Northern Territory Police Minister Kate Worden says Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price have failed to report their repeated claims that Indigenous children in Alice Springs are being returned to their abusers.
During a visit to the region earlier this week, Mr Dutton repeated his claims that sexual abuse of Indigenous children in the town was rampant.
When asked to provide evidence backing his repeated claims, he said he did not know what academics and bureaucrats were saying, instead insisting that he had spoken to local police and social workers.
Appearing on the ABC's Insiders program on Sunday morning, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said she "assumes" the allegations of child sexual abuse have already been reported to police.
Senator Price was asked numerous times whether she or Mr Dutton reported the allegations of abuse to police, under mandatory reporting requirements in the Northern Territory.
"We're not stupid — Peter Dutton is a former policeman, he knows what needs to be done," Senator Price said.
When pushed again, she insisted the reporting process "had been done".
"Well, if that's what [the territory's Department of Families] know about them, I'm assuming that they have reported that," she said.
Ms Worden said she had heard "crickets" from the Coalition pair over the matter.
"If they want to make allegations like that, they need to come forward with evidence … you can't just claim these things and then walk away," Ms Worden said.
"This is classic 'drop a bomb and walk away' [scenario]."
The peak body for the care of Aboriginal and Islander children — the Secretariat of Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) — has refuted the claims that child abuse cases in Alice Springs are rampant and accused Mr Dutton of using the topic as a "political football".
The federal government also called for the Mr Dutton to report any information he has about claims of child sexual abuse in Alice Springs to police and urged him not to make "irresponsible accusations" if they could not be followed up with evidence.
Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy told Sky News the conversation had to move beyond the political blame game that Alice Springs had become.
"This wasn't about calling Mr Dutton any names, it was simply that, as leader, please be responsible to report — mandatory — any sexual abuse that you're aware of that's occurring to a child or to child that's returning to abuser you know of," she said.
The latest data from the territory Families Department reveals 102 substantiated instances of child sexual exploitation in the Northern Territory in 2021-22.
Territory Families attributes the spike from 23 cases six years prior as a result of the change in reporting guidelines in 2019-20.
Latest data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) revealed just 31.9 per cent of child abuse and neglect claims in the territory in 2021-22 were substantiated.
However, AIHW warned that statistics cannot be compared across jurisdictions due to the different reporting requirements and data collected.
Territory's Families Department accused
Senator Price also accused the territory's Families Department of putting children in the hands of abusers.
Speaking on the ABC's Insiders program, she said the federal government should run the state-led child protection system and called to remove the "kinship aspect" factoring into when and how a child is removed.
"I've been approached by many, many foster parents who are deeply concerned about the kinship rule when it comes to the foster care of vulnerable Indigenous children," she said.
Ms Worden said Senator Price's comments about kinship were made in direct opposition of the 2016 royal commission findings, which stated there needed to be a child protection system that responded to both the safety and cultural needs of children.
"Those principles have been built into our child protection system, and we now have a child protection system that does have a focus on kinship care, but not at the expense of the safety of children," Ms Worden said.
Ms Worden denied kinship care was placing children back in the communities and homes of their perpetrators.
