Royal commission into mistreatment of youths in detention in NT

A screenshot sent by Ken Wyatt prompted the PM into action.

Screen grabs from the footage of prisoner abuse at the Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre in Darwin, broadcast by the ABC on Four Corners. Source ABC

Malcolm Turnbull sat down on Monday night for something that is all too rare these days — a quiet dinner with wife Lucy at their home in Sydney.

But clearly something was happening — text message after text message came through on his ­private phone.

People were texting him about the Four Corners program that was going to air as he ate.

There was one message, in particular, which caught his eye — from Ken Wyatt, the indigenous Assistant Minister for Health.

Wyatt included in his message a screenshot from the program — the now infamous picture of a boy being restrained with a hood over his head.

Turnbull sat at the dinner table looking at the image. It could have been Abu Ghraib — but it was here in Australia. Darwin.

As soon as he finished eating, the Prime Minister sat down and watched Four Corners on iView.

Immediately after, he began making phone calls.

He had a late-night phone hook-up with Attorney-General George Brandis, Indigenous Affairs ­Minister Nigel Scullion and Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles.

Turnbull listened to all the points of view — but the point he kept making was that previous ­inquiries had been held in the NT and yet still the abuses continued.

Given it is a territory, not a state, the federal government is ­responsible for the NT.

A quiet Monday night had turned into a crisis — and Turnbull went to bed contemplating a royal commission.

Yesterday, soon after waking, he held a 6.30am conference call with the same three men: Brandis, Scullion and Giles.

Again, after listening to the various points of view, the Prime Minister decided he would go ahead and call a royal commission.

All three agreed. Turnbull was particularly keen that the NT was behind the move, believing that it would only succeed with territory backing. He also wanted to make sure the terms of reference were narrow, thus ensuring the inquiry did not become open-ended.

Turnbull believed he had the support of Giles.

At 7.06am, he called his media staff. He wanted the phone number for the ABC’s AM radio program, which was minutes away from going to air on Radio National. Four minutes later, Turnbull was telling host Michael Brissen­den that he had decided on a joint royal commission with the NT.

Wyatt’s screenshot had helped make history — it galvanised the Prime Minister to decide on a royal commission into the treatment of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory.

And Turnbull’s decision has turned NT politics on its head, as the territory prepares for an ­August 27 election.

The Four Corners program showed the full brutality of Darwin’s Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre.

Though the centre was closed, the report was as much a story of the culture that permitted this ­cruelty as it was about the grim ­facility where it occurred.

The program carried pictures of the “restraint chair” in which a boy was tied down with a hood over his head; the Giles government ­recently legalised restraint chairs.

It began with the image of a clearly distressed boy trying to bash his way out of his cell.

It showed how one boy was kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.

It showed tear gas being fired into a confined space as four boys could be heard coughing; eight minutes later, the guards, with gasmasks, entered the room as the boys struggled to breathe.

It showed dogs on leashes brought in to deal with troubled children and a threat by one guard to “pulverise” one boy.

And — perhaps most revealing of all — it carried sound of the guards laughing and mocking the boys, as if they were mere playthings in some sick private world.

Immediately, the politicians ran for cover.

Giles claimed he had not seen the footage previously.

“This vision was new to me,” he insisted, when challenged at a news conference about why his government had not taken action when the practices at Don Dale were referred to him.

“The first time I saw the footage was on television last night.”

The Chief Minister said the NT police had ­advised him that “the majority” of the Four Corners footage was new to them, also.

Giles said previously such complaints were referred either to the Attorney-General’s Department or to police. His claim not to have known the extent of the crisis will be forensically tested in coming months as the royal commission begins, as early as September.

Previous reports had referred to these events and, given the footage was government CCTV footage, it would not have been new to him had he asked for it or his minister had suggested he watch it.

Attempting to handle the political fallout, Giles claimed there was “a culture of cover-up” in the NT corrections system.

It was clear, though, from the questions he faced at yesterday’s news conference that few of the journalists based in Darwin ­believe this claim. And there is evidence to suggest that if he did not know what was going on, it was ­because he did not want to know.

Inquiry after inquiry has shown the crisis in juvenile detention. In 2008 the territory’s Children’s Commissioner, Howard Bath, handed a report on the matter to the former CLP government.

The Australian later reported that Bath found the Aboriginal child placement principle — that Aboriginal children should be placed with a relative or other ­Aboriginal carers if possible — sometimes took precedence over child safety.

In 2011 former opposition ­leader Jodeen Carney chaired a ­review that told the government that if the needs of juvenile detainees were not addressed, “how can we expect them to change their ­behaviours?”

Last year veteran NSW juvenile justice worker Michael Vita conducted a review that found ­indigenous youth made up about 97 per cent of the detainee population.

It found a lack of understanding of adolescent behaviour often caused by a history of trauma, symptoms of foetal alcohol syndrome and behaviour associated with ADHD and other mental health issues.

