It's a crime
Investigate this intriguing body of crime-themed work, which runs the gamut from fictional felonies to incisive reportage on corruption, injustice and incarceration.
The trick that tells the truth
As subjects of late capitalism, we’ve become inured to the amoral cynicism inherent in relentless corporate marketing; yet both the good faith of our human nature and the susceptibility of our lizard brains ensure that we also remain receptive… In 2020, the disjunction between AGL’s public relations and the truth of the company’s business practices was highlighted and ridiculed in the public realm, ending in a court case of profound significance on Australia’s twisted road to belated action on climate change.
Wish you weren’t here
You will put all your belongings in a locker. Everything. You can’t give your friend the photos you’ve brought. Photos of him in better days: on country days, dancing ceremony, playing footy, his kids. You put the photos and your jewellery, along with your phone and backpack, into the locker. You remember to take out your cardigan. You’ll need it to cover your suggestive shoulders.
Weaponising privilege
Even then, ‘the strip’ was a parody of itself. But the Cross was still an idea, a state of mind. It was a place of organised crime, corrupt police, exploitation, inequality and violence – but it was also a place to find likeminded people, to escape judgment. Which is what makes the story of reform here so extraordinary – vulnerable people who gathered together to seek acceptance ended up working together for survival, liberation and change. Harm minimisation was shaped by a crisis that ultimately engendered credibility and resolve. From those beginnings, it continues to grow.
The sin room
When they left, carrying Will on a stretcher, I closed the shop for the day. My thoughts were all a swirl, and the most important was that Will would be all right, despite concussion and a broken jaw – and the source of the blood, a shallow flesh wound in his back. I saw it when an ambo pulled up Will’s black shirt tail and thought: that’s not road trauma. I know a knife wound when I see it.
White justice, black suffering
Dad began this job in 1989 in the days of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. He was not the only black prison guard on staff – in fact, at one point, Rockhampton’s jail had the highest percentage of Indigenous employees in the state. And yet, there were even more Murris locked up. The first thing that shocked Dad was just how many were inside, and over the next two decades he would see many of his own relatives coming through the gates.
Moonlight reflections
The case against the former premier was famously abandoned in 1991 when a jury split – with one of two dissenters a member of the Young Nationals. The lack of resolution left open one of the biggest questions: was Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen a crook? Queenslanders remained divided on the great divider. Ask and they will tell you. Joh was a villain; Joh was a martyr.