Crikey

In the normal practice of criminal law in Australia there is no difficulty with a case where nine males plead guilty to having s-xual intercourse with a 10-year-old girl. Any allegation of consent provides no defence and virtually no mitigation. A child of ten cannot consent. The offenders are paedophiles and would be expected to be sentenced to jail for a number of years. If some offenders were minors, they would still be locked up for years rather than months. The ethnic background of the girl would be totally irrelevant – all girls of that age are entitled to full protection of the law.

Aboriginal men are grossly over-represented in the jails of Australia. Nobody seriously contends that jail helps them, other than to dry them out from alcohol and drugs. Every effort should be made to reduce the social causes that put them there. On the other hand, the undeniable fact is that they are in jail because they have committed crimes.

The central problem is that the crimes Aboriginal men commit are mainly crimes against Aborigines and mostly against Aboriginal women and children. Who is the victim? Should the law protect the Aboriginal men by not jailing them or should the children be protected by proper sentences?

In the end, the law must be applied equally. The Aboriginal men and youths in this case should receive the same penalties as whites would receive. If the white criminal law is not to be applied to Aborigines then they should be specifically exempted from the Crimes Act. It is not good enough to have unelected white Judges exempt them.

A choice must be made. The criminal law must be applied equally. Children must be protected. If the Aboriginal jail population doubles, then so be it. The Howard/Rudd drive into the Northern Territory must be extended nationwide. We must cut off the grog and protect our Australian children. Part of that process will be the jailing of Aboriginal offenders.

For what it is worth, my sad and depressing view is that there is not much that we can do for most of the adult Aboriginal population. Most of them are lost forever. The only way we can save the Aborigines is to save the children. This involves two things. First, they must go to school. No exceptions. Second, many of them must be taken away from their parents for good. The parents are destroying their own children as they themselves have been destroyed. This must be stopped.

Tragically, the concept of the “Stolen Generation” has been genocidal in its effect. Governments are too scared to take children away. It seems to me that it would be better for this 10-year-old girl to be part of some alleged Stolen Generation than to be consenting to daily s-xual intercourse. The choices are stark and unpleasant but the right one must be made.

On top of all this, Rudd is about to say “sorry” to the “Stolen Generation”. Now is the time to act to stop the destruction of the Aboriginal people. Political correctness and symbolic gestures are literally killing them.