It also found “an ­unhealthy over-reliance on inexperienced casual and temporary staff on a shift-by-shift basis supervising young detainees with difficult and challenging behavioural ­problems”.

Despite his protestation that he did not know the extent of the crisis, Giles moved quickly into royal commission mode yesterday.

He spent the morning touring juvenile detention facilities to ­ensure they met acceptable standards — Four Corners showed that for several boys the only water in their cell was toilet water.

Giles said all video footage relevant to the commission has been “ring-fenced” so it could not be tampered with. He also said he would take over ­responsibility for corrections, standing down the minister, John Elferink.

Giles said he and federal ­Attorney-General Brandis had agreed the royal commission — to be jointly funded by both governments — should be conducted in “the shortest time possible”.

The Chief Minister hoped that witness statements could begin as early as September and that the ­report could be brought down early next year.

But with what appeared to be an eye on his electoral fortunes and the need to be seen to be strong on law and order, Giles said the community had had “a gutful” of crime.

“The majority of the community is saying let’s lock these kids up,” he said, before adding: “This is not a blame game, this is recognising there are children who are neglected, unloved and causing trouble in the streets.”

Giles said his government had already closed Don Dale because of problems associated with it and that he had decided to build a new youth detention facility.

Territory Opposition Leader Michael Gunner struck a similar tone to Giles yesterday.

“Nobody could watch that footage last night and think that is how we should treat children,” he said.

Interestingly, Gunner accepted that the Labor Party should take responsibility for failings with juvenile justice when it was in power. The priority for troubled youths needed to be early intervention and preventive matters, he said.

Legal academics are divided over whether royal commissions are ultimately effective.

This commission has a better chance than many of succeeding because it will probably be tightly focused, says Greg Craven, vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University.

“A quick royal commission is a good royal commission,” Craven tells The Australian.

“If you have a royal commission into a particular example of malfeasance to find out who’s to blame and what happened, you are more likely to succeed.

“History is full of royal commissions that have done very good work on policy questions but have not been implemented.”

Craven says often a ministerial or parliamentary inquiry has better chance of succeeding ­because a particular minister has commissioned it and wants to implement its recommendations.

“Sometimes royal commissions can report into a vacuum.”

The dean of law at the Univer­sity of NSW, George Williams, says royal commissions always have an overt political purpose.

“This reflects their character as inquiries established by the executive — that is, the government of the day,” Williams says. “The objective might be to ­secure political advantage or to ­respond to public demand. They also have a key policy purpose in arming the government with the information it needs to move forward in an area, often one that has given rise to community alarm, or long-­running debate.”

But Williams cautions that the outcomes of such commissions are mixed because “sometimes passions have cooled” and therefore the political momentum for reform may not be as strong once a royal commission has concluded.

“Equally, even powerful recommendations by a royal commission may not be matched by political will, or the political cycle may defeat aspirations for ­reform.

“On other occasions, they have no doubt had a powerful influence in raising part public awareness of an issue, and acting as a catalyst for reform.”

But in Darwin, the battle now will be over who takes responsibility for this crisis.

Last year, the former commissioner of correctional services, Ken Middlebrook, offered a novel approach. The problem was the new type of inmates, he said, who had ­become more violent.

Middlebrook said: “We had a new type of offenders coming through — more violent, younger.

“They were causing some real management issues for us.”

He made no mention of the ­violent prison guards in whose care these offenders were placed.

Reviews, recommendations, recriminations

2011 Former opposition leader Jodeen Carney chairs a review of the Northern Territory youth justice system

2012 NT children’s commissioner Howard Bath produces a report into the sustained maltreatment of Dylan Voller. Details remain secret for two years

August 2014 Don Dale detainees escape, sparking “a riot”. Authorities say a dog squad was brought in and one boy tear-gassed. Public outcry leads to the Vita review, by long-serving NSW Juvenile Justice worker Michael Vita

October 2014 Details of Bath report made public via a letter to parliament

February 2015 Vita review identifies almost 50 serious incidents, including assaults, escapes, riots, tear-gassing, excessive force and intimidation. It makes 16 recommendations. Corrections minister John Elferink says, “It’s the bloody parents’ fault.

I am aghast at the neglect, abuse and sexual abuse of the children in our community. Many of those kids sadly end up in these facilities.”

May 2015 Police begin investigating claims about the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre

September 2015 NT Children’s Commissioner Colleen Gwynne’s investigation into Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre is released after it was suppressed for 12 months. Report finds youths were locked up for days in “conditions akin to the United Nations’ definition of torture” and the use of tear gas, spit hoods, inappropriate handcuffing and excessive solitary confinement

July 2016 On Monday, the ABC airs footage showing indigenous boys stripped naked, tear-gassed and held in solitary confinement for weeks at Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre and old Berrimah adult prison in 2014 and 2015

Yesterday Malcolm Turnbull announces a royal commission into the mistreatment of offenders in Northern Territory juvenile detention centres.

John Elferink is sacked as Northern Territory’s corrections minister and the NT government pledges a new centre if re-elected