Media coverage of Palm Island and launch of the Errol Wyles Justice Foundation
Last night I attended a fundraising dinner in Sydney to launch the Errol Wyles Justice Foundation. The Foundation is aiming to provide legal and counselling assistance to some Indigenous Australians where there is evidence of failures in the Australian justice system.
Channel Nine’s Sunday program did a story on the killing of Errol Wyles in a hit and run accident earlier this year. You can read the transcript here, or watch the video here. The Australian ran this story about Errol Wyles and the Justice Foundation.
The fundraiser was a well attended event and will hopefully have raised a good amount of money. It also featured a speech by Lex Wotton, one of the people charged out of the unrest on Palm Island following the death of Mulrunji in police custody on the island nearly two years ago. Lex isn’t a natural public speaker, but sometimes that makes people’s speeches more powerful, as there is no artifice to get in the way of the core feelings.
Being a fundraiser, involving art auctions and the like, there were a few people in the room who were fairly well off, and the venue was the Marriott Hotel, which is not a shabby location. I was struck by the contrast between the world where Lex was giving his speech and the world he normally inhabits. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with people having money, but it’s always good to have some excess wealth diverted towards social good.
This Sunday marks the second anniversary of the death of Mulrunji. This week’s Message Stick program on ABC TV is running a documentary story on Palm Island, giving the perspective of some of the residents of the residents of the Island. (Message Stick screens on Friday night at 6pm and is repeated at 1.30pm on Sunday.)
You can read some stories which talk with the maker of the Message Stick documentary in these report in The Courier-Mail and The Age.
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
Angharad
I was struck by Lex talking about how different it was to walk down the street in Sydney compared to Townsville. He said in Sydney kids don’t look at you like you are different. You just fit in.
There is also a story on AM. http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1789877.htm
Nov 17th, 2006
barry rutherford
Great story…until Aborigines receive justice both within and outside the jutice system their condition willcontinue to deteriorate which is a national and international scandal.
Nov 18th, 2006
John Tracey
“POLICE union boss Gary Wilkinson has been charged with contempt after labelling Queensland’s Deputy Coroner’s findings into a death in custody a “witch-hunt”.”
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20778576-3102,00.html
Nov 18th, 2006
Graham Bell
Everyone:
What really annoys me is that such a Foundation is necessary in the first place.
Nov 20th, 2006