Indigenous Senator Kerrynne Liddle has defended comments from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton who said a contentious proposal to change Australia’s Constitution would do little to address crime rates in Aboriginal communities like Alice Springs.
Speaking on ABC Radio National on April 14, Liddle said while care was needed to avoid politicising the issue, statistics on widespread child sexual abuse in central Australia revealed a startling truth.
The data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) showed 95.5 children per 1,000 in the Northern Territory were the subject of an investigation by child protection services in 2020-21, reported Sky News Australia.
“I say prove it’s not happening and then we can have a conversation about the kind of language we can actually use for this,” Liddle said….