Comments on: SA’s Indigenous report confirms: we must act now

By: Patrick Grant

Patrick Grant — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Support completely Jenny Macklin assessment.

By: John James

John James — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I must say this is a very good article, straight to the point and born out of genuine desire to stop this terrible business. By contrast, the comments by Prue and Sean reflect the Left’s total inability to come to grips with what is happening and why. Their tired old preoccupation with”white Christians” and the “them vs us ” paradigm is not only irrelevant, its dangerous. Please, no more Commissions of Enquiry. Just act!

By: Prue Brown

Prue Brown — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Further to Sean’s comments, an ABC news story on 12 February 2008 contained the following statement:

“Child Wise has collated research showing one in four girls and one in seven boys experience some form of sexual abuse.”

Now, if you do the maths (assuming an approximately equal proportion of boys and girls in the population), that equates to around 20% of children in Australia experiencing some form of sexual abuse.

If this is true, surely we cannot single out the NPY lands as “shocking” with rates of around 14% discovered by the Mullighan report. While 14% is undeniably not acceptable, it is significantly lower than the rates in general society if the Childwise figures are to be believed.

Are the figures dodgy or is there a double standard operating here?

By: Seán Marshall

Seán Marshall — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Any remedial action taken against paedophilia that is not applied equally to all sections of our community will only serve to perpetuate racism and the ongoing marginalisation of Aboriginal Australians. There is also overwhelming evidence that white Christian religious officials engage in the same abuses. It is easy to stigmatise those percieved to be the “other”. It is apparently more difficult to apply the same standards to “respectable” religious institutions. It is incumbent on our Federal Government to appoint an inquiry that will generally address paedophilia and the associated practices of child pornography rampant in Australia, if we really want to address the issue in a considered way that avoids racist moral panics in the process. My bet is that the incidence of these crimes stretches up and down the demographics and back in time to the original white invasion.

By: Vicki LG

Vicki LG — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

There’s a dodgy double standard operating here!

By: Tom Wood

Tom Wood — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Great call Peter - it simply must be stopped now.

By: gary

gary — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

The article, for all its clear presentation of the facts, still assumes that it is the responsibility of us white folks to fix a black problem. The commentaries want to divert criticism from blacks by suggesting that it’s just as bad amongst white Christians or to avoid the realities by playing ill-informed games with the statisitics. While ever any of these attitudes persist there is no hope of a solution.