In May the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission reported on its national inquiry into the forced removal, under past government policies effective up to 1970, of tens of thousands of Aboriginal children from their families solely because of their race. The report stressed the link between the effects of the policies and current high rates of Aboriginal criminalization and deaths in custody. The government's response in December announced welfare and family reunion measures, but failed to comment on the Commission's findings that the policies had allowed for genocide, systematic racial discrimination and physical and sexual abuse of children. At least 103 people died in custody or during police attempts to detain them, some of them in circumstances raising concern about lack of proper care amounting to ill-treatment. Of these at least 14 were Aborigines.
Aborigines form two per cent of the population.
In July ministers discussed the continuing high incidence of Aboriginal deaths in custody at a national summit meeting. Participants agreed on the need for action to address the problem, but failed to set binding targets. There were new developments in cases from previous years. In September the Victoria state Supreme Court overruled a 1996 inquest finding that Colleen Richman, a mentally disturbed Aboriginal woman shot by police in September 1994, had caused her own death. A police officer had repeatedly fired at her after she did not respond to calls to put down a hatchet.