A 24-year-old man who hit two Aboriginal pedestrians with his car and sped away, later bragging to his friends he’d run down an “oxygen thief”, has been spared actual jail time
The court heard Danby sent a series of “disgusting” text messages to his friends in the hours after the crash, in which he labelled the crash victims as “dogs” and “n***ers”.
No jail ? Lucky he didn’t run Charke Kirk down I guess.
I read this yesterday and just can’t shake it. It’s so fucked up.
I try remind myself of a study where members of the Australian public were asked if sentences were too lenient. The same question was asked of jurors from the actual court case. The results were that the public was far more likely to have the opinion that a sentence was too lenient where as the jury was more likely to believe it was appropriate. Normally considering this helps me take a step back from being outraged; Those who are closer to the case have considerations that aren’t making the paper.
This case has to be an exception though. I just can’t fathom how the judge arrived at such an abhorrently lenient sentence. This can only prove to indigenous people, and the family of the victims they don’t matter. I really hope there is some review on this sentencing to prevent this in the future.
He only showed ‘remorse’ when he realised he was facing gaol time. At that point, he’s only showing remorse for himself. The correct time to show remorse is immediately after it happened by stopping and rendering aid/calling emergency services. He might have even not been penalised at all if the pedestrians had actually stepped out in front of him without warning or time for him to avoid them. This whole judgement is completely fucked up.
Australia still treats its native population horribly. Nazi style horribly. Every single piece of news about the aborigines has been bad for decades, with little or no social assistance in any way.
When you accuse a human being of being an ‘oxygen theif’ at their trial, nazis are prevalent in society.
Fuck you, Australia.
Australia still treats its native population horribly.
Fair. Though this has been steadily improving and continues to improve.
Nazi style horribly.
No. While this was once true, it has not been true for about a century. Even the scandalous Stolen Generations, which was effectively an attempt at cultural genocide, was approached with the intent of improving the lives of Aboriginal peoples. The worst Australian policies of 50 years ago were not about rounding up and mass-murdering aboriginal people. If you throw Nazism around everywhere, you dilute the word. There is plenty of room for criticism of Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal people but don’t go overboard or you weaken your argument.
Nazism is illegal here:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-15/qld-man-charged-nazi-salute-at-afl-game-banned/105773522
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-04/vic-camp-sovereignty-charges/105732982
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/pm/neo-nazi-leader-arrested-in-melbourne/105727024But it is also present and we are fighting a war against it:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-01/authorities-condemn-anti-immigration-rally-perth-neo-nazi/105722068Every single piece of news about the aborigines has been bad for decades,
You probably only see the stuff that makes your feed globally and yes, there is plenty of news that is bad. But there’s lots that isn’t as well. The last piece of news I read before this article was about Cathy Freeman being inducted into Stadium Australia’s inaugural Hall of Fame list. Here: have some news that is nicer:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-16/cathy-freeman-ian-thorpe-stadium-australia-hall-of-fame/105777908
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-04/binar-futures-basketball-adam-desmond-perth/104653506
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-28/uni-program-pairing-first-nations-business-owners-students/103896464
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-13/intense:-stolen-generations-survivor-recounts/103458314
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-04/school-program-aims-to-keep-pertame-language-alive/102810296with little or no social assistance in any way.
Again, let me correct you here:
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/payments-and-support-for-indigenous-australians?context=60078
https://www.niaa.gov.au/our-work/grants-and-funding
https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/indigenous-australians-health-programme
https://www.indigenous.gov.au/grantsLook, I’m not saying we’re perfect on this front. Hell, I don’t even think I’d go so far as to say we’re good on this front. But we’re trying, ok?
Fyi there is no “attempt” at cultural genocide. Genocide is a crime in the act itself, regardless of the success of lack thereof in the outcome.
You aren’t wrong, but they didn’t think like that at the time. The racism was off the charts by today’s standards. It’s ghastly to look back on and the psychological damage this policy did is immeasurable and ongoing. But beyond all that, they truly were attempting to improve the lives of “the savages” as they saw it.
“The Board may assume full control and custody of the child of any aborigine, if after due inquiry it is satisfied that such a course is in the interest of the moral and physical welfare of such child. The Board may thereupon remove such child to such control and care as it thinks best.”
Oh yeah I get it. They didn’t think there was anything wrong with what they did at the time. I was merely addressing one part of your own comment:
which was effectively an attempt at cultural genocide
There’s no such thing as “an attempt at…genocide”. If the act was carried out with the intent to eradicate (even if, as was the case in Australia, they believed the eradication was in the best interests of the individuals), then the action is genocide, whether or not the targeted group actually ceases to exist.
If you think about it, that has to be the case. Otherwise we would say there has never been a genocide in history. The Nazis only attempted genocide against the Jews, Roma, gays, etc. But we don’t say that, we say what the Nazis did was genocide, even though Jews, Romani, and gay people still exist today. (And likewise, the genocide Israel is currently perpetuating against Palestinians is a genocide, not an “attempted” one, which is why the common genocide denialist’s attempt to point to numbers killed as a sign that it’s not genocide is irrelevant.)
The stolen generation continues under other names, Indigenous familes are still regularly torn apart in the name of child protection, Grand Mothers Against Removals is a group that works to keep children in community, you can read some more about them here
https://www.foe.org.au/grandmothers_against_removals
I’m not going to spend the time responding to every one of your points, but you might need to take a step back and think about you were so quick to ardently defend an imperialist settler colony
p.s.
something that is really irking me lately is the implication that the state banning racist hand gestures, and nazi flags is going to solve anything.
Banning nazi symbols only means nazis now march under the australian flag, the australian flag was already a colonial symbol, it comes from a time when the state was explicitly white supremacist. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
I have absolutely no idea how you can read the words “scandalous” and “cultural genocide” and think I was defending anything. I was saying that comparing the worst of government policies to literally rounding up every man, woman and child and outright murdering them is damaging to your argument. They are terrible failures in policy, but they are not comparable to Nazi policies.
the state banning racist hand gestures, and nazi flags is going to solve anything.
What exactly do you propose the government do instead? We can’t lock people away for what they think. We can only prosecute them when they do something like hate speech, waving Nazi flags or doing Nazi salutes.
@Nath
Uhh, isn’t “literally rounding up every man, woman and child” exactly what went on? What else would you call the hundreds of massacres that occurred up and down the continent? The colonisers lacked the twentieth century mechanised efficiency of the Nazis, but the intent was just as explicitly genocidal.
@manuallybreathingDoes Mastodon give you the context of the thread or just that one comment? Because in context, I was saying in the past century. I absolutely agree that this was going on before that.
Heads up, don’t use the word “aboriginees” to describe our first peoples. It’s Aboriginals or first nations for the most part.
But yeah fuck this cunt. That ruling was bullshit even for the NT
It’s amazing how much isn’t taught in school. And I know that won’t be surprising to those in other colonial states like the US and Canada but we learned about US segregation, Jim Crow, read/watched To Kill A Mockingbird, but didn’t know we’ve had the same kind of de facto segregated towns here in Australia within living history, complete with our own Freedom Ride in 1965. Luckily the union movement and communists eventually put a dent in it through boycotts and shoved the government into action.
Good thing you guys dont have guns
Lucky he didn’t run Charke Kirk down
I was just thinking in another thread, how easy it would have been to kill Kirk with a car and just get away with it. Because I don’t agree with your comment here. Using a car is the best way to get away with murder. You have to be extremely unlucky to get any significant penalty when you kill someone with your car. Just ask the killers of Michael Hall, Carolyn Lister, Philip Pawsey, Richard Pollett, Richard Burden, and countless others around the country. Most of those were never charged. The one that was charged was never convicted. And our government spends more effort removing memorials than it does on actually addressing the problem.
Much simpler than mushrooms.
It depends if they care about who you hit.
Which memorials has Albo been removing?
Not a federal thing. I was specifically thinking of the Brisbane City Council local government which was repeatedly removing “white ghost” memorials to Philip Pawsey…until the memorialists put a white ghost bike on a trailer parked in the bike lane (which is a legal place to park a car here…), which because it’s legally parked on the road, it would be illegal for them to remove. It ended up highlighting the irony of their failure to build proper infrastructure (i.e., separated bike paths where a car can’t park and thereby endanger cyclists) far more than a normal memorial would have.
Your nazis don’t think it’s a problem, they think it’s a perk.
Deal with your nazi problem, Australia.
Not sure you understand the context here. This is complaining about motornormativity and how people can get away with murder if they do it with a car. It’s got nothing to do with nazis.
Removed by mod
Hey, I didn’t violate any rules. I just suggested an apparently-legal activity 🤷
How grateful we must all feel knowing this man is able to continue on and be remorseful and contribute positively to our society. I don’t look forward to the next time he does something else fuelled by his racism and no longer has the isolated incident - I went to church one time (I’m sorry what?? How is this worth anything in a court of law?) - defence.
That cunt should be thrown in jail for his remarks alone
Nah, he’d likely fall to recidivism with the other nazis in jail.
He should be forced to do some sort of aboriginal related charity in a position where he can only help them and not harm them for the rest of his life.
