Stick to your guns Mr Leavers your analysis of the Treaty and Voice is correct
From National Indigenous Times
Police Union President Ian Leavers has so far refused to resign for his article published on Wednesday.
Calls for the Queensland Police Union president to resign have grown, with a letter signed by community leaders saying he expressed “outward racist ideology” in an article he wrote this week.
Ian Leavers’ article in the Courier Mail on Wednesday expressed disdain for the state’s Treaty process, saying it would make the justice system favourable for Indigenous people.
He offered no evidence for this prediction other than conversations he supposedly had with other police officers.
On Friday, more than 30 community leaders – including a former judge, lawyers, Indigenous elders and academics – called on the Mr Leavers to resign, arguing his statements reinforced negative stereotypes of Indigenous Australians.
“These statements politicise the truth and treaty process as a means for spring boarding a personal campaign that is negligent and outwardly harmful to the wellbeing and interests of our First Nations peoples and communities, and to the reconciliation efforts of our nation,” the statement said.
Signatories to the statement, titled, “Queensland Police Service (QPS) First Nations Advisory Group, Supporters and Allies,” include former court of appeal president Margaret McMurdo – who heads the state’s Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce – and Ross Homel, emeritus professor at Griffith university.
Prof Homel told ABC on Wednesday that Mr Leavers’ comments were factually wrong.
“And he’s implying, I think, in this op-ed, that you can’t have a treaty with people like that, because they’re, you know, they’re all criminals,” he said.
“If that’s the implication, then I think that is blatantly racist and just unacceptable.”
The statement said Leavers’ comments in the article were “gravely irresponsible” and propagated personal views ahead of what criminologists and researchers have said isn’t rooted in fact.
“The Queensland Police Union President has through his comments undermined the incredibly complex and challenging role of police to develop trusting and culturally safe relationships with communities and has harmed communities and the community confidence in the QPS,” it said.
“The Queensland Police Union Presidents’ comments have seen him deny the evidential ‘truth’ that was demonstrated in the Commission of Inquiry that racism, sexism and misogyny exist in the QPS in favour of spreading misinformation and inciting a racial divide.”
Last year, a report titled A Call for Change, found: “Racism is a significant problem within the QPS. It manifests in discriminatory behaviours directed towards First Nations employees, employees from other cultural backgrounds and members of the community.”
In his piece, Mr Leavers cited the suggestion by the Yoorrook commission in Victoria to “create a presumption in favour of bail for all offences with the exception of murder, terrorism and like offences.”
“They are effectively offering a free pass to every rapist, domestic violence abuser, habitual home invader and car thief who tells police they identify as Aboriginal,” Leavers wrote.
There was no mention that the bail presumption should only apply to Indigenous people under the age of 16 from the commission.
The statement rejected this notion, arguing youth crime was rooted in trauma and needed to be addressed holistically, not through police targeting.
“The ‘real truth’ of crime committed by young people is that they themselves are likely to have been victims of crime and are much more likely to have experienced trauma causing a disengagement from education, family, and community. They are more likely to be homeless or are couch-surfing. These are our forgotten children,” the statement said.
Mr Leavers also wrote that, “The establishment of the rather euphemistically named Truth and Treaty Body will, as far as I can tell, remind us all on a daily basis how bad all Queenslanders should feel about the First Nations people of this state and that we are all probably racist.”
In a press conference on Wednesday, he defended his comments, saying the $400m that would be spent on Treaty would be better off in the communities.
“That’s where I’m coming from,” he said.
Wakka Wakka woman and Co-Chair of the First Nations Advisory Group to QPS, Christine Thomas, told the Brisbane Times to her knowledge, “there was no consultation with the 17,000 members he (Mr Leavers) claims to represent”.
“Most importantly (there was) no consultation with QPS First Nations staff, some of whom have been left shattered by these comments,” Thomas said.
The signatories said Mr Leavers did not represent the views of the “thousands of Qld Police Employees and members of the public who are appalled by the comments.”
“The Queensland Police Union Presidents’ factually inaccurate, inflammatory and fear mongering comments do not reflect who we are, and who we aspire to be as people in this state of Queensland. These racialised and divisive comments should be condemned in the strongest terms.”
“We call on Mr Leavers to resign.”
Mr Leavers, who said in his piece people would “whip themselves into a frenzy” over his comments, has already been criticised by the State’s Human Rights Commissioner, as well as members of the Labor Party.
The State opposition declined to condemn his remarks, only pointing to their previous statement that Treaty would bring about division.
Editorial:
It is not often we would agree with Ian Leavers but in this instance he is correct with his analysis of the divisive Voice and Treaty. He is qualified to speak on this matter because the 17,000 police officers and clerks he represents have more interaction with Aborigines every day than any other members of society.
Most officers have had enough of Labor and their (UN) policy of ‘black entitlement to crime’ which officers have to deal with on a daily basis. In the regions operational shifts for general police are consumed by indigenous domestic violence investigations.
The balance of their time is trying to apprehend thousands of cars across the state being stolen by mainly Aboriginal youth. Or attend break and enters, home invasions or assaults. And it is getting worse by the day.
As quickly as the cops lock them up, the Magistrates let them go through Labor’s notorious revolving doors of injustice.
Leavers should ignore the mob that want him to resign with the surety their Voice campaign has irrevocably divided Australia causing far more long term damage than he could ever do.
Now that the Criminal Code (Serious Vilification and Hate Crimes) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill has passed the Big Q Parliament, the Australians are going to have to learn to grovel appropriately to BIPOC.
Mr Leavers will have to hew to the Party Line from the Makarrata Commissars and the government.
This racism debate it ridiculous when we consider how traditionally racist each black fella mob are towards each other.
Last time I heard, the man was promoting a fascist police state in Queensland. Including shrines and remembrance recreation centres for police.
It was with a sense of relief that I read Mr Leavers article as he is a person in a position where his comments are based on facts. Many people know these facts and agree with Mr Leavers but are consistently ignored by those we elect to speak for us – whether black or white. For a person in his position to have the ‘guts’ to speak truths out loud is so very rare, yet so profoundly vital. Without truth how do we help and protect our aboriginal folk, as well as our white community? How do we make us all equal in this great land – without truth being able to be spoken? Those who would shut down Mr Leaver, are those who would shut down truth and the only reason anyone would want to do that is for their own hidden reasons. I advocate we get rid of them and leave Mr Leavers alone!
Truth by Tony.
Reconciliation has been around longer than conciliation.
Aboriginal and indigenous are not the same.
Will the methodology employed by Neville the Devil in marriage approvals rate a mention in full blooded Noongar Truth telling or that not all Tasmanian Aborigines were rounded up and agreed to leave their countries for the desolation and dislocation of the reservation on Flinders Island for the protection of the Crown?
I’m happy for Aboriginal Australians that their sovereignty has been protected by their Australian brothers from UN one world government offerings of trinkets and deceptive statements and from Australian political liars offering contracts of entrapment such as in treaties.
Great to see not all Queenslanders are weak reeds out on stress leave 😀
All Leavers has to do is read the actual Commissioner’s report from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. It was found that there was no instance of police or prison officers acting in a particularly racist way, or causing deaths, and that white people die in custody more so than Aborigines, which was pointed out 8 years previously when the Commission was announced. In fact the entire farce was generated by Supreme Court Justice James Muirhead as a legacy leading to him becoming Administrator of the NT. Muirhead was a ruthlessly ambitious man and I have recorded some of his highly questionable court decisons in th enovel “The Lost Track”.
What Leavers should then ask is why Aboriginal leaders have lied about the commissioners report.
You can only have free speech if you are a leftist, you can only be a racist if you’re white, correct me if I am wrong.
Stand your ground Mr. Leavers. Flip their script and tell them they are still pushing racial division and racial conflict in Australia. We have just said NO to the entire swag of this crap.