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UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Mulrunji’s death and the need for reform

By Jeff Waters

photo courtesy Jeff Waters

29 July 2008 - On one steamy northern morning in November 2004, a man known in death as Mulrunji was walking, drunk, along a suburban street on Queensland’s Palm Island. He saw the island’s highest-ranking policeman, Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley, arrest another indigenous man.

Mulrunji was widely regarded as a joker – a happy-go-lucky type prone to singing in public. He’d never been in trouble with the police, and had no history of violence. If you believe the Senior Sergeant, Mulrunji swore as he walked past the arrest. Other witnesses say he started singing the reggae song, Who let the Dogs Out. Whatever the truth, Mulrunji was himself arrested, and a short time later, he was dead. His liver had been almost cut in two by compressive force.

Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley eventually became the first Australian police officer to be charged over an indigenous death in custody. Subsequently, a jury drawn from in and around Townsville found him not guilty of manslaughter.

On that morning, when the policeman moved from the arrest at hand to deal with his irritant, who could have predicted the appalling tide of death and desperation which followed? That one-off-remark, or song, lead to a painful death, and shocking grief. But it also lead to a complacent police investigation, a riot, aborted probes and reviews and finally, a series of political and legal crises.

I was working as a journalist in Brisbane when Mulrunji died, and spent two years covering much of that fallout. But when I left Queensland, I couldn’t let go of the story. There was so much unfinished business. So many aspects of the tale had not been addressed. I also felt there was a need for someone to tell the entire story, to document the depth and complexity of the issues, and to fully examine the behavior of the authorities. So I wrote my first book.

How, you may say, could there be unfinished business? After all, there was a trial; there was some closure. But not so for Mulrunji’s family, the people of Palm Island, or very many indigenous Australians, who remain angry at what happened.

Firstly, nobody has been held accountable for what was described at the inquest as a wrongful arrest. Police guidelines, which say language offences are not a sole reason for arrest, appear to have been disregarded. Until police officers are made fully aware of these guidelines, indigenous Australians may continue to be locked-up for the wrong reasons. Mulrunji was also dragged into his cell unconscious after falling through a doorway with the Senior Sergeant, when according to guidelines he should have been given urgent medical treatment. After he died, his family wasn't notified for many hours, even though they had gone to the station and asked about his welfare. No individual has been held accountable for all of this.

Also disturbing - and far more numerous - are the questions raised by the investigation into the death. Again, nobody has been held accountable for a large number of strange decisions, like the one to appoint a friend of Sergeant Hurley's as investigating officer. Sergeant Hurley picked that friend up at the airport and drove him into town. They were joined by other investigators for dinner at Sergeant Hurley's house at the end of the day. None of their private conversations was recorded. But there were so many more unusual decisions: witnesses were allowed to have off the record conversations with each-other;  the scene of the death wasn't secured; the homicide squad wasn't called or coroner notified, and when the pathologist was given a report, along with the body, to examine, the police had failed to mention allegations that Sergeant Hurley may have repeatedly punched Mulrunji.

So when the pathologist’s findings, that Mulrunji must have died in a fall, were read out to a public meeting on the Island, a couple of hundred people rioted. They burnt down the police station and Senior Sergeant Hurley's home. After that riot,  an emergency was declared, and yet another set of strange police decisions ensued. Those actions were criticized by a Crime and Misconduct Commission report but, once again, the perpetrators have gone unpunished.

My book also calls for the full release of a large amount of startling, but secret, evidence, which is still suppressed by a non-publication order which was issued by the coroner. It was evidence the police service didn't want even to be considered during the inquest. Their lengthy legal argument and two unsuccessful challenges in the Queensland Supreme Court held up the inquest. But the evidence remains secret. If it were to be released, it would be highly embarrassing for the police and the state government. It would generate a great deal of community anger, and could result in a re-examination of how police forces across this country regard indigenous communities.

But it's not just the police service which has let down Palm Islanders. The community was established as a penal colony, girt by sea. Individuals who rebelled - from up to 40 different language groups - were sent there with poor services and insufficient housing, and expected to live together in productive harmony. It is a construct created by non-indigenous Australia, but the Islanders are constantly blamed for their own plight - often described as dysfunctional by their own government.

Over  the years, successive Queensland governments have disregarded scores of recommendations made by several inquiries and commissions set-up to try to find solutions to the situation. The include calls for immediate action to end the chronic housing shortage, and to increase the availability of nutritious food.

I would argue that we, as a society, should accept responsibility for the situation which has developed on Palm Island for so very many years. But we should also take more care to ensure the rule of law - in a real sense - applies equally to all Australians, and that, when people in authority throw out the book, they are held to account for their actions.

ABC Journalist Jeff Waters is author of Gone for a Song, A Death in Custody on Palm Island, published by ABC Books

Further information: palm island issues page - includes news index and external links