The Royal Commission was announced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull following the broadcast of shocking footage obtained by the ABC’s Four Corners program of the abuse and torture of detainees in Darwin’s Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.
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In the footage 17-year-old Dylan Voller was shown hooded and tied in a restraint chair for two hours.
“Amnesty International has repeatedly raised concerns of abuse of children being held in youth detention centres in the Northern Territory”, Julian Cleary, indigenous rights campaigner at Amnesty International Australia, said.
Turnbull told reporters, “Like all Australians, we were shocked and appalled by the images of mistreatment of children at the detention center”.
“I certainly think we need some kind of Government-based independent commission, whether it’s a full royal commission or not I don’t know”, she said.
“Anybody who saw that footage on television last night on “Four Corners” would undoubtedly describe it as horrific footage”, Giles said at a news conference Tuesday, according to ABC.
Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles has insisted he was not aware of the extent of the abuse, as calls mounted for him to resign after comments he made in 2010 urging criminals to be put “in a big concrete hole” resurfaced Wednesday.
In 2014, it was reported that prison guards tear-gassed six teenagers, one of whom was Voller, when they “tried to escape a facility in Darwin after arming themselves with glass, barricading doors and smashing windows and light fittings”.
The royal commission has been welcomed by human rights groups and Labor has announced bipartisan support, saying it shouldn’t be limited to the issues at Don Dale and should address systemic issues in the justice system that spread across Territory prisons.
Other footage showed Dylan, aged 13, being thrown thrown across his cell, kneed and knocked to the ground. before he was stripped naked and kept in solitary. “Deeply shocked. We have moved swiftly to get to the bottom of it”, the prime minister told ABC radio.
Four Corners Executive Producer Sally Neighbour said Tuesday that the videos were removed from Facebook.
Indigenous elder and shadow assistant Indigenous affairs minister Pat Dodson said it was a matter of “utter shame”.
Unfortunately, while some people may indeed find it hard to believe that such abhorrent behaviour could take place on Australian shores, there have been plenty of warnings from those involved in the detention system – and not just in the Northern Territory – about the impacts of this country’s climbing rates of incarceration.
“I might break every United Nations” convention on the rights of the prisoner but “get in the hole”, he said.
Turnbull said that the public inquiry, which is likely to be led by a former judge, would be held in conjunction with the Northern Territory government.
“This centre has been a controversial one in the past, and there have been as we know, inquiries into it in the Northern Territory”, he said.
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“The impact of these years of brutalization must be immediately measured and he needs immediate assistance”, he said.
