Public Meeting Melbourne

The death of Mr Ward is a case study in racist neglect. In June, the West Australian State Coroner found that the Warburton Elder — a 46 year-old father of five and one of the last nomads born in the Gibson Desert — died of heatstroke sustained while being transported from Laverton to Kalgoorlie in the rear pod of a privatised prison van.

For nearly 4 hours, he was locked in the back of that van with no air-conditioning and no other source of ventilation. The guards driving him, from private contractor Global Solutions Ltd, now G4S, did not check on him during the journey. The trip was over 360 kilometres in extreme heat of 42 degrees. A police reconstruction of the journey showed surface temperatures inside the van reached at least 50C!

The Coroner made a host of important recommendations. But clearly we cannot rely on a bureaucracy that failed Mr Ward so spectacularly to "do the right thing." It is the job of everyone who is horrified by this "wholly avoidable" death to build a movement to ensure the recommendations are implemented in full.