Australia Tests New Protest Laws, Ignores Ten Years of Injustice
As Australia grapples with the ten-year anniversary of David Dungay Jr’s death in Long Bay jail—a death ruled preventable by a coroner—the focus, according to The Guardian, now shifts to how new protest laws might 'test' activists. This framing ignores the elephant in the prison yard: the ongoing, disproportionate rate of Indigenous deaths in custody. Since the 1991 Royal Commission into
Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which made 339 recommendations, over 500 Indigenous people have died behind bars. (Source: The Guardian, 2025/12/30; The Guardian, 2020/06/11 on Dungay Jr's death; ABC News, 2021, on 500+ deaths since 1991 Royal Commission). One might wonder if the 'new laws' are designed to 'test' the resolve of protesters, or to simply sweep uncomfortable truths under the rug. It
appears easier for governments to legislate against public outcry than to genuinely address the systemic racism and negligence that has plagued the justice system for decades. How many more anniversaries of preventable deaths will pass before accountability outweighs suppression?