Joining the force is deadly for this mob

These 19 students appear to have little in common but at times
speak the same language: they can pick other Kooris from the gubbas
and all want to be gunjibal.

Jarin Baigent, a Koori from Blacktown who grew up in Waterloo,
reckons even in a record batch of 975 recruits she can pick other
indigenous students.

“The Aboriginal community is so big that regardless of what you
look like or where you are, someone’s going to know you, or your
cousins or someone from where you’re from,” the 23-year-old said.
“We all know someone from someone’s else’s family.”

“When Kooris meet up with each other it’s always the same
questions: who’s your mob? What’s your name? Where are you from?”
Little things such as hearing a fellow student describe something
they like as “deadly” are a giveaway. “We’re all aware of it,” she
said.

NSW Police has been trying to attract indigenous recruits for
the past eight years but there are still only 186 sworn Aboriginal
policemen and women in a force of more than 14,500.

To see so many Koori students together delights the Police
Commissioner, Ken Moroney.

He suspects in the past there have been so few Aboriginal
recruits in each class that an already hard career choice has often
become unbearable.

“They’ve found the isolation in Goulburn difficult,” he says. “I
think that’s one of the reasons many have passed through here but
not necessarily completed their probationary period.”

Ms Baigent knows all about what her new boss calls the “brutal
community pressure” Kooris who want to join the police can
face.

“I always wanted to be a cop,” she said, but as a child never
told her family – “No way”. In her home in Waterloo, and in Redfern
more broadly, police were “gunjibal”, “gunji” and lots else.

“They were the enemy … it was difficult for my family to
get their heads around it when I was coming here.”

A fellow recruit, Greg Hartge, from Blacktown, is a father of
four aged eight, six, three and five months. To become a policeman
he has put down a paintbrush.

“I always wanted to be a cop since I was at school,” the
29-year-old said. “At school it was fine, but with my family,
no.”

Nina Parsons, who spent the first three decades of her life in
Brewarrina, also has four children, aged 21, 20, 15 and 14.

The 43-year-old, who has worked with the Department of Education
and the Department of Community Services, has returned to complete
training she began three years ago.

“I don’t think there’s enough Aboriginal police officers out
there,” she said. “We need not just numbers but people who actually
care. I hope I can make a difference.”