As with the United Kingdom, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests which have swept across the United States have overflowed to Australian society. The tangle of BLM issues with the reality of the Covid-19 pandemic has triggered bitter debate and some social dislocation.
The weekend of 6–7 June was a particular focal point. BLM protest organisers announced plans for significant gatherings in Australia’s major cities to draw attention to the deaths in custody of Aboriginal Australians arrested for various reasons. There have been at least 432 indigenous deaths in custody since a Royal Commission examined the issue in 1991. This has been a simmering matter for decades, erupting into protest action at various points in time, and almost predictably piggybacking onto the worldwide BLM activism presently underway.
When the plans for the early June protests were announced, most state and federal governing authorities banned the gatherings, given the strict regime of social distancing because of Covid-19 that has been in place in Australia for several months. Protest organisers indicated that they would ignore the bans, and on the eve of the protests the gatherings were permitted.
