Her story should not be diminished because of the colour of her skin, writes Matt Cunningham

A BRAVE woman ventured to Canberra this week to try to tell a tragic but important story … Yet Cheron’s story was largely ignored, writes MATT CUNNINGHAM

• FULL SPEECH: Cheron Long challenges pollies, protesters to see NT violence for themselves
• Woman challenges pollies to come to the NT to see violence in communities
• Family takes fight for justice for heartbreaking death to Canberra

A BRAVE woman ventured to Canberra this week to try to tell a tragic but important story.

It was the story of her cousin, a 15-year-old girl who had died after being sexually assaulted.

It was a story of the attempts to try to cover up what had happened to her.

Of chronic failures from government agencies that should have done more to protect her in the years before she died.

Of her horrific final hours and the brutal assault before her death.

Of the failure of police to properly investigate her death.

Of the silence that greeted detectives when they did try to find out what had happened.

The story of a death that had been written off as a suicide, but after a coronial investigation, is again being investigated as a possible homicide.

It’s a story well known in the Northern Territory.

The girl, Layla Leering, was one of three teenagers whose deaths, in similarly tragic circumstances, had been examined last year by the coroner.

MORE MATT CUNNINGHAM OPINIONS

Speech must remain free in a democracy

Alice Springs crisis must be fixed

Cocaine sex scandal proves again there’s no openness in Labor

Yet beyond our borders few people would know these girls’ names.

Layla’s cousin, Cheron Long, set out to change that.

She’d grown up with Layla in Bulla, the community where she died in 2017.

Now Cheron was in Canberra, desperate to bring attention to this tragedy in the hope that something might change so this sort of thing never happens again.

The timing should have been perfect. Just a week earlier thousands of people had marched at rallies around the country demanding justice for women who were tired of being the victims of sexual assault.

At one of those rallies in Canberra the crowd had cheered Brittany Higgins, the brave woman who had come forward with allegations she’d been raped by a fellow Liberal staffer in the office of Defence Minister Linda Reynolds.

Her treatment had been disgraceful.

The government’s attempts to cover it up even worse.

Cheron’s visit came in the same year Grace Tame had been made Australian of the Year.

Jacinta Price, Cheron Long and Meesha Long travelled to Canberra to share Layla Leering’s story.

Another brave woman who had stood up and said the sexual abuse of women would no longer be tolerated — and that victims should be free to come forward and tell their stories.

The issue of men in positions of power abusing women had reached such a point in our nation’s consciousness that it had knocked almost everything else off the front pages of our newspapers, even as floods ravaged the east coast and we continued to deal with a global pandemic.

Yet Cheron’s story was largely ignored.

Her visit was covered by this newspaper, Sky News and The Australian.

But the dozens of journalists in the Canberra press gallery deemed it unworthy of their attention.

It’s difficult to understand why.

Perhaps they saw it as a distraction from the scandal enveloping Parliament House.

Perhaps it was because Cheron had travelled to Canberra with Alice Springs deputy mayor Jacinta Price.

It’s more than four years since Price sent a stunned silence across the room at the National Press Club, recounting her own experiences of family violence and abuse.

At the time it seemed that might be the moment where the nation finally started paying attention to some of the Northern Territory’s hidden atrocities. But the caravan soon moved on.

HOT NEW DEAL: $1 for 28 days subscription offer

Today, Price is labelled “controversial”, a moniker never given to non-Aboriginal women who campaign against domestic violence.

Or perhaps Cheron Long was ignored because we continue to treat the remote communities of the Northern Territory as though they’re part of some far-flung third world nation.

Still out of sight and out of mind.

When she spoke to a group of politicians on Wednesday, Cheron Long had a simple question.

“Why is it that Aboriginal women and children suffer the most but they won’t let us have our own voice when it comes to violence and sexual abuse in this country? Why won’t they let us tell our own story?”

Like Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame, Layla Leering was a young Australian who suffered horrific abuse.

Her story should not be diminished because of the colour of her skin.