OK FOR BLACKS TO GANG-RAPE A 10-YEAR OLD GIRL

That's what the Child Welfare authorities said, what the prosecutor said and what the judge said. And Andrew Bolt has part of the explanation why. Details below

Child safety failed raped girl

QUEENSLAND'S Child Safety Department knew that a 10-year-old girl had been gang-raped but did not report it to police, despite the girl also contracting a sexually transmitted disease from the encounter. The child - who had been living in a Cairns foster home before the department decided to return her to Aurukun, in Cape York - has been diagnosed as "mildly intellectually impaired" and suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome, having been born to an alcohol-dependent mother.

The Australian yesterday revealed nine males who pleaded guilty to gang-raping the girl had escaped a prison term, with sentencing judge Sarah Bradley saying the child victim "probably agreed" to have sex with them.

An eight-month investigation was conducted into the April 2006 multiple rape and submitted to the Department of Child Safety, resulting in one senior officer being sacked and two others suspended for 12 months on full pay - a situation that still exists.

A senior departmental official yesterday told The Australian that the child involved was sexually abused at age seven and, as a safety measure, was put with various foster families, eventually ending up in 2005 with a non-indigenous family in Cairns. But she was returned nine months later to Aurukun, where she was gang-raped by the nine males.

"These non-indigenous people were fantastic - ensuring she went to school, and the father actually took a year off his work to personally supervise this girl," he said. "But two new social workers were appointed to the north and they expressed the view, which was repeated many times to the investigating committee, that putting an indigenous child with white foster parents was another stolen generation.

"They convinced the department with this rubbish and the girl was taken from Cairns to Aurukun - back to where she was being abused previously and where she had contracted syphilis as a little child - and she was unsupervised, with the result that she was constantly raped.

"The report sets out how every step of the way the Child Safety Department did everything wrong, and all because they weretold that a safe, white environment was `another stolen generation'."

A report of the rape in The Australian yesterday sparked an immediate response, with Queensland Attorney-General Kerry Shine announcing he would lodge an appeal against the sentencing of the nine attackers.

But Mr Shine admitted the appeal would be hampered by the fact the prosecutor in the case, Steve Carter, did not recommend jail. Mr Carter yesterday refused to speak to The Australian about the sentences, referring questions to the DPP's office in Brisbane.

The Queensland Government also ordered a review of every sentence handed down in every sexual assault case in Cape York communities in the past two years. Premier Anna Bligh said the purpose of the review was to examine whether the sentence in the Aurukun rape case was part of "system-wide" problems in the Cape....

The official report produced following the eight-month investigation states that a senior Child Safety officer was told on May 11 last year that the child had gonorrhea. It was revealed after the girl attended the Aurukun medical clinic on May 5 last year asking for a pregnancy test and condoms.

That information was immediately relayed to Child Safety, but the senior Child Safety officer did not pass the information on to police in line with her statutory obligations, and when questioned about it said she had spent several weeks making inquiries if gonorrhea was contractable through means other than sexual transmission. The investigating committee also reported that the Child Safety officers took no remedial action when the girl threatened to commit suicide.

The committee's findings of failures by the Child Safety Department included possible non-reporting of other criminal offences against children to police, other possible early returns of indigenous children to their communities without sufficient prior consideration, and failure to record a suicide risk alert regarding the raped child's threat to suicide and whether this is indicative of a broader problem.

The report's findings also highlighted a loss of departmental documents including the child's Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) file and other SCAN files; a lack of knowledge by staff of what diseases constitute sexually transmitted diseases; and a lack of knowledge by staff of what may constitute a criminal offence on a child.

The committee also found the child had first contracted syphilis in April 2002 when she was aged seven and was raped by five juveniles in Aurukun, receiving severe genital injuries....

