Media Releases

MEDIA RELEASE Monday 16 August 2021, 1:00 pm   As NSW Police commence ‘Operation Stay Home’, the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT has raised concerns about over-policing of Aboriginal communities and urged Aboriginal people to seek assistance in dealing with infringement notices. During last year’s COVID lockdown, police handed out the most fines in suburbs with a high Aboriginal population. People living in...

MEDIA RELEASE Friday 30 July 2021, 10:00 am   The Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT says Emeritus Professor Hal Wootten AC QC will be fondly remembered for his insight, compassion, and his great legacy in helping to establish the country’s first Aboriginal legal service. Prof Wootten passed away on Tuesday 27 July at the age of 98. He was a co-founder of the...

MEDIA RELEASE Wednesday 14 July 2021 Frank ‘Gud’ Coleman, a 43-year-old Ngemba man born in Brewarrina and raised in Mt Druitt, died on Thursday 8 July at the Long Bay Correctional Complex. Frank is one of at least 478 Aboriginal people to die in prisons and police incidents since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. He is fondly remembered and...

MEDIA RELEASE Additional note as of 24 June: Due to the COVID outbreak and restrictions imposed, the ALS is postponing the community meeting scheduled in Redfern on Saturday 26 June 2021 to elect ALS Company Members for the Central South Eastern Region. Please disregard information below for the Central South Eastern Region meeting and visit www.alsnswact.org.au/company_elections for up-to-date information. The Northern Region and Western...

MEDIA RELEASE Tuesday 4 May 2021, 4:30 pm   The Aboriginal Legal Service has welcomed charges brought against a serving NSW Police officer for common assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm, following an arrest of an Aboriginal boy in June last year. Video footage of the arrest went viral at the time, taking place amid Black Lives Matter protests worldwide following...

MEDIA RELEASE Friday 16 April 2021, 6:00 am   The Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT is calling for NSW parliamentarians across the political spectrum to embrace recommendations from a parliamentary inquiry into First Nations over-incarceration and deaths in custody. Today’s report from the NSW Legislative Council’s Select Committee on the High Level of First Nations People in Custody and Oversight and Review of...

MEDIA ALERT WHEN: Friday 16 April 2021, 3:15pm WHERE: The Australian Hall, 150 Elizabeth Street, Sydney. This historic venue was the site of Day of Mourning protests on 26 January 1938. It is operated by the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council. WHAT: Opening of the Aboriginal Legal Service 50th Anniversary Exhibition, generously supported by the City of Sydney DETAILS: Mark Davies (Chair),...

MEDIA RELEASE Thursday 25 March, 8:00 am   A community has been left reeling and the Aboriginal Legal Service is demanding urgent accountability after the confirmation of a fourth recent death in custody. Barkindji man Anzac Sullivan, 37, passed away during a police pursuit in Broken Hill on Thursday 18 March. This tragedy comes shortly after the deaths of three Aboriginal people...

MEDIA RELEASE Tuesday 23 March 2021, 4:00 pm   The Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT welcomes research released today by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research showing police are more likely to refuse bail for Aboriginal defendants than non-Aboriginal defendants. “This reflects our concerns of systemic racism within NSW Police meaning Aboriginal people are being locked up simply because they are...