PM finally faces the facts
Child abuse in Top End must stop
NEWSPAPERS are at their best when they make the powerful uncomfortable and force action from those who are doing nothing.
That’s exactly what happened when the NT News forced the Prime Minister to finally engage in the national shame that is the endless sexual and physical abuse of kids in the Top End.
For months we have read about a new wave of assaults, the worst of which was the rape of a two-year-old girl.
Over time we have learnt about the endless opportunities for this child to be saved from a destructive home and have not seen a single person fired for their failure.
This all lands on the Prime Minister’s desk because he was so quick to call a Royal Commission into apparent abuse at the now defunct Don Dale detention centre.
Malcolm Turnbull was so moved by a TV show reporting the abuses that, by the next morning, he announced swift action and offered plenty of condemnation to all involved. He has been largely silent on the problems in the NT and North Queensland.
He said nothing when reports emerged that babies are being stillborn in FNQ because the mothers have syphilis, a condition that can be treated with a couple of trips to a GP.
The NT News has been relentless in their pursuit of the bureaucratic failures and excuses that have condemned yet another generation of kids to squalor and abuse.
They, like me, believe there is no future for these kids if we all look the other way and let abusers hide behind the excuse of culture for the most unforgivable of crimes.
The spark that set them off was a comment from Turnbull where he essentially put the issue in the complicated or too hard basket.
Their front page on Thursday screamed “It’s been four months since the rape of a twoyear-old girl sparked a national crisis and nine months since he has set foot inside the Territory. The missing in action Prime Minister for the East Coast has shown he … simply does not care.”
It was a scream from Darwin heard the country over.
The paper often quoted for its unique, and often funny, take on life in the NT was sick of it.
The Prime Minister’s first response was to joke about the headline not including a crocodile, a possible attempt to ridicule the newspaper’s place in the media.
But by the end of the day he was forced to acknowledge his own failures, announcing he would meet with the Mayor of Tennant Creek on Monday and come to the NT during August.
Was the headline hurtful to the PM who takes great pride as a grandfather?
Yes, but that’s what it took to make him see what we see.
Ignoring abuse stands in the way of a baby born in Tennant Creek this weekend from a life where they can grow to be whatever they want.
Maybe even Prime Minister one day.
Congratulations to the NT News, my Sky News colleague, Matt Cuningham, and News Corp chief reporter, Paul Toohey, for never giving up on this story, and more importantly, the kids in the NT.