Does Peter Dutton still want to hold a royal commission into allegations of sexual abuse in Indigenous communities?

Q: I guess it’s a question about the evidence you’d rely on to press ahead with a royal commission, isn’t it? You’ve got Indigenous organisations saying there is not a higher prevalence of sexual abuse in Indigenous communities.

Dutton:

That’s just not the case. That’s not the reality. As we know, there is certainly well documented cases and tragic cases and we need to accept there is a problem, which there is, and I want to make sure that those kids in remote communities, in a town camp, wherever it is, are treated equally to our kids in, you know, areas closer to capital cities.

We need to make sure we take care of every Australian child, Indigenous or not. We need to make sure they can enjoy their childhood, to do it peacefully and to do it in a way that is conducive to them leading the most productive life later on.

One of the things that always struck me as a detective in this area was that these issues lagged for years and years to come.

People who suffer sexual abuse at a young age bear those scars for a long time. In some cases, people never get over it. We need to do everything we can to defeat this crime type and I’m very serious about it and that’s why we made the announcement we did yesterday of $750 million to make our communities safer.