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Girl gang-rape prosecutor stood down

QUEENSLAND Crown prosecutor Steve Carter was stood down last night after court transcripts revealed he had described the males who gang-raped a 10-year-old girl in a remote Aboriginal community as "naughty" and not deserving of a jail sentence. Mr Carter told Queensland District Court judge Sarah Bradley - well-known in Aboriginal communities for her efforts to keep people out of jail - that the rape in the Cape York community of Aurukun was "a form of childish experimentation" and the victim a willing participant.

Judge Bradley's decision not to impose jail terms, revealed by The Australian on Monday, will be appealed by Attorney-General Kerry Shine, while the Queensland Government will review other sexual abuse cases and work with the federal Government on possible child-protection reforms.

Mr Shine last night confirmed that the Director of Public Prosecutions, Leanne Clare SC, had informed him Mr Carter had been stood down pending an investigation into his handling of the case. Transcripts of the sentencing on October 24 reveal that Mr Carter described the gang rape - in which the girl contracted a sexually transmitted disease - as "consensual sex", saying: "To the extent I can't say it was consensual in the legal sense, but in the general sense, the non-legal sense, yes, it was."

Mr Carter suggested a non-custodial sentence for all the accused, including the three aged 17, 18 and 26. In his brief submission on sentencing to Judge Bradley, Mr Carter said the Crown would not be asking any more than "for some form of supervisory order, form of probation, or some similar order to that". He added that there was no victim impact material that could be considered by the court.

"My submission in relation to this particular offence (rape) is the same that I make in relation to children of that age - of similar or the same age - is to quote, well, they're very naughty for doing what they're doing but it's really, in this case, it was a form of childish experimentation rather than one child being prevailed upon by another," Mr Carter told the court. "Although she was very young, she knew what was going on and she had agreed to meet the children at this particular place and it was all by arrangement, so for that purpose."

Later in the proceedings Mr Carter said he had been given instructions in relation to the sentencing and that none of the penalties he had been instructed to seek involved a custodial penalty, and he specifically asked that if the adults were sentenced to prison that the terms be fully suspended.

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Gang rape appeal to be heard 'swiftly'

AN APPEAL against a decision not to impose prison sentences on nine males who raped a 10-year-old girl will be handled swiftly and fairly, Queensland's chief justice says. Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul De Jersey said the matter was likely to be brought before Queensland's Court of Appeal on January 30 and any decision would be made according to the law, not emotions. "This case at the appeal level will be dealt with dispassionately, in accordance with due process, and as expeditiously as may be," he told reporters in Brisbane.

"I can give an absolute assurance that this process will be taken forward in accordance with law, which is the time honoured charter of the courts, which has served the community for so long, so well." ....

Judge Bradley's decision not to impose jail terms, revealed by The Australian on Monday, will be appealed by Attorney-General Kerry Shine, while the Queensland Government will review other sexual abuse cases and work with the federal Government on possible child-protection reforms.

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Pack-raped girl sacrificed to the "stolen generations" myth

By Andrew Bolt

Another week, another proof that that the "stolen generations" myth is devastating black children: A senior departmental official yesterday told The Australian that the child involved was sexually abused at age seven and, as a safety measure, was put with various foster families, eventually ending up in 2005 with a non-indigenous family in Cairns. But she was returned nine months later to Aurukun, where she was gang-raped by the nine males.

"These non-indigenous people were fantastic - ensuring she went to school, and the father actually took a year off his work to personally supervise this girl," he said. "But two new social workers were appointed to the north and they expressed the view, which was repeated many times to the investigating committee, that putting an indigenous child with white foster parents was another stolen generation..."

This is the girl who was pack raped at 10, with a judge letting her nine rapists - one a 26-year-old - walk free because the girl, she said, had consented.

As I've shown again and again, the propagandists behind the "stolen generations" myth have blood on their hands. Oh, just so that you know what this girl's wicked white foster carers had saved her from:

The committee also found the child had first contracted syphilis in April 2002 when she was aged seven and was raped by five juveniles in Aurukun, receiving severe genital injuries.

UPDATE

Anger reader Rob Hill protests in comments below that there is no comparison between this case and the "stolen generations". My response:

You are utterly wrong. A direct parallel should show you why. I asked Professor Robert Manne to name me just 10 of the 25,000 children he claims were stolen for racist reasons, not welfare ones. In his second attempt he named two girls - Topsy and Dolly.

I looked up those cases and found they were girls little different to this girl who has been raped at Aurukun. Topsy was brought in for protection by a station owner because she was just 12, fatherless, a half-caste in a black tribe - and already had syphilis. Dolly was about 13, but was already seven months pregnant and penniless, working for nothing on a station, when she was rescued.

These are cases that Manne himself handpicked as clear proof of the "stolen generations". Your accusations are false.

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Alarm as teachers dwindle

How suprising that the phasing out of effective discipline has made classrooms into blackboard jungles that no capable person would want to teach in!

ENTRY scores for future teachers are predicted to fall despite criticism they are already too low, as demand for teaching places plummets across the nation. Applications for teaching places had plunged by 30 per cent over two years in Queensland, and Western Australia is unlikely to fill places for the coming year.

A leading educator, University of Queensland academic Ken Wiltshire, said teaching wasn't "attracting enough knowledgeable or intelligent people". "It's a crisis. The tertiary entrance ranks are too low. The status of the profession is too low. We need to be talking it up and offering performance pay," said Professor Wiltshire, who ran the Queensland Government's curriculum review.

Latest figures for Queensland show applications this year were down almost 23 per cent on 2006, on top of a 7 per cent to 8 per cent drop the previous year, adding up to a total drop of 30 per cent. In Victoria, applications for entry in 2007 and 2008 were down 12 per cent, after increasing by 2.5 per cent the previous year. The numbers in WA fell by 15per cent between 2006 and this year, and there is a further 2per cent decline in entrants for next year, which means the available places cannot be filled. At the University of Western Australia, teaching is reportedly at 75 per cent capacity. In NSW the picture is mixed: some institutions have indicated double-digit drops in applications, while others are holding steady.

Steve Dinham, research director (teaching and leadership) at the Australian Council for Educational Research, described the latest figures as "quite startling", as demand had been building strongly in the previous five years, and this was reflected in rising entry requirements. Potential student teachers were sensitive to media portrayals of the profession, especially press reports about violent and disengaged students, he said. He suggested the ABC's hit drama Summer Heights High might have promoted a "that looks too tough for me" effect.

UWA education dean Bill Louden said there had been numerous government inquiries into teacher education since 1979, but to surprisingly little effect. "Teaching is looking less attractive as a profession than it has been in the past. The profession and employers will have to work much harder on persuading the kinds of altruistic young people who have always entered teaching that it's a worthy occupation," Professor Louden said. He said key research had shown that the proportion of women from the top 40 per cent of ability entering teaching had halved during the past two decades as they chose other professions, and the proportion from the second lowest 20 per cent going into the profession had doubled.

Australian Council of Deans of Education president Sue Willis said the most important thing Education Minister Julia Gillard could do was to read the report of the inquiry into teacher education, tabled in parliament last February, and "use that as a starting point". Professor Willis also hoped Ms Gillard would revisit the embargo on variable HECS for education and boost the base funding for teacher education.

ACER chief executive Geoff Masters said it was well known that "if you really want to makea difference in schooling, you need to improve the quality of teaching by attracting more and better teachers, and keeping them". "Under present arrangements, they hit a ceiling at about $60,000 to $70,000, and go into management or go outside teaching," Professor Masters said. "But we need to pay our better teachers to stay in the classroom (and) to continue to develop as highly accomplished teachers."

The Business Council of Australia has called for an increase in top teacher salaries to $130,000. Barry McGaw, former Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development education director and now director of the University of Melbourne Education Research Institute, said "the barrier to entry isn't the cost of training, it's the reward upon graduation. Maximum pay is reached (by) about age 30 and is only 1.7 times the starting salary

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