Emma Murphy

The shocking abuse suffered by children in Darwin’s Don Dale detention centre revealed by the ABC’s 4 Corners on July 25 has angered wide layers and prompted the nation-wide demand to take immediate action against the perpetrators and ensure that nothing like this can ever happen again in the juvenile detention system.

Real self-determination will require radical changes in current approaches that largely fail the First Peoples: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities themselves should be at the forefront of driving these changes.

Joseph Elu, chair of the Torres Strait Regional Authority, told Radio National’s PM on January 5 that the islands that have been home to Indigenous people for thousands of years are “being inundated”, right now because of climate change.