Northern Territory Police Minister Kate Worden has responded to federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s recent trip to Alice Springs, where he alleged there was child sexual abuse occurring on a “regular basis”.
Worden said Dutton’s claims were not substantiated with evidence, and labelled his trip to central Australia this week as “opportunistic”.
“What we’ve seen over the last couple of days from Peter Dutton in central Australia is absolutely opportunistic, political game-playing, and using the most vulnerable people here in the heart of our nation as a pawn in that game,” Kate Worden told reporters on Thursday.
“It’s quite frankly, a dog act.”
Worden said Dutton should report any evidence he had to the police, as did Federal Labor senator for the Northern Territory Malarndirri McCarthy.
Worden said Dutton had “no interest” in Alice Springs for the 10 years he was in government, and was using this trip to Central Australia to ramp up his “No” campaign for the Voice to Parliament.
She also noted there were strict mandatory reporting laws for child abuse in the Northern Territory.
“A couple of months ago, we saw him fly in and out of Alice Springs and make completely baseless claims around child sexual abuse in Alice Springs,” she said.
“None of the evidence substantiates his claims and in fact, here in the Northern Territory, I’ll remind you Mr Dutton, that we have mandatory reporting for child sexual abuse. In fact, child abuse full-stop.
“If Mr Dutton has evidence of these claims that he’s made around child sexual abuse in Alice Springs he needs to come forward and he needs to give evidence around the things that he’s claiming.”
Last October, Dutton called for a Royal Commission into sexual abuse of Indigneous children. At the time, CEO of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, Catherine Liddle, said Dutton’s claims were “uninformed” and not supported by evidence.
“One visit to Alice Springs does not give the Opposition Leader an informed perspective about the issue of abuse or indeed about the complexity of the issues we face,” Liddle said in a statement in October.
“And it certainly doesn’t give him insight into the work and solutions being driven by Aboriginal people and organisations. Our children should not be used as political footballs.”
Dutton’s trip this week to Alice Springs follows his announcement that the federal Liberal Party would actively campaign against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, and advocate for a “No” vote in the referendum.
The decision has been contentious within the Liberal Party, and led to Liberal shadow minister for Indigenous Affairs Julian Leeser resigning from the frontbench so he could be free to support the Voice to Parliament.
Liberal backbencher Bridget Archer has also criticised Dutton’s decision on the Voice, and said she would campaign for a “Yes” vote.