Politician taken to task over dubious allegations
The former Northern Territory minister John Elferink has called for Aboriginal elders to take a stand against the practice of underage marriage, despite not having evidence to back up his claims of its prevalence, which he admitted was based on anecdotes.
Giving evidence before the royal commission into the protection and detention of children, Elferink also said he was powerless to change child abuse policy, despite being minister at the time.
For his commission statement, Elferink was asked by the commission what issues he would like to raise “in relation to the child protection policies, priorities, or practices of the government”. Instead he answered that he was extremely concerned about traditional practices of forced marriages of underage girls, and genital mutilation of boys in Indigenous communities.
‘Anecdotal evidence’
However, under questioning he conceded that his evidence of underage marriage was anecdotal, drawn from his time working in remote areas, what he read about in the newspapers, and conversations with NT chief justice Trevor Riley.
The senior counsel assisting, Peter Callaghan, asked Elferink why he had left it to the last week of the commission to bring his information to its attention. ustralia raised indigenous flags to fly alongside its national standard over its oldest public building yesterday, another step on a long and often troubled road to reconciliation with its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The flags, representing the oldest living cultures in the world, were raised as Australia marks the 50th anniversary of Aborigines being counted as part of the population, and the 25th anniversary of a milestone court case that paved the way for recognition of indigenous land ownership.
They were raised above the governor’s house in Sydney, Australia’s largest city and the capital of Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), where the fledgling colony was settled as an outpost of the British Empire in 1788.
“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are our first people,” New South Wales Governor David Hurley said at the flag-raising, where a traditional smoke, or cleansing, ceremony was performed.
“You have fought and died alongside Australians under the Australian flag ... even before being counted as part of the population,” he said.
Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders make up 2.8 per cent of Australia’s population of 24.5 million but have disproportionately high rates of suicide and incarceration, ranking near the bottom in almost every economic and social indicator.
Push for reconciliation
Denied the vote until the mid1960s, they face a 10-year gap in life expectancy compared with other Australians and make up 27 per cent of the prison population. The United Nations has criticised their living standards.
There has been a push for reconciliation in recent decades, a term to describe moves towards mutual respect and equal legal and social status between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.
Patrick Dodson, one of Australia’s most senior indigenous politicians, said the ceremony was “an indicator of progress at an institutional level”.
“The redress of injustice travels slowly but inevitably,” Dodson told journalists.
Last month, indigenous leaders rejected symbolic recognition of Aboriginal people in the Australian constitution and instead called for a constitutionally enshrined indigenous voice in parliament.
The flags raised yesterday had previously flown over government house in Sydney for short periods but it is the first time in any state they have been installed permanently above a public building.