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It’s been nearly 20 years since the Little Children are Sacred report pulled back the cloak of silence on shocking rates of child abuse in Aboriginal communities. When a shocked Howard government responded, the left screamed ‘racism!’ When Labor seized power, they dismantled the emergency response.
And so, here we are, two decades later, and Aboriginal communities are still dysfunctional basket-cases, and horrors like this are still all-too commonplace.
The body of Sharon Granites has been found, five days after she was allegedly abducted from her Alice Springs home.
Police on Thursday confirmed the discovery of the five-year-old, who disappeared from her home in Old Timers Camp on the outskirts of Alice Springs on April 25 […]
“The body was found about 5km south of the crime scene at Old Timers Camp.”
I wish I could say I was shocked, but we all knew with almost numbing futility how this was going to end. Just as we do when yet another Māori kid winds up dead, and their ‘whanau’ band together to protect the perpetrators.
Northern Territory Police Commissioner Martin Dole says he is still adamant there are people who have knowledge of the whereabouts of Jefferson Lewis, the man at the centre of a search for missing Alice Springs five-year-old Sharon Granites.
Speaking with ABC Radio Alice Springs this morning as the search entered its fifth day, Commissioner Dole urged anyone in the community who might have information on Sharon’s whereabouts to come forward.
They won’t, though. The ‘world’s oldest living culture’ will see to that. If it’s not the usual code of silence that protects violent, predatory ‘indigenous’ men, from Australia to Canada, it’s the certain knowledge that ‘payback’ awaits anyone who breaks it.
NT Police suspect 47-year-old Mr Lewis, a recently released prisoner, abducted the five-year-old from a house at the Old Timers town camp on the outskirts of Alice Springs late on Saturday night.
Commissioner Dole said Mr Lewis had been released from prison six days prior to Sharon's disappearance and had served his full sentence so was not on bail or subject to any conditions.
Except that, allegedly, he was given early release, despite a string of violent offences, particularly against women.
Police have said Mr Lewis was staying at the house where Sharon disappeared, and they believe people in the community “absolutely know” where Mr Lewis is […]
The town camp is a small community, with only nine households and about 40 residents, which is maintained by the local Aboriginal corporation Tangentyere Council.
We use the word ‘managed’ loosely.
A row of empty Jim Beam bottles lines a shelf in the room where missing five-year-old Sharon Granites went to bed on a mattress on the floor on Saturday.
On the fourth day of the frantic massive search for Sharon, Robin Granites – an interpreter, Warlpiri cultural authority and a patriarch of Sharon’s family – on Wednesday invited the Australian into the house at Old Timers town camp with the permission of the occupants.
Mr Granites wants Australians to see the reality of life for children in Alice Springs’ town camps.
Well, who made it that way?
A record $4bn of housing funding began to flow into the NT in 2024. While the building and maintenance program is being noticed in overcrowded remote communities, Mr Granites said he had seen no difference at all in Alice Springs’ town camps. He said the status quo in town camps must not be allowed to continue.
“They still think that we are an animal,” Mr Granites said. “I want to try and tell them that please help us. If you’re a prime minister, please help.”
You can’t help those who won’t help themselves.
