Bad Aunty: 10 Years On, How ABC Lateline Sparked The Racist NT Intervention (With Introduction By John Pilger) - New Matilda

Tags

Top Highlights

• It was Lateline’s reporting that led directly to the Little Children Are Sacred report, a landmark inquiry into sexual violence in NT Aboriginal communities. And it was the Little Children Are Sacred report on which the federal government relied to launch an unprecedented assault on the rights of the nation’s most disadvantaged people.

• Lateline began a concerted campaign seeking to depict dysfunction, violence and paedophilia in NT Aboriginal communities

• NT government had failed to act on the recommendations of the Little Children Are Sacred report

• Between her and Atkinson,

• level of sensationalism

• media frenzy around sexual violence in Aboriginal communities grew

• headlined ‘Sexual slavery reported in Indigenous community’,

• Little Children Are Sacred, took almost a year to complete, ran to more than 300 pages, and contained 91 recommendations.

• n the lead up to Lateline’s 2006 story, Mr Randall

• was approached by Lateline for an interview about the film, but once on camera he was ambushed with the allegations about Mutitjulu.

• breach of both the Journalist Code of Ethics, and ABC policy.

• United Nations as “unique” and “striking” in its racism, without the comfort and cooperation of Australia’s media.

• these cartoons by Bill Leak appeared in The Australian at the time – Lateline was the Howard government’s chief ally.

• investigated itself, the ABC found that it had done nothing wrong, save for the minor oversight of failing to label vision from communities other than Mutitjulu as file footage.

• major police investigations, including an extensive inquiry by the Australian Crime Commission. The ACC

• found no evidence of paedophile rings in Mutitjulu, nor Central Australia more broadly.

• ‘Indigenous community expresses thanks for exposing child abuse’

• non-Aboriginal woman from Yuendumu

• Pamela Malden

• Despite the story breaking nationally, not one ABC outlet in the country – no radio station, no TV program, no online forum – ran a single syllable of the revelations.