There are less than 80,000 Aboriginal people in Western Australia, but during 2011 the Western Australian police issued at least 9,996 move-on-notices to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. That is 10,000 move-on-notices to Aboriginal people who comprise less than 3 per cent of the State population. A further 19,899 move-on-notices were issued to “other ethnicities” – that is to people from within the remaining 97 per cent of the population.

One in every three move-on-notices was issued to an Aboriginal person despite Aboriginal people only numbering 80,000 people out of two and half million West Australians.

“It is disgusting, outrageous, immoral, it is discrimination, racism, targeted, it is apartheid,” said Marianne Mackay, a well respected Noongar rights advocate and University of Western Australia third-year law student.

“This the curfew stuff, the Native Welfare rubbish, the apartheid, the segregation of the pre-1950s. Unless our people are wearing expensive suits they stand little chance of not being harassed by authorities.”

“It is disgusting that so many of our most vulnerable people are marginalised further, pushed out of society as an eyesore because they are homeless, because they are poor, because they are black.”

“Our State Government needs to explain what policies have led to these outrageous statistics. But will they? I will not hold my breath – they are yet to admit to the racism that sees our people in this State jailed at the world’s highest rates.”

And they are jailed at the world’s highest rate – Western Australia Aboriginal adult males are jailed at rates higher than of any other culture in our world, and at nine times higher the rate than what South Africa’s Black adult males were jailed in the final years of their apartheid.

“Apartheid may sort of be a thing of the past in South Africa but it is still happening in Perth, Western Australia. We are pushed out of the commercial precincts, that is what these move-on-notices are about.”

“10,000 move-on-notices, how disgusting is that?”

The Aboriginal Legal Services WA has attacked a number of policies and some of the policing as racism. Last year, ALSWA’s managing lawyer, Peter Collins, slammed the move-on-notices and high arrest rates.

“There is no doubt in my experience that Aboriginal people are policed far more harshly in this State,” said Mr Collins.

Mr Collins criticised many grounds for arrests, such as something as “benign as swearing.”

“It is hard not to think that similar language used by a non-Aboriginal person would go through to the keeper.”

He criticised the Prohibition Behaviour Orders Act as “a form of ethnic cleansing” targeted at Aboriginal people. He said that the orders were not behaviour management strategies but excuses to remove Aboriginal peoples from various precincts. The legislation lets courts impose orders, including banning offenders from entering or being near certain premises.

Ms Mackay said, “We only have to bump into someone and we are arrested.”

The State’s Attorney-General Michael Mischin hit back at Mr Collins in reference to the orders and said that Mr Collins had no evidence that the orders were used unjustly or inappropriately. He argued that the orders “have been used sparingly.”

A significant proportion of the move-on-notices in Perth have been issued to people who are homeless, who shelter in the parks, squats and traps near commercial districts. “I have been living on the streets for years, since the Government closed down our community residence, and I don’t do anything to anyone. But I’m told to move on again and again,” said David.

According to Loretta she only has to walk into a shop for it to lead to security and police watching her and pulling her up if she browsed “for too long.”

“They just stare, they don’t make it a secret, but would they stare like that if I was white?”

“I got nowhere else but the parks and the Mission Centre, and like anyone I got to buy some food and essentials to live. And this can get me arrested. I’m often told to go but I just want to tell them all where to go.”

Marlene said that if she sits too long in a McDonalds this could lead to trouble. “We’re homeless you know.”

“The park is next to McDonalds. We need toilets. We need to eat something. We can afford (MacDonalds food), and sometimes some of us laugh a bit, talk up a bit and sit around there for an hour or so. All this can get us kicked out and even (in) trouble with the coppers. But if you’re white there’s no problem. But you know, well I’m not white.”

Abraham has lived on the streets for eleven years, and he sleeps near Perth’s Northbridge district. “Where else can I go? There’s no room for us at hostels. I sleep here and I don’t listen to them (about) being moved on. They can move me on and I come back. I don’t do any trouble even if they say I do. Look at me, I’m just an old small fella, do you believe I’m trouble to ‘em.”

“What I am, what I am, what I am, is black and homeless.”

“But this is my Country, where is it I should go?”

The Swan Valley Nyungah Community, also known as the Last of the River People, are coordinating a campaign to challenge the move-on-notices. Elder Herbert Bropho said that “the harassment should not go unnoticed.”

“Many of our people are harassed on the streets, some finish up injured. What they want is us out of sight. They may as well bring back the ‘notices’, put them up around town, that we need to be out by a certain hour.”

“Government does nothing for (our) homeless, other than keeping (them) homeless. We have families living on the streets who are constantly harassed, who are hit with move-on-notices, who finish up in Court, and these poor souls are then fined – that is that they are fined for being homeless,” said Mr Bropho.

“What is the difference with what they are doing with this sleight of hand with move-on-notices and the days when we were just banned. You may as well have the ‘blue line’ brought back, the ‘permits’ to enter the city brought back. At least that way they are wearing their heart on their sleeve.”