Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On 27 January 2008, a much-loved and respected Aboriginal elder from the Warburton community in WA, Mr Ward, died while being transported 360 kilometres from Laverton to Kalgoorlie by the government contractor GSL Custodial Services, now known as 4GS. Mr Ward, who had been locked in the back of a prisoner transport vehicle with broken air conditioning for three hours and 45 minutes on a day when the outside temperature exceeded 40 degrees Celsius, died from heatstroke. The state coroner noted deep burns on Mr Ward’s abdomen from contact with the boiling metal of the van’s floor and found that Mr Ward had ‘suffered a terrible death while in custody which was wholly unnecessary and avoidable’.

The appalling circumstances of Mr Ward’s death remind us that we must do all we can to protect human rights and human dignity. I offer condolences to Mr Ward’s family and encouragement and thanks to those in the community who are dedicated to ensuring that deaths in custody become a salutary lesson in history instead of something for which we as a community continue to bear the immense present shame.

Today I received from the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee of WA a petition of some 3,500 signatures calling for the federal parliament to ensure our criminal justice system meets our human rights treaty obligations, for the Australian Human Rights Commission to inquire into the extreme overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in our justice system and for the government to work with the states and territories to ensure that all coronial and royal commission recommendations are promptly acted upon. I hereby present that petition.

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