A "shocked and appalled" Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called a royal commission into the abuse of youths in the Northern Territory corrections system the morning after explosive revelations aired on the ABC's Four Corners program on Monday night.
Mr Turnbull made the announcement on Tuesday morning, after spending the night talking with Human Rights Commission President Gillian Triggs Human, NT Chief Minister Adam Giles, Attorney-General George Brandis.
"Like all Australians, we are shocked by the report, by that evidence that was shown on Four Corners last night. Deeply shocked. We have moved swiftly to get to the bottom of it," the Prime Minister told ABC radio.
"We need to get all the facts out as swiftly as we can. We need to expose the cultural problems, the administrative problems that allowed this type of mistreatment to occur."
The program included footage of six boys, including a 17-year-old, being tear-gassed at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin in 2014.
At the time, the incident was described as a riot but the CCTV and video camera footage appears to show only one boy who had escaped his cell. Two others, who were playing cards, were also exposed to the gas.
"The important thing is to get to the bottom of what happened at Don Dale and there may be other matters connected to that to be looked into," Mr Turnbull said when asked if the NT government should be investigated.
He said it needed to be understood how previous inquiries into Don Dale did not reveal these issues.
Following the program, Professor Triggs said there needed to be a proper inquiry into the incarceration of children in the NT.
"If one of us were to have been found to have treated our children in this way we would probably be charged with a criminal offence and the children taken away from us," she said on ABC's Q&A.
"I certainly think we need some kind of government-based independent commission, whether it's a full royal commission or not I don't know."
