ACCUSATIONS of sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities had nothing to do with indigenous customs, Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said today.
Mr Beazley's comments follow allegations made by federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough on ABC Television last night that pedophile rings were working behind a veil of Aboriginal customary law, along with people supplying sniffable petrol and marijuana to the communities.
"Everybody who lives in those communities knows who runs the paedophile rings, they know who brings in the petrol, they know who sells the ganja," Mr Brough told ABC Television.
"They need to be taken out of the community and dealt with, not by tribal law, but by the judicial system that operates throughout Australia."
But Mr Beazley described the claims as libel.
"There is nothing in Aboriginal customary law that justifies abuse," he said in Melbourne today.
"Aboriginal customary law regulates relations between the genders quite strictly and protects people in a situation where they are not yet physiologically adults.
"The argument that somehow or other these events relate to Aboriginal customary law (is) libel. They don't."
Indigenous affairs were placed firmly under federal control in a 1967 referendum, Mr Beazley said.
"Certainly, they have to do it in partnership with the states, but whenever this federal government points a finger at the states, I point Brough to that referendum campaign, fought so many years ago," he said.
"It's his responsibility, I am afraid to say.
"What we need is national leadership on enforcement and conditions in areas where there are large Aboriginal communities."
Australian media reports that a recently leaked Northern Territory police briefing paper exposes "shocking" cases of sexual abuse and violence against women and children in remote Australian Aboriginal communities.

Northern Territory, Australia
Central Australian Crown prosecutor, Dr Nannette Rogers, alleged a range of "dreadful" cases she has heard of. Her paper claims details of abuse (over a 15-year period), including the rape of a seven-month-old baby, and the sexual assault and drowning of a girl by an 18-year-old man. The report refers to a disturbingly abusive and secretive Indigenous male culture. She says a "web of kinship" has helped to create a "conspiracy of silence" and that Aboriginal communities were suffering from "tragedy fatigue," allowing horrific crimes to appear unremarkable. 

"It doesn't augur well for Aboriginal people to be functional human beings with the attributes of turning around and caring for children themselves," she said. "The child grows up seeing violence done to him or her and having violence done to him or her." 

 Tangentyere Council chief executive William Tilmouth says it is appalling behaviour. "It's a behaviour that's got to stop, it's behaviour that denigrates the family, as well as the women," he said.