The ACT's Attorney General has responded to allegations of racism at the Alexander Maconochie Centre after the government was subject to fierce criticism for not instigating a wide-ranging inquiry.
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Shane Rattenbury, who leads the Greens in the ACT government's coalition, accepted there was a "dispute" over what to do.
His intervention followed a report in The Canberra Times last month which revealed that an Aboriginal woman on remand in Canberra's jail claimed she had been strip-searched in full view of male detainees.
In Wednesday's Canberra Times, the chief executive of the Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service, Julie Tongs, lays into the ACT government for not instigating a full investigation into this "grotesque" incident.
"All Labor and Greens members of the Legislative Assembly have chosen, however, to ignore the concerns of the Aboriginal community about racism within ACT government services and instrumentalities," she said.
Ms Tongs earlier said that she was appalled by the "disgusting" allegation that a woman was humiliated at the prison with the strip-search in front of men. She said earlier that racism was rife at the prison. It was, she said, "common knowledge".
"The woman allegedly subjected to this grotesque treatment has provided a detailed written statement about her treatment in which she asserts categorically that she and other Aboriginal detainees in the prison are routinely subjected to racism," Ms Tongs said.
But ACT Attorney General Shane Rattenbury said that racism was a wider problem within society: "We know that there's racism in our community. It's part of the way the world works.
"We need to work hard to stamp it out."
Accepting that there is disagreement about how to tackle the problem, he said, "It's a dispute about what we should do about it rather than whether it's a problem or not."
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Ms Tongs has already written to the ACT's Corrections Minister Mick Gentleman and the Human Rights Commission, calling for "as a matter of urgency, an independent, external inquiry into not just this incident but the existence of and response to systemic and institutional racism, bias and discrimination within the AMC."
The Human Rights Commission is investigating the allegation that the prisoner was strip-searched but Aboriginal rights campaigners want a wider investigation into what they allege is widespread racism, not isolated to one event.
They are also concerned that there is a high proportion of Aboriginal prisoners' at the prison.
A week ago, the Greens joined with their Labor coalition partners to scupper the Liberals' call for an independent investigation into the prevalence of racism at the prison.
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
