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

We, unashamedly, have directed this legislation to protect Indigenous children. We are very proud of that. We have crafted the legislation in that very way. As you have said, Senator Brown, you do not believe that the government are actually ignoring the other 80 per cent of the community—and we are not. This legislation is specifically targeting action in the Northern Territory in prescribed communities. In your own terms, Senator Brown, you said that 80 per cent of child abuse happens in white Australia. That means that 20 per cent of child abuse happens to Indigenous Australians—with only two per cent of the population. And as this report, the Little children are sacred report, and every other report has said, it is underreported. So any notion that it happens a lot more in white Australia is a nonsense. We are talking about 20 per cent of child abuse happening to Indigenous Australians, when they represent only two per cent of our population. That is the reason underpinning why this legislation specifically targets protecting those Indigenous children and that demographic that are being so cruelly treated.

We are not ashamed of that at all. You can call it racist. That is a very harsh term. I will not take offence at that, because I think your intent is that we have discriminated specifically to provide an outcome for the young of our First Australians living in these communities—and that is exactly what we have intended. To glibly say that this is about 20 per cent and 80 per cent really flies in the face of the fact that only two per cent of our population is Indigenous yet 20 per cent of the cases of child abuse happen in that tiny demographic. And, of course, there is all of the underreporting; so the figure could be a lot higher. We are responding specifically to this particular disaster. We could be responding to a disaster in another context and you could criticise: ‘What about the other side of the world?’ This is very targeted legislation in which our clear intent is to provide further and appropriate protection for the children of our First Australians.