Kangaroo Court in Australia: Royal commission into the Northern Territory’s youth detention system.

A week ago the ABC’s Four Corners program aired a story on youth detention in the Northern Territory, showing perennial juvenile offender Dylan Voller totally restrained and wearing a spit hood (people have died of TB because infected prisoners spat at them), and being roughly manhandled. Outrage ensued from the usual suspects, and the PM appointed a royal commission to look into the matter. So far nothing especially noteworthy and unusual. Then this.

Mick Gooda, Margaret White named new royal commission heads after Brian Martin stands down, by Anna Henderson.

The Federal Government has been forced to replace the head of the royal commission into the Northern Territory’s youth detention system, just a week after establishing the inquiry.

Former Northern Territory chief justice Brian Martin was appointed to head the royal commission … But Mr Martin has now stepped down, saying he does not have the “full confidence” of sections of the Indigenous community and was not prepared to compromise the inquiry.

The commission will instead be jointly run by high-profile Indigenous figure Mick Gooda and former Queensland Supreme Court judge Margaret White.

Mr Gooda’s appointment follows increasing community and political pressure to appoint an Indigenous representative …

Astonishing. The race of the royal commissioner was crucial. Brian Martin is white, and had to be replaced. Turns out Gooda is unqualified; he is not even a lawyer:

Legal figures said Mr Gooda’s lack of law training should not pose a problem, given the experience of co-commissioner Margaret White, a former Queensland Supreme Court judge. Though all recent royal commissions have been led by legal figures, inquiries such as those into child sexual abuse and the Black Saturday bushfires had commissