Queensland police who arrested author Chelsea Watego did not also approach ‘aggressive white man’ at scene, tribunal hears

Indigenous academic alleges treatment by two officers during 2018 arrest amounted to unlawful discrimination on basis of her race, a claim the officers and state government denies

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Two Queensland police officers who arrested and handcuffed prominent First Nations writer and academic Chelsea Watego have told a tribunal they did not also approach or investigate an allegedly aggressive white man" who was also the focus of nightclub security guards at the time they arrived.

The Queensland civil and administrative tribunal heard this week that police arrested Watego, a Munanjahli and South Sea Islander woman, within 18 seconds of arriving at the front of The Beat nightclub in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley in 2018.

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