Northern Territory chief minister refers report to royal commission instead of making it public, but denies change is related to August election

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Royal commission into the protection and detention of children in the Northern Territory

Adam Giles has reneged on his commitment to release the most recent report into the justice system, despite defending his government against the recent Four Corners exposé, which he said broadcast old footage and only told half the story.

As the fallout over the Don Dale abuses continues, a leading Indigenous educator has asked “what is wrong with Australia?”, and said the staff shown in the broadcast should be jailed.

The Northern Territory government, led by Giles, is under increasing pressure over its running of the youth justice system, after the alleged abuse of several boys in detention made international news and sparked a royal commission, just four weeks out from the territory’s election.



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Giles has defended his government and the improvements it has made in the problem-plagued system and repeatedly said he would release the “root and branch review of juvenile corrections”, conducted by the former director general of corrections in Queensland Keith Hamburger.

But on Friday it emerged the report would no longer be released to the public.

Giles denied he was holding the report back because of the upcoming 27 August election.

“I’ve read both reports and neither report says everything’s hunky dory in the corrections system,” he told Mix 104.9 radio on Monday.

“Both say things need to be done but both also say there has been a lot of improvements made,” he said.

On Sunday Giles told journalists the Hamburger review’s recommendations conflicted with another conducted by academic Marcia Langton and others, as well as with those from last year’s Vita review.

“So the best thing to do is, instead of complicating the issue, give those reviews to the royal commission and let them take those findings and recommendations and have a look at some of those learnings and come forward with its recommendations,” Giles said on Sunday.

He dismissed suggestions he needed to rebuild trust with the community after the Four Corners broadcast, and that releasing the reviews would assist that aim.

“Four Corners was a one-sided story that didn’t have a look at the full responses that have been put into place over the last four years,” he said.

“To typify images that are six years old as current events, there’s been a lot of changes gone to date and I think people in the community know that.”

He also said the government had to find a balance within law and order because “many of those young offenders haven’t been the best citizens in our community”.

He said Territorians knew “the other side” of the story.

Indigenous educator and Rirratjingu woman Yalmay Yunupingu said she was “disgusted” by what she saw on Four Corners, and that the staff featured in the show should be jailed themselves.

“Doing it to Indigenous children, it’s just sad really,” she said. “They are only kids and they’re human beings. Is it because they were black? I would think like that.”

Yunupingu, the wife of the late Dr Yunupingu, made the comments to Guardian Australia at last week’s Garma festival, held on her family’s country in northeast Arnhem Land.

“I just cried the whole way through. I was looking at it and I could see my children from here, from Yirrkala. If they were to be treated like [those kids] were, we would all stand and fight.”

Yunupingu questioned whether mistreatment occurred elsewhere around the country and whether the same punishment would be given to non-Indigenous boys.

“Do other people in other jails do the same, treat the kids like that? What is wrong with Australia? What is wrong with its people?”

Yunupingu is an honorary university fellow at Charles Darwin University and a passionate advocate for education and bilingual “two ways” teaching in remote Indigenous communities.

She said many children needed better education – including inside facilities like Don Dale – and stronger guidance and role models in order to learn right from wrong.

“I think sometimes we have to blame the parents for not looking after the kids,” she said.

“Always kids are looking for love, for a parents’ love. Sometimes that’s why they do naughty things. Sometimes they hang out with naughty kids, naughty kids that shouldn’t be a good place for them to be with them.”

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Her comments came at the end of the Garma festival, where anger at the NT government and its running of the youth justice system spilled over into the otherwise wide ranging discussions among Indigenous leaders, politicians, and professionals.

Meanwhile, Dylan Voller, the detainee who featured heavily in the Four Corners program, has sent a message to the public to say not all guards have treated him badly.

Voller sent the message through youth justice advocate, Antoinette Carroll, the Alice Springs News reported. Carroll said improvements have been made in youth justice, and urged the royal commission and whichever party wins the NT election not to try and “reinvent the wheel”.