Calls to close Don Dale youth detention centre ignored

REPEATED demands to shut down the Northern Territory Don Dale youth detention centre have been ignored, lawyers and the union that represents youth justice officers claim.

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REPEATED demands to shut down the Northern Territory Don Dale youth detention centre have been ignored, lawyers and the union that represents youth justice officers claim.

It comes as calls are made to expand the royal commission into the scandal to include all Australian youth detention facilities and procedures.

“It (the royal commission) is fantastic. It’s exactly what we needed to see, a swift response from the Prime Minister,” North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency’s senior lawyer Jared Sharp said.

Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.

But Mr Sharp, who was instrumental in bringing the abuse to light, said the NT Government should not be running the commission.

He said it must be commonwealth-based and include inquiries into the government family services bureaucracy.

While the facility where heavy-handed tactics were used in 2014 has been mothballed, and Don Dale now sits in the former Berrimah adult prison, the Community and Public Sector Union said guard training, equipment and basic amenity remained substandard.

“We have been calling for several years for the closure of the Don Dale detention centre and the construction of a purpose-built facility that properly serves the needs of children, respects their rights and ensures the safety of children in custody, staff and visitors, including the provision of adequate rehabilitation services,” CPSU’s NT spokesman Simon Frazer said.

The Don Dale centre at Berrimah in Darwin houses up to 100 male and female minors, with an average of 40 detainees — aged 10 to 17 — two-thirds of whom are on remand awaiting court hearings. It contains a “high-security unit”, which can be used for solitary confinement, standard cell units, exercise and meals areas but is described as in a poor state of repair.

Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre.

PRIME MINISTER’S FURY AT ABUSE

MALCOLM Turnbull has launched a royal commission to “expose the culture” of torture-like treatment of children in the Northern Territory’s juvenile detention system.

The Prime Minister yesterday acted swiftly after disturbing CCTV footage of children subjected to torture-like treatment, including being tear-gassed, stripped naked and placed in solitary confinement for long periods, was aired on the ABC.

Mr Turnbull said he was “deeply shocked” and “appalled” by the footage and expressed concern that repeated inquiries into similar allegations by NT authorities had revealed nothing.

“The public are entitled to expect that when governments inquire into it, they will get to the bottom of it and those that have done the wrong thing will be identified and dealt with,” Mr Turnbull said yesterday.

“This needs a thorough inquiry. We need to move quickly on that, get to the bottom it, and expose what occurred and expose the culture that allowed it to occur and allowed it to remain unrevealed for so long.”

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (right) with Liberal member for Herbert Ewen Jones. Picture: AAP/Michael Chambers

But pressure is also building over what Mr Turnbull’s own administration knew of the events at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin, with Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion admitting it hadn’t “piqued” his interest, until a “fairly agitated” Mr Turnbull phoned him on Monday night telling him to watch Four Corners.

Senator Scullion said he was aware in October last year of “some commentary in the media” about the claims of torture thought it had been dealt with.

“I assumed that the Northern Territory Government were taking care of this matter and that I didn’t take any further action in that,” he said.

Senator Scullion said There could be “no excuse” for events in detention “anywhere in Australia”.

“It is all the more concerning when these youths are seemingly brutalised by the authorities we expect should be taking care of them,” he said.

The Northern Territory government went into major damage control, with Chief Minister Adam Giles stripping Corrections Minister John Elferink of his portfolio in wake of the footage,

But he retains his other portfolios including that of Attorney-General, Justice, Children and Families, Health, Disability, and Mental Health — putting him at odds with Senator Scullion, who said Mr Elferink must lose all his responsibilities.

Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, only a post-election holiday with family in Northern Australia, said he was ready and willing to work with the government on the royal commission.

“This national shame demands national action,” he wrote on Facebook.