Shaun Austin's Wodonga house is filled with his twin brother's artwork: dozens of bright orange sunsets on canvas, engraved didgeridoos and thousands of intricate dots telling stories that have been passed down through generations.
Warning: This story contains the image of an Indigenous Australian who has died. His family has given permission to use his name and image.
Key points:
- Clinton Austin was the third Aboriginal man to die in custody in Victoria in the past 12 months
- Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody handed down its final report in 1991, more than 500 Indigenous people have died in custody
- The Victorian government said it was implementing reforms to reduce the rate of Aboriginal people on remand and in custody
They're some of the most precious things left behind by 38-year-old Gunditjmara and Wiradjuri man Clinton Austin, who died on September 11 at Loddon Prison, in central Victoria.
The cause of his death is not yet known and autopsy results are still months away.
Clinton was the second Aboriginal man to die in custody in Victoria in the space of a month and the third in the past 12 months.
"He showed how good of a person he was in his art," Shaun tells 7.30 from his mother's house in the town of Wodonga on the New South Wales-Victoria border.
"And in his heart, he had heart for everyone."
"His art was his love."
"On average, he would do two paintings a day when he was in prison."
Prison is where Clinton learned to paint, and where he started to learn about his Aboriginal heritage and reconnect with his culture.
It is also where he drew his last breath on September 11, in circumstances that remain murky.
"I can't help but feel the justice system took him away from us," Shaun says through tears.
It's been just over a week since he laid his twin brother to rest, and it will be several months until any more details are known through an inquest about how Clinton died in his prison cell.
The first day of the coronial inquest into his death on Friday heard that Clinton reported feeling unwell on the morning of September 11 when he reported to the prison medical centre for a supervised methadone dose.
By midday, he failed to present for the daily prisoner count and he was found unresponsive, slumped over in his cell.
The court heard no preliminary cause of death had been established and a toxicology report, as part of the autopsy, would take months to be completed.
'Come from a hard life'
In November 2020, Clinton Austin was sentenced to three and a half years' prison for aggravated burglary and other crimes, and was eligible for parole in January this year.
His family wants to know why he was still in prison when he was eligible for parole.
The long wait for so many answers has been painful for the Austin family, who are grieving a man they say brought the family back in touch with their Aboriginal heritage and taught them about their family history.
"He was always a family person, he always did what he could to keep us stuck together. And that's why he had the desire to find so much of our background history," Shaun said.
Shaun admitted he and his twin brother "got into mischief" growing up, and he described his brother as a "hardhead" with a "big heart" who struggled with mental health issues and drug addiction.
"We've come from a hard life, we had done some stupid stuff when we were younger," he said.
But he said his brother was determined to turn his life around and make a positive difference in his community when he left prison, and he dreamed of becoming an Aboriginal art teacher, passing on his knowledge and passion to the next generation.
'Becoming numb to the situation'
Clinton's death came more than three decades after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody handed down its final report, making hundreds of recommendations — some of which are yet to be implemented.
Since then, more than 500 Indigenous people have died, in a situation Marcus Stewart has called a "state crisis".
Mr Stewart is the co-chair of the First People's Assembly, a group that's currently designing a framework for treaty negotiations with Indigenous people in Victoria.
"I think it's (deaths in custody) happening so frequently that our fellow Victorians are becoming numb to the situation," he said.
"Our anger, our hurt, our cry is starting to be dismissed as just the norm when it's not."
He said reform was needed across the justice system.
"We need to see political appetite to deliver these reforms — to raise the age of criminal responsibility, to introduce bail reforms, to look at … policing for Aboriginal people."
'Step forward from there'
Shaun Austin is eager to bring about change too.
He wants to see the state's justice system overhauled, and now plans to become an advocate for prisoner rights, helping prisoners rehabilitate and break the cycle of reoffending.
"The whole point of the justice system is to make people make change, to see what they did wrong, and step forward from there," he said.
"And if the system's always going to be broken, then none of them are going to change."
In a statement, the Victorian government told 7.30 it was implementing reforms to reduce the rate of Aboriginal people on remand and in custody.
Shaun told 7.30 he was hopeful the inquest would bring about change, but added: "There's been many times before where inquests have been supposed to bring about change. And it doesn't mean it always happens."
"That's where someone needs to be making sure it happens."
Watch 7.30 Mondays to Thursdays at 7:30pm on ABC iview and ABC TV.
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2022-10-10 03:49:20Z
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