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Union urges watch-house upgrades amidst Mulrunji row

31 January 2007 - The Queensland Police Union says the Southport watch-house on the Gold Coast is dangerously overcrowded and it has called on the State Government to upgrade facilities.

Yesterday, more than 600 officers attended a union meeting at Nerang and voted to support a Gold Coast colleague who is about to be charged over a 2004 death in custody of Indigenous man Mulrunji on Palm Island in north Queensland.

Police union vice-president Denis Fitzpatrick says better facilities and more staff are needed across the state.

"Police simply cannot comply with the 1991 black deaths in custody recommendations and that's not their fault, that's not our fault," he said.

"[Premier] Peter Beattie says it would be a waste of money to upgrade watch-houses. How dare he."
The State Opposition has backed the police union's call for extra resources.

The Premier has said it is impossible to have 24-hour supervision at watch-houses in some remote areas, but Opposition's police spokesman Rob Messenger says there must be other solutions.

"Surely there's other ways of monitoring police watch-houses, using technology like the Internet ... and I think we really should look at that," he said.

"If you go to any grade 10 student I'm sure that they could design a way that a police house is monitored via the Internet."

Meanwhile, two Indigenous women held a silent protest outside the police union meeting.

Hilary Blundell from the Kombumerri people, the traditional landowners of the Gold Coast, says they were showing support for Mulrunji's family.

"There are a lot of emotional Indigenous people on Palm Island and all around Australia who do not agree with the injustice that has been happening to Indigenous people for way too long and we're all well aware of it and something has to be done," she said.

Source: The ABC

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