I am amazed and disgusted that in all the indignation over what Gillian Triggs should or shouldn't have done or who said or didn't say what to her, not ONE SINGLE POLITICIAN except, finally, Malcolm Turnbull, has commented in any way on the contents of her report..
She found that over a 15-month period from January 2013 to March 2014, spanning both the Labor and Coalition governments there were 233 recorded assaults involving children and 33 incidents of reported sexual assault.
If these findings are true - and as far as I know nobody has so far disputed them - then what is going to be done about it? Who had the duty of care? who is going to be held responsible. What measures are going to be put in place to stop this abuse happening in future?
Both Gillian Triggs and George Brandis are astute and comparitively wealthy adults able to instruct top legal practitioners to protect their reputaions - but who is going to protect the safety of these children? How many more children have been abused since March 2014? Is a child perhaps being abused in a detention centre even while you are reading this post?
Surely to goodness after all that was learned from the Children In Care Royal Commission this report cannot simply be put in a "don't want to know" basket while both sides of Pariament try to gain political mileage out the motives of the Human Rghts Commissioner or the behaviour of the Attourney General.
At some point -though probably not in the lifetime of this government or even the one that follows it - there will inevitably be a Royal Commission into the treatment of children in detention centre. what do you imagine its findings are likely to be?
50,000 a trickle?
