The usually good humoured NT News has not held back with today’s front cover calling for the entire NT government to be sacked after a Four Corners report on Monday revealed systematic abuse of minors in the territory’s juvenile detention centres.
Emblazoned with the cover line “Sack the lot of them”, the cover calls for the entire NT government to be sacked after it knew of and continued to ignore the abuse. The Corrections Minister John Elferlink has been removed following the fallout from the Four Corners program but remains the Territory’s Attorney General and Children and Families Minister.
In an editorial today, the newspaper’s deputy editor Ben Smee wrote: “If Cabinet did not know about the treatment of kids in Don Dale — if the Chief Minister did not know — they must still shoulder some of the burden here. John Elferink has been allowed, unchecked by his colleagues or his leader, to serve as the Territory’s proverbial judge, jury and executioner.
“He’s in charge of the child protection system, the justice system and the corrections system. The problems in each of those systems have been compounded because each is run according to Elferink’s singular and self-righteous agenda.”
