Australian governments ‘turning their backs’ on soaring Indigenous incarceration, former minister says

Twelve Indigenous people have died in NSW Corrective Services custody since January, while four have died in police operations – the highest number recorded in any full year. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

The country’s longest serving Aboriginal affairs minister has accused governments of “turning their backs” on soaring Indigenous incarceration rates, after a record number of Aboriginal deaths in custody in New South Wales this year.

Before a protest march in Sydney on Saturday, Robert Tickner, the Hawke and Keating government minister who tabled a landmark royal commission report into Aboriginal deaths in custody in 1991, declared “time’s up” to take action on the issue.