Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

I would refer the senator to the title of the bill: the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007. The purpose of this bill is to provide further protection for the children—principally Indigenous children—and it is in response to the Little children are sacred report. While I accept the veracity of your statements, the intention of this legislation is to provide for those individuals in those prescribed communities. Whilst I accept that child abuse, wherever we find it in Australia, is something to be decried, this specific provision is in response to specific series of further protections so that we may further protect children in Indigenous communities. I again refer to the Little children are sacred  report, which did not indicate that we were dealing with large numbers of child abuse victims outside of Indigenous children in those communities. Whilst I accept your comment, this legislation is clearly targeted at providing for further protection of children in prescribed communities in response to a report that indicated that there was widespread, unreported and, in effect, serial abuse of Indigenous children in those communities. This legislation is specifically in response to that report.