The Senate Inquiry into racism against Aboriginal people hearing widespread serious reports of racism, Australia wide, is now wrapping up having traversed Australia and heard from many people from all walks of life.

Racism is well and truly a part of the social fabric in Australia notwithstanding that race discrimination has been prohibited in Australia since 1975. As an Aboriginal expert in race discrimination, I was scheduled to speak to the Committee earlier this year, but dropped at last minute. Apparently the witness list was now full on the day, and they promised they'd be back!

My thirty plus years of working in race discrimination, including successfully prosecuting a Liberal serving Senator for racial vilification under s18C (the first such successful Aboriginal case in Australia), supporting community in precedent discrimination cases, research and advocacy, apparently unvalued. This is just one, and a relatively minor, experience I've had as an Aboriginal woman of seeing my work undervalued and perhaps even being discriminated against. More importantly I hear from Aboriginal women, increasingly so, about many and pervasive forms of discrimination they encounter and are often distressed by.

Take the case of the of the Strong Women's Group of Mandurah, who on 4 April, 2025, attended the City of Mandurah to hand deliver a letter outlining their opposition to the proposed development of the Mandurah foreshore area for a brewery. This area was once a Noongar women's birthing site and believed to be a burial place for stillborn babies.

The Strong Women's Group made up of about 25 elderly Aboriginal women (and non-Aboriginal women supporters), including Elders with disability, had entered the building during office hours to hand deliver their letter of concern. They were met with an extraordinary police response following an employee's call that 30 people had forced entry into the Council building and they had gone into lockdown.

Overzealous and aggressive police attention to Aboriginal people, especially women and mothers, is rooted in colonial history where police, working with 'welfare', removed thousands of Aboriginal children under assimilationist laws designed to end Aboriginal people as a race of people. Police mistreatment and violence towards Aboriginal women, even young girls, has never ended nor has surveillance by welfare.

Recent reporting in The Australian on the Mandurah Strong Women's Group show FOI reports recorded the 000 call from Mandurah Council deemed a Priority 2 threat on par with a domestic violence assault or a serious vehicle crash. Instead, police found a peaceful gathering of elderly women, some singing in Noongar as well as the unofficial anthem 'I am Australian'.

The FOI reports show the incident was downgraded from 'Priority' to 'False' as police found no forced entry. The question of how a peaceful protest resulted in such a heavy-handed police response is one the Police Commissioner Col Blanch should investigate - it smacks of racism and could have diverted police from serious violent crime.

And let's not forget the conduct of an off-duty police officer pinning down a 13-year-old Noongar girl, also throwing her into a seat - which made her head strike the wall. That incident in April this year was filmed by concerned passengers and received nationwide attention following exposure by the National Indigenous Times, and was condemned by the WA and National Aboriginal Children's Commissioner and Social Justice Commissioner. The officer remains on duty while the investigation continues.

Across Australia Aboriginal women are increasingly reporting hurt and trauma from conduct and decisions that evidence discrimination against them as Aboriginal women, whose intersectional identity extends to other factors including age, disability and sexual or gender identity.

Unfortunately, responses to racism are few and far between and tend to neglect the multiple forms of discrimination that Aboriginal women experience. Paradoxically, the more forms of discrimination a person experiences the less likely it is the discrimination will be seen and responded to. Discrimination towards Aboriginal women can disappear in mainstream discussion on racism but without question adversely impacts women's health, social and emotional wellbeing, employment, economic empowerment, cultural status and human rights.

Importantly the Strong Women's Group are also highlighting a need for wider dialogue about the obsession with breweries in view of the public health impacts of alcohol (and the alcohol industry) in particular, alcohol related deaths, as well as harms caused by alcohol on unborn children and children exposed to alcohol related violence.

These incidents also provoke questions about the states commitments to Reconciliation and Truth Telling, leaving unanswered how such processes will address the insidious, pervasive and growing problem of racism to Aboriginal women.

Dr Hannah McGlade is a Kurin Minang human rights expert and law academic.