http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21051034-2682,00.html

 

CRAIG BILDSTIEN

January 13, 2007 12:00am

SOUTH Australia's criminal justice system has failed toprevent child sexual abuse through punishment, the head of the Children in StateCare inquiry, Ted Mullighan, QC, says.

"It doesn't work, sowe have to - dare I say it - use some Aboriginal ways," the former Supreme Courtjudge told a forum of indigenous leaders in Adelaide.

Mr Mullighan sought permission to take his investigators into SA's mostremote Aboriginal communities, revealing he wants to "get to the truth" behindchild sex abuse "and find a way of dealing with the problem".

The meeting, at the Nunkuwarrin Yunti health agency in Wakefield St, wasrecorded and a full transcript has been posted on the Children in State Carewebsite.

Asked yesterday to explain what he meant by using Aboriginal ways to dealwith child sex offenders, Mr Mullighan declined to comment further, hisspokeswoman saying only that he would elaborate in his next report toParliament.

An Aboriginal elder, who did not wish to be named, was unsure what MrMullighan was referring to, but suggested some forms of traditional punishmentwere "pretty gruesome" and reintroducing them would be turning back the clock.

According to the Aboriginal Cultural Awareness Benchbook, an initiative ofthe National Indigenous Cultural Awareness Committee of the Australian Instituteof Judicial Administration, traditional punishments included death, spearing,burning the hairs from the offender's body and shame or ridicule.

Hundreds of Aboriginal people have given evidence to his inquiry, with MrMullighan describing their stories as "quite horrendous". He was "astonished bythe lack of bitterness" of Aboriginal victims of sexual abuse.

"There has been no uprising, there has been no major demonstration againstthese outrages," he said.

"I suppose the reason for that, when we analyse it carefully, is that theAboriginal people - in my opinion - are more civilised than the white people.

"They have their ways of achieving what must be achieved - and dissent, theyrecognise, is not usually very productive." Mr Mullighan rejected suggestions tohis inquiry that the only way to "fix the problem" of sexual abuse in Aboriginalcommunities was to send in the army and boost police numbers. "What would thatdo? Nothing. It's time for some more rational thinking," he said.

"There's a long history, isn't there, of Aboriginal people being treatedbadly by welfare, police whitefellas' agencies?

"So we want to ask the Aboriginal people: 'What is the solution to thisproblem? What do you need? What sort of resources ought to be madeavailable'?