Two indigenous musicians who attended a traditional ceremony in Darwin were refused three pre-ordered taxis in a row until a fourth finally stopped for them. The two hopeful travellers were the brother and uncle of beloved indigenous singer-songwriter Gurrumul.

As NT News reports, Skinnyfish Music co-director Michael Hohnen, who witnessed the incident, said racism is rife across Australia. He said taxi drivers often refuse fares to indigenous would-be passengers who hail or even book a cab.

“I’ve seen it time and time again over my 20-plus years working with indigenous artists,” he said. “I see how hard it is for them to get a cab.” Mr Hohnen was with Jonathan and Djunga Djunga Yunupingu, Gurrumul’s “main songwriters”, who’d just attended a funeral.

Mr Hohnen booked a taxi for the men from Fannie Bay shops when the drama unfolded on Friday afternoon. “We called a cab around 5pm and it turned up and saw them and drove away,” he recounted. “It was pretty shocking. It was a good $60-$100 fare to Casuarina and then Palmerston.”

Sadly, Mr Honhen said the two songwriters didn’t wish to make a fuss over the incident because they were “used to it” and “don’t blink these days” when encountering racism.

“They are educated, good people… the only thing that stood out was that Jonathan had some white paint on his face from the ceremony,” Mr Hohnen said.

“They were upset about it, and I was upset watching it, so I asked if they minded if I posted about it on Facebook and the uncle said to say how offended he was and how it wasn’t the right thing for the driver to do.”

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“I rang the company and they said they were sorry and would send another cab straightaway,” Mr Hohnen continued. “A cab came back, saw the guys and drove off again, I couldn’t tell if it was the same driver or not. I called the cab company again, they sent another cab and it happened a third time.”

“It wasn’t until the fourth attempt that a driver stopped and I can almost guarantee (the driver) wouldn’t have stopped if I hadn’t been there.” Mr Hohnen has since reported the incidents to the Blue Taxi Company.

“More people need to be reporting this stuff for policies to be brought in to prevent it happening,” he said. Gurrumul himself was a victim of a similar incident in Melbourne back in 2012. The blind singer had just performed a show with Missy Higgins when he saw a cab stop and speed off once the driver saw him.

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