Labor under pressure for minimising sexual assault cases

The Fyles Labor government is facing claims it tried to minimise and even deny alarmingly high rates of child sex abuse in the Northern Territory.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Senator Jacinta Price on ANZAC Hill in Alice Springs on Thursday. Picture: Liam Mendes/The Australian

The Fyles Labor government is facing claims it tried to minimise and even deny alarmingly high rates of child sex abuse in the Northern Territory when its Treasurer, Eva Lawler, told a radio station: “Children have been sexually abused in Australia since, bloody, the place was probably settled”.

Ms Lawler made the remarks in a panel discussion on commercial Darwin radio on Friday about Peter Dutton’s visit this week to Alice Springs, where the withdrawal of alcohol restrictions last July caused havoc.

The reintroduction of some ­restrictions in January coincided with an immediate fall in overall crime and hospital admissions, but the Opposition Leader claims lawlessness has returned and there were children being regularly sexually abused.

He told the distressing story of a frontline worker taking a six-year-old back to the house where the child had been sexually abused while the child was “grabbing on to their legs, screaming not to be left there”.

NT Treasurer Eva Lawler.

Ms Lawler claimed Mr Dutton had used Alice Springs – and the issue of child sexual abuse – to ­deflect from the fact that the Liberal Party was in disarray over the Indigenous voice. The panel discussed the latest data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare showing child protection notifications in the NT were five times the national average, before a fellow panellist pointed to the 2018 rape of a two-year-old in Tennant Creek, saying it was later revealed that child protection ­notifications made that assault “a forseeable risk”.

Ms Lawler then said: “That’s right. But, you know, children have been sexually abused in Australia. Let’s you know, we can talk about the Catholic Church. Children have been sexually abused in Australia since bloody, the place was probably settled.”

On Friday night, Ms Lawler’s office issued a statement about her child sex abuse remark on radio.

“This is an issue that impacts every community around the world, not just the Territory and it’s not just something that developed overnight,” she said.

“It is incredibly frustrating when southern politicians who have never cared about the Territory fly in, throw around these criticisms and fly out.

“As a government, the care and protection of children is our absolute priority.

“If only Peter Dutton cared about Alice Springs when he was in power”.

The number of Indigenous children removed from their families and placed by case workers in out-of-home care is considered an important measure of child abuse. In Central Australia – which takes in Alice Springs – the number of Indigenous children in care has fallen over the past nine months. Data from the child welfare ­department, Territory Families, shows 143 Indigenous children were in care in Central Australia in July and August last year and climbed to 155 in November. After alcohol restrictions were reintroduced in January, the number of kids in care in the region fell to 136, to 129 in February and in March the figure was 131.

By contrast, the number of non-Indigenous children in care in Central Australia has increased from seven in July to 13 last month.

Those figures are useful only as an indicator of abuse – including neglect – that has been reported and substantiated. However this week Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the Country Liberal Party senator from Alice Springs, suggested ­official data was not a good indication of child abuse because Territory Families was not removing enough Indigenous children from their families.

She told The Weekend Australian she believed there were “high levels” of unreported abuse.

“People are scared to report or ashamed,” Senator Price said. “I had a cousin in my family who ­refused to get her daughter checked because she felt embarrassed.

“I’ve made reports in situations where I believe nothing has been done because I believe in the rights of our children to be protected.”

MP for Lingiari Marion Scrymgour. Picture: Martin Ollman/Getty Images

NT Police Minister Kate Worden.

On Friday the Labor MP for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour, slammed NT Police Minister Kate Worden – who had called Mr Dutton’s remarks on child sex abuse a “dog act” – and Territory Families.

Ms Scrymgour, who represents the seat holding the nation’s largest Indigenous population, told ABC Alice Springs on Friday: “Kate Worden and her department need to do their work.

“I think that there is a clear, a clear level of people not taking ­responsibility for dealing with these young people on the street.

“For goodness sake, 50 to 100 kids (out on the street late at night), that’s what I was told by the department and I cannot for the life of me work out why we can’t deal with those 50 to 100.

“I think Kate Worden needs to look at her department and herself, to look at the (legislative) act and to deal with this issue, and to deal with it now because there are way too many young people doing illegal things around Alice Springs and stealing cars and setting them on fire.

“The business community, everyone is sick of it now. I think we’ve got to break the neck of this and we’ve got to deal with it in an open (and) honest way.”