The record of reform with respect to aboriginal deaths in custody is damning. In the 1999 Elliott Johnston Lecture, Magistrate Pat O'Shane argues nothing has been achieved by way of improvement to the lot of aboriginal people. In April 1991, Commissioner Elliott Johnston handed down the final report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The Commission found that Aboriginal people were disproportionately represented in custody, and this was chiefly attributable to the social, economic and cultural disadvantages experienced by many Aboriginal people. In May 1999, Pat O'Shane points out that despite the recommendations of the Commission, Aboriginal people are still 10 times more likely to be imprisoned than white Australians.
Death rates reflect imprisonment rates.
As a magistrate, Pat O'Shane believes that cultural awareness education is having a positive influence on many members of the police force and judicial officers, but she says that we must look beyond the criminal justice system and improve the social and economic circumstances of Aboriginal people. She argues that Australian governments have failed miserably in this objective, and that the future of Aboriginal people looks little different to the past. Griffith Law Review 50. However, they do not affect the particular arguments which we advance in this article about the nature of native title and so are not discussed here. This article contends that the phrase means ruthless profit maximisation over some unspecified period.