Indigenous leaders in the Northern Territory say they are “completely and utterly disgusted” that they were not consulted before the details of the royal commission into youth detention were announced, saying the commission has already lost all credibility.
The attorney general, George Brandis, said he spoke to the Indigenous social justice commissioner, Mick Gooda, and that the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, spoke to the head of his Indigenous advisory body, Warren Mundine, before the terms of reference were announced on Thursday.
“The fact we didn’t hold some endless public seminar with any number of groups to talk about what should have been in the terms of reference is hardly the point,” Brandis said.
Olga Havnen, deputy chair of the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance NT (Amsant), said Brandis’s comments were “completely disingenuous”.
Amsant issued a joint statement with the other peak bodies, the Northern and Central Land councils, on Friday, saying the royal commission had already “comprehensively failed us”.
“We could easily have done that consultation in a very timely and well-organised fashion,” Havnen told Guardian Australia.
Restricting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consultation to Gooda and Mundine, she said, was meaningless.
“Well for goodness sake, what do they know about the Northern Territory?” she said. “They don’t live here, they are not involved in any of this. He may as well have walked down the street and asked two people.”
Mundine told Guardian Australia he spoke to Turnbull on Wednesday, a day after publicly commenting that he thought it “quite bizarre” no one from the prime minister’s office had contacted him. He said he was not explicitly consulted about the terms of reference.
“At the end of the discussion he asked if I was on board, and I said: ‘well, you have already announced it and everyone knows my reticence about royal commissions’,” Mundine said.
Asked if the government ought to have consulted more broadly, he said: “I would have prefered perhaps a 24-hour think about it, but I understand the political imperative, the prime minister needs to seem to be on top of it.”
Mundine said he was wary that any recommendations from a royal commission would be “sat on a desk gathering dust,” like those from the 1989-91 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, most of which have not been implemented.
He said he was glad Turnbull had acted quickly in response to the “shocking” footage of Indigenous teenagers shown on Four Corners on Monday night, but said it was more important that police investigations and prosecutions of the prison guards proceeded quickly.
Prosecuting guards over the alleged abuse of the teenagers, most of which occurred between 2010 and 2014, may require a revision of the Territory’s Youth Justice Act, which states that prosecutions against guards must begin within six months of the offence being reported to the commissioner of corrections.
The Australian Human Rights Commission president, Gillian Triggs, broadly endorsed the commission’s terms of reference, telling Sky TV on Friday there was a “very interesting focus on the immediate problem” and reiterating her suggestion the inquiry could proceed in two phases to consider juvenile detention nationally.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a wide reference to broad international human rights standards before, in particular of course the convention on the rights of the child, to which Australia is a party,” she said. “That’s a very encouraging expansion of the jurisdiction of a royal commission.”
Triggs praised the “unprecedented” speed with which the prime minister acted.
“But, of course, one of the down sides of speed is that you’re not going to be able to consult as widely as you like,” adding that Indigenous communities should be “brought into royal commission efforts” now, to get as much evidence and hear a wide range of views on detention.
The decision to appoint former NT supreme court chief justice Brian Ross Martin as commissioner also received widespread criticism from Indigenous organisations, who said he was too enmeshed in the Territory’s justice system to deliver independent findings.
“Of all the eminent legal people you have in Australia, who could have done this inquiry independently … and we have given this commission some credibility,” Havnen said. “It beggars belief. A bit like inviting the Northern Territory government in the writing of the terms of reference – it is the fox in the henhouse.
Mundine said he had dealt with Martin before and he would “do fine”.
“The royal commission needs to be at arms’ length from the federal and the territory governments,” he said. “Knowing Brian Martin, I’m sure he is going to make sure that happens.”
Martin has already had to defend his independence, issuing a statement on Friday to say that while his daughter worked as a justice adviser to then attorney general Delia Lawrie between 2009 and 2011, he was “unable to discern any possibility” that she would be called as a witness.
“I disclosed this matter to the attorney general prior to my appointment as commissioner and we were both satisfied that it would not compromise the independence or appearance of independence of the royal commission,” Martin said.
Triggs said she was satisfied the royal commission would be independent, of the “highest legal calibre” and said she could not think of a “more creditable person” than Martin to head the inquiry.
