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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Andrew Messenger

Human rights experts and advocates alarmed as Queensland weighs fast return to public drunkenness laws

Scott McDougall, commissioner of the Queensland Humans Rights Commission
Scott McDougall, commissioner of the Queensland Humans Rights Commission, said any move to reintroduce public drunkenness and public urination laws represented ‘another blow in a continuing assault on the rights of First Nations people in Queensland’. Photograph: Jono Searle/AAP

Queensland’s government is “looking at” bringing back laws against public drunkenness and public urination, against the recommendation of the 1991 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody and sparking serious concerns among human rights experts and advocates.

“The removal of those summary offences, whether it’s public drunkenness or public urination, has hamstrung the police to be able to take action,” the state’s police minister, Dan Purdie, said on Wednesday.

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