The ABC program likened the juvenile detention system to Guantanamo Bay in the United States showing footage of a 17-year-old strapped into a mechanical restraint chair in the Northern Territory’s Don Dale detention facility, along with a series of other videos, showing the repeated stripping, assault and mistreatment of him and other boys including the use of tear gas.
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“We need to understand how it was that there were inquiries into Don Dale (youth detention centre) as a place where there had been allegations and claims of abuse … that did not produce the evidence that we’ve seen last night”, he said.
Mr Giles said the footage that aired on ABC’s Four Corners had been withheld from him, Mr Elferink and other officials in what he called a “culture of cover-up within the corrections system”.
“This morning I assumed the role and responsibility of Corrections Minister for the Northern Territory”, NT Chief Minister Adam Giles said at a brutal press conference when he was even asked whether the public could take the government seriously in wake of the controversy.
Below is a summary of the main issues leading up to the announcement of the royal commission on Tuesday.
Its Australia director Elaine Pearson said what happened at the Don Dale Centre was “a classic example of how not to deal with troubled youth”.
However vision obtained by the ABC program, showed only one boy had escaped his cell in the isolation wing of the prison, known as the Behavioural Management Unit (BMU).
In one video, a 17-year-old child is hooded, shackled to a “mechanical device” chair and left alone for two hours.
Other footage, taken in 2010, showed Dylan, then 13, being thrown across his cell, kneed and knocked to the ground, repeatedly stripped naked and kept in solitary confinement.
He was stripped naked numerous times, held on the floor and forcefully restrained by guards in 2014-15.
On Monday night’s Q&A program, Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs described the footage as “extremely distressing” and called for a formal inquiry.
Indigenous elder and shadow assistant Indigenous affairs minister Pat Dodson said it was a matter of “utter shame”.
“Like all Australians, I have been deeply shocked, shocked and appalled, by the images of mistreatment at the Don Dale centre”, Mr Turnbull said.
“A community is judged by the way it treats its children and serious questions were raised”, he said in a statement.
Save the Children said the inquiry needed to be Australia-wide and not just into the Northern Territory.
“The fact young people have been treated in this manner obviously shows there’s no concept of the duty of care, which is a principle matter highlighted in the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody”, he told ABC radio today.
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“I think over time there has most certainly been a culture of cover-up within the Corrections system”.
