shame, shame, shame

At last a magistrate has got it right. At last a magistrate has not fallen for the political correctness, the mollycoddling of indigenous law-breakers and the feel good programs and ideals of decades of misguided civil libertarians.

The Magistrate is  Dick Wallace. He has the unenviable job of presiding over a case in the Darwin Magistrate’s Court involving the alleged gang rapes of a 12-year-old boy by five teenage males and five male adults at a remote Aboriginal community called Maningrida. Most people couldn’t even find it on a map. Or care.

Magistrate Wallace said the whole Northern Territory  should be ashamed over the allegations which involved abusing the young boy for months.

Magistrate Wallace said:’ I think the people of Maningrida should be ashamed about the matter, assuming there’s something in it. I think we’ve heard enough evidence to assume there’s something in it. Equally everyone in the North Territory should be ashamed at such things’.

What angered the Magistrate even more was an application for a media blackout on the case.

The father of one of the defendants, described as a respected Aboriginal leader, said continuing media coverage was bringing shame on his community. Where was he when a pack of animals were attacking that young boy ?  In a small community it couldn’t possibly go on without somebody knowing about one of that community’s own being tied with shoe laces and raped with a stick.

The magistrate refused to suppress the case. He said Australia is starting to examine the ‘less palatable sides’ of indigenous communities in the bush and starting to face up  to what’s happening in Aboriginal communities.

As I said recently:

For decades, to our shame, our judicial system and our police forces left aboriginal communities to their own devices and own forms of justice. Anybody who has spent time there can tell stories of battered women. Even little kids with sexually transmitted diseases.

To raise the issue makes you a racist. To even ask the question why a black Australian gets two years for rape and a white Australian may get ten makes you automatically a racist.

Our argument that Lebanese migrants must live by our laws and that gang rapists will be locked up for a long, long time, should apply to ALL Australians. Migrants and indigenous people alike.

Friday, February 9, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007