relevant to Aboriginal communities and people and that in turn will
04:20stop the rate of Aboriginal people coming in contact with police that then leads them
04:27into the justice system where we know most never come out as either as a victim or an
04:35offender or a witness.
04:37You've been in the police for a number of weeks now, what's been your experience there
04:42of the culture within the police?
04:44We've got a lot of work to do.
04:47This isn't going to change overnight, it's going to take time so people will need to
04:51be patient but I didn't take this role on lightly, I didn't accept it for a very long
04:58time because I had to make sure that the leadership was there, that my ability to do the work
05:03that I've been asked to do is able to get done.
05:06I'm confident that we will get there.
05:08Are you confident that leadership's there now?
05:11Oh absolutely, without doubt and I don't just say that lightly.
05:16I'm not, people who know me well know that I just won't take a job because a job comes
05:21along and it looks good to me, I have to know that I can get that job done.