What if the victims had been white?
13.02.2009

COMMENT
THE families and friends of the five people who perished when the Immigration Department vessel Malu Sara sank off Badu Island are far from satisfied with the findings handed down yesterday by Coroner Michael Barnes.
The two officers against whom he recommends disciplinary action be taken -- Queensland Police Sergeant Warren Flegg and Immigration Department regional manager Gary Chaston -- are not the only ones who should be in the frame.
The gravity of this case should be remembered. Two Immigration officers were instructed by Chaston to take the Malu Sara on the 74km voyage from Saibai Island to Badu across treacherous seas in worsening weather. Chaston knew the boat was taking water and that it was not fitted with even the most basic navigation or safety aids. It had only a manual bilge pump.
He also knew the skipper was not licensed. After the boat left, Chaston flew back to Thursday Island in a helicopter to keep a dinner date with his wife at the local bowls club.
When those in the Malu Sara reported they were lost in fog and rain, they were monitored by police -- more particularly, Warren Flegg -- but nothing was done in the next eight hours. They perished. It took hours even to get a search under way.
Another issue is the investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which made the convenient finding that the skipper of the boat was at fault. Nothing about Chaston or Flegg -- just blame the dead blackfellow. That report rated as one of the most disgraceful carried out into any tragedy in this country in recent times.
As Barnes said yesterday, the five passengers on the Malu Sara died because of a string of circumstances. They would not have died if people along the chain had acted with care.
The question being asked by Islanders and one that we should ask is: would any of this have been allowed to occur if even one of the passengers had not been an Islander, and had instead been the wife or child of Flegg or Chaston, for example?
The disgraceful response from the time the boats were built to when they were sent to Badu and then when the passengers' 100-odd calls on the satellite phone were ignored and the subsequent sloth in organising a proper search for survivors leaves one conclusion -- these people were black, therefore a second-rate response was good enough.