Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dismissed a Coalition call for a royal commission into child sex abuse in Indigenous communities as a political stunt, while continuing to resist saying whether he would pursue truth and treaty for First Australians.
The two ideas – advocated by opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman and leading No campaigner Jacinta Nampijinpa Price – were key pillars of the Coalition’s Indigenous policy as it mobilised against the Voice to parliament.“The depth and feeling when you speak to people in Alice Springs, as I’ve done with Jacinta Price, it is palpable. When you speak with people who are involved in community services, in policing – they are heartbroken. They are exhausted,” Dutton said.
“Our Aboriginal organisations and communities do not minimise the issue of the abuse and neglect of children,” the board said. “Political grandstanding by those who actively campaigned against Aboriginal communities having a voice on matters that concern us can only be divisive and destructive.
Albanese said child sex abuse was a serious issue that every member of parliament should find abhorrent wherever it occurred, but it did not just affect one group or place.