Northern Territory Police Commissioner acknowledges organisation’s ‘disturbing’ and ‘grotesque’ racism

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Acting Northern Territory Police Commissioner Martin Dole speaks about the force’s response to the Coroner’s findings about racism in the organisation.

Transcript

00:00You weren't the commissioner at the time that a lot of this evidence came out.

00:07The coroners described some of the, particularly the awards being handed out by the TRG and

00:12some of these text messages as both disturbing and grotesque.

00:17What was your reaction when that evidence became public?

00:20Were you surprised?

00:21I think that description is probably completely adequate.

00:26Confronting is certainly what I would call it and grotesque and it's got no place in

00:32our organisation.

00:33And the fact that it did exist and the fact that it was permitted and fostered is just

00:38not acceptable.

00:39And like I've said, it has no place in our organisation and it won't have any place in

00:43our organisation into the future.

00:45That's confronting, absolutely.

00:47It's easy to get lost in that, I suppose, and potentially creep into that denial by saying

00:55that's not me, that's not how I act, that's not how I carry myself.

00:58But if we're serious about it and we look at racism in all its forms and the definitions

01:03of what it is, it's quite clear from the evidence that was borne out that has existed in our

01:08police force and it has existed in all its forms in pockets from time to time within this

01:13police force.

01:14Does it still exist in the police force?

01:16I think we'd be naive to think that it doesn't in some forms or another or it doesn't have

01:21the potential to creep in.

01:22The coroner has found systemic racism and evidence of and you're not shying away from

01:29that at all.

01:30But how has that finding and your response to it been received by police officers?

01:37This incident from the beginning was polarising for the Northern Territory Police Force.

01:41I think it was polarising for police across Australia.

01:44I'm probably not receipt of a lot of negative comments in that.

01:51I wouldn't expect people to come up to me and say, that's outrageous, Commissioner.

01:55Your stance on this is completely wrong.

01:57But in saying that, I understand there's probably some feelings of hurt amongst the police force.

02:03There's probably some feelings of denial.

02:05And I can understand that.

02:07But overwhelmingly, our members do a good job.

02:10And I understand that some of our membership will be saying, that's not me.

02:13But that's why we're on this journey to roll out racism, anti-racism training.

02:19So people can understand what it is.

02:21They can recognise the various forms of racism and they can work out what to do when they

02:26see it or actually realise that it probably does exist even if they're not the people

02:32perpetrating that.

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