Can we care about more than one issue? Can we walk and chew gum, Australia?

Do we care more about asylum seekers wanting to get to Australia than the plight of Aboriginal children already living here?

A 29-second grab sent Twitter into meltdown, but do we really care?Credit: Twitter

On Saturday night, having read the devastating report into the suicides of 13 Western Australian Aboriginal children and young persons by State Coroner Ros Fogliani, I began an interview with former WA Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan on my Sky News program, The Front Page, with this:

“While as a nation we cannot stop talking about the Phelps Medivac Bill, where Dr Phelps said ‘This humanitarian and medical crisis must have a solution’, it seems we don’t want to talk about what is happening in our own backyard. It begs the question: Do we care more about refugees and asylum seekers than Aboriginal children in remote communities, or is it that it’s all just too hard in the wake of the Stolen Generation?”

This 29-second portion of my introduction was tweeted and viewed more than 50,000 times.

In fact, on Twitter, the argument that we can both walk and chew gum was made repeatedly.

Dr Phelps tweeted “We can care about both. #giveashit".

What Twitter did not see was the rest of my introduction or the ensuing discussion. The Medivac Bill and another story had been reported the day before, but the former was getting the attention.

“It was front page news on The Australian last night, the tragic story of Case 6,” I continued, reading a passage from the paper

“... from 2009 to 2013, the suicide rate in the Kimberley was three times the national average.

"Fogliani’s report cited claims that the rate of suicide by Aboriginal people in the Kimberley, particularly the youth, was one of the highest in the world.”

One of the highest in the world. That fact sat with me all day.

Of the 13 suicides, and in particular the child known as ‘Case 6’, O’Callaghan, a passionate advocate for Indigenous children, who had spearheaded Operation Fledermaus in 2016, said:

“There’s all sorts of debate about removing Aboriginal kids from these environments because people are still worried about the perception of the Stolen Generation, but in trying to keep these Aboriginal kids in contact with their culture, we are actually risking their safety, and in this instance it’s clear that that child should have been taken away from there and placed somewhere else in the system for their safety – safety first, culture second”.

In 2017, media reports of rampant child sex abuse stemming from police Operation Fledermaus surfaced.

The ABC reported that the numbers were huge, with 36 men charged with 300 offences and 184 victims. There were scores more suspects.

For a year, the Opposition’s Nick Goiran has been asking if any of those children are still in danger.

In March 2018 he joined me on my radio program on 6PR to ask the question.

Due in part to the remoteness of Roebourne, accurate information is difficult to come by.

And sadly, it seems even harder to get people to care. Out of sight, out of mind. The 'too-hard' basket.

I see reaction first-hand in talk radio.

If I ask listeners about refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus, I’m guaranteed callers either for or against the policy. Passionate, informed responses.

When I talk about Roebourne, or Aboriginal children taking their own lives, as I did on January 27 with panellist and Indigenous Affairs correspondent Paige Taylor and Indigenous Health Minister Ken Wyatt, I’m met with silence or muted responses.

My question remains, is it simply too hard to discuss? Are people afraid of being labelled racist, are they immune to the tragedy, do they feel helpless?

In response to the Sky News tweet, Professor Marcia Langton tweeted: “Don’t use us as an excuse to torture and kill asylum-seekers. We see you & we know that nothing will ever stop many of you from trying to destroy us. Sensible Australians will understand that they don’t have to choose between letting them live and letting us live.”

That was never my intention.

But we do have to ask ourselves some very hard questions. These are our children. They are dying on our watch.

Later, Professor Langton tweeted: “Everyone’s gone quiet on the WA Coroner’s report on the suicides of 13 children and young persons in the Kimberley region, so I’ll post the report here” and included a link.

I sincerely hope that the 947 people who retweeted that link read the report.

On Friday, the NT News reported: “Today marks one year since the horrific rape of a two-year-old girl in the Territory town of Tennant Creek and in the past financial year, the number of child protection notifications received by Territory Families has leapt from 22,313 to 24,743 — with 80 per cent of reports relating to Aboriginal children."

Of those notifications, “2110 incidents were substantiated, revealing 1744 NT kids had been, were being, or were likely to be, abused, neglected or otherwise harmed".

I hope that Twitter is right, that we really can walk and chew gum.

Because in Dr Phelps' words, "this humanitarian and medical crisis must have a solution".