Introduction by Croakey: In October 2023, after campaigning against the Voice, an initiative which was supported by more than 220 health groups, the Federal Opposition put a motion to the Senate calling for a Royal Commission into the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children.
The motion was voted down, a decision subsequently welcomed by leading Aboriginal scholars Associate Professor Hannah McGlade and Professor Kyllie Cripps, who called for an end to politicians “weaponising Aboriginal children to promote harmful political agendas”.
SNAICC also issued a statement, endorsed by multiple organisations and experts, saying that it was “frustrating and disappointing” to hear the Opposition again pushing for a Royal Commission. “The safety of children should not be politicised or used as a platform to advance a political position,” the statement said.
Signatories included the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organisations, Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Australia, Lowitja Institute, Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association, Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health Council, NPY Women’s Council, Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives, ACOSS, The Kids Research Institute Australia, The National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse, and NAPCAN – National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.
“These calls for a Royal Commission into the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children have been made without one shred of real evidence being presented,” the statement said. “They play into the basest negative perceptions of some people about Aboriginal people and communities.”
The statement called for a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Commissioner, with the legislated power to investigate and make recommendations on issues impacting children, and investment in community-controlled organisations working to support children and families wherever they live.
Meanwhile, the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, recently said that if elected, a Coalition Government would implement the Royal Commission as soon as possible, within its first 100 days.
Below, Professor James Ward, Director of the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health at the University of Queensland, adds his voice to concerns about the Opposition’s proposal, warning that it would be ineffective and not a smart use of resources.
James Ward writes:
Royal Commissions are a mechanism to investigate issues of significance in Australian society. The Commissions are independent of Government, they can propose hearings, compel witnesses, hear stories, and at the end of the day, write a report up with recommendations for Government to enact.
They are costly, timely and usually take years, if not decades, for all recommendations to be realised and implemented – if ever.
The Liberal National Party (LNP) has proposed, as one of the defining platforms in the pending election focused on Indigenous communities, the convening of a Royal Commission into addressing Child Sexual Assault in Indigenous communities.
The Little Children are Sacred Report, the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse and numerous other reports have details of the issues involved, the drivers, the gaps in reporting, the community solutions.
So instead of convening another Commission and a report, and expending another $30-50 million on a Royal Commission, review what already has been proposed, and change the systems and invest in communities.
To be honest, there are a multitude of issues that the LNP could have chosen that are worthy of a Royal Commission in Indigenous communities. Take housing, horrendous education outcomes, food security and supply, employment, businesses, or health outcomes, such as rheumatic heart disease, trachoma, or diabetes. But instead the LNP has chosen the issue of child sexual assault.
Don’t get us wrong here; there is no doubt that one case of child sexual assault is far too many. This creates a lifetime of trauma if not dealt with quickly. Australians are fully cognisant of this.
Choosing child sexual assault as an issue for a Royal Commission in Indigenous affairs, rather than any other issue, is deliberate, it is demagoguery at its best, and it seeks to polarise the rest of Australia against us.
This seems at odds with the LNP’s repeated claims that they are genuinely concerned about getting the job done in communities, and making practical changes in communities.
If this is the case, the LNP would be better putting efforts into some, all or more of the following:
- Make reporting of child sexual assault easier and safer for families and children, including safe spaces for families who have made reports
- Make the process faster and safer for families to reduce recantation
- Ensure the processes involved in reporting of child sexual assault are trauma informed
- Make communities safer for children
- Increase case detection of child sexual offenders in online environments
- Reduce disadvantage in communities
- Increase housing in communities to reduce overcrowding
- Increase appropriate and age specific education, to improve confidence and support for young people
- Education should focus on appropriate and inappropriate sexual behaviour, including sexual abuse, and personal safety
- Make counselling and other support available to people who have experienced child sexual abuse as children.
If the LNP achieved this list alone, then they will have made huge differences to the lives of Indigenous peoples, much more than a Royal Commission into Child Sexual Assault is going to achieve.
A Royal Commission is going to take years to complete, it is going to compel victims to retell their stories, it is going to polarise and demonise Indigenous communities and men, even more and once again.
There is also a risk that it tarnishes Aboriginal people as a community and somehow suggests that the rest of Australia is immune to child sexual abuse.
Child sexual abuse affects all Australians, and one case is one too many, whether you are black, white, brown or other.
A Royal Commission is not practical, nor pragmatic. A better investment would be to spend the funds required for a Royal Commission on making communities safer, reducing disadvantage, and making systems better for reporting and during the proceedings for the victims and their families. Then we are talking about practical changes.
Further, a Royal Commission is not going to guarantee that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are protected from abuse nor reduce the likelihood of them being sexually abused. But one thing is for certain: it will tell us what we already know needs to change.
There have been previous Royal Commissions in Aboriginal Affairs, probably the most notable being the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, released in 1991 with 339 recommendations.
Yet here we are, more than 30 years later, still with a pressing issue of over-representation of Aboriginal people in custody and dying in custody.
We cannot afford another Royal Commission with recommendations unaddressed for another generation or two; the costs are too high for families and communities, and we deserve better.
• Professor James Ward is Director, University of Queensland, Poche Centre for Indigenous Health
See Croakey’s archive of articles on Indigenous health
