Townsville's copy-cat racism

by Peter Mac

Racism has taken a new and sinister form in Townsville in Queensland, with 
the appearance of Ku Klux Klan hate mail and attacks on Aboriginal 
people.

In recent times anonymous letters bearing the Klan title have been placed 
in letterboxes around the town. One leaflet left in an Aboriginal 
resident's letterbox carried the heading "die, die, die".

Many Aboriginal people have suffered regular and unprovoked assaults, 
including one attack by a group of white youths wielding baseball bats, and 
another with a home-made golf ball bazooka, on a group of shanty town 
residents. Earlier this year a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy died after being 
hit by a van which, according to witnesses, reversed into him, drove over 
his bike and then drove away.

The appalling publicity generated by these developments, has even reached 
the attention of overseas media, and is adversely affecting the local 
economy. The Townsville council has strenuously objected to media coverage 
that describes the town as the "racism capital of Australia"

One Indigenous resident, Neil Pattel, criticised those who turn a blind eye 
to racism in Townsville. He commented: "A lot of people here are hypocrites 
in that they criticise terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and yet they 
don't say anything about the activities of the KKK, who are just that."

Aboriginal residents of the small town of Mossman, just north of Cairns, 
have suffered assaults and threats from people wearing the KKK hooded white 
uniform.

The Townsville leaflets are badly written and appear to be a product of a 
particularly vicious lumpen proletariat group. The Townsville local police 
have spoken confidently of identifying the offenders, but even if they do 
this won't be sufficient to deal with the problem.

Anti-social behaviour, whether by Indigenous or non-Indigenous people, 
arises from poverty, exploitation, unemployment and homelessness such as is 
found in Townsville and many other towns and cities.

Townsville has about 150,000 residents, of whom some 10 percent are of 
Aboriginal or Islander descent. Of these, about 80 people live in the 
city's parks, and several hundred live in a shanty town known with bitter 
irony as "Happy Valley". This group is the worst-affected by homelessness 
and alcoholism, and has also borne the brunt of the most recent racist 
attacks.

Although some good initiatives have been taken by local and state 
governments, they have proved inadequate. Some of their activities — and 
lack of activity — have contributed directly to the problem.

The town is rife with stories of discrimination against Aboriginal people 
in terms of employment, housing and entry to clubs.

One Aboriginal mother of six claimed that it took her weeks to find a 
rental property, and that she only got one when she accepted one next to a 
house occupied by petrol addicts. She commented: "There are lots of nice 
Housing Commission homes going up but they put all the Aborigines in the 
one street".

Another single mum who scrimped enough money to buy her son a new bike, 
claimed that the local police had pulled him over five times in the first 
week to demand how he got the bike, and had subjected him to verbal racial 
abuse.

The experiences of some of the homeless, who had their photos taken by 
security guards employed by the council, prompted a visit by federal Race 
Discrimination Commissioner Bill Jonas last June.

In his subsequent report Jonas acknowledged that the problems faced by the 
homeless were not unique to Townsville. Nevertheless, he was extremely 
critical of the council's attitude and policies towards them.

His report states: "The treatment of Indigenous people who live in public 
spaces around the city and local government efforts to exclude them from 
these areas have given a licence to some people in the community to harass, 
threaten and even assault them."

The Council adamantly rejected such criticism. The deputy Mayor claimed 
that council was doing the best it could with limited resources, which were 
stretched by increasing numbers of homeless people, many of them released 
from detention in nearby Stuart Prison or ejected from Palm Island with no 
home to go to.

To date the council's main action seems to have been to enact special 
legislation to permit security guards to remove alcohol from parks and to 
eject people deemed to be loitering.

Revealing the gulf between her and the town's Aboriginal residents, the 
Deputy Mayor confidently asserted: "I'm sure if our security people and 
police are brought in they can act on this".

Local police chief, Senior Sergeant Dale, points to a number of initiatives 
such as the establishment of the Indigenous Police Liaison Unit and patrols 
by Community Development Employment Project workers. However, he bluntly 
attributed the frustration of these employees and the town's Indigenous 
people to the failure by government to provide an accommodation and 
rehabilitation treatment unit for homeless and alcoholic people.

Although discussions on the establishment of such a facility have continued 
for years, nothing concrete has yet been done. There's the rub. And there 
is also part of the solution.