Let’s put the $35 million the NT government is forking out to pay former detainees into perspective

The $35 million the NT government is forking out to pay former youth detainees is a lot of money, but we need to put it into perspective.

THIRTY-FIVE million dollars is a hell of a lot of money.

The eye-watering sum is the amount the NT government has agreed to fork out to pay up to 1200 former detainees who were mistreated inside facilities such as the infamous Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.

And while this large cheque is a lot to be handing out to young people, some of whom have committed horrific crimes, it is an important acknowledgment of the pain caused to them.

It was one of the darkest days in the Territory’s – and indeed Australia’s – history when the final report from the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory was handed down in 2017.

It showed us things – some that we already knew – about the systemic failings of our youth justice system, and its impact on some of the Territory’s most vulnerable people.

The use of tear gas, spit hoods and excessive force were among some of the shocking revelations.

It doesn’t take a Royal Commission to know that this sort of treatment was damaging children, not rehabilitating them.

And as the detainees’ legal team point out, no amount of money can undo the harm inflicted. But we must do something.

We should remember the words of former chief minister Adam Giles as we look to move past this blight on our history: “A community is judged by the way it treats its children.”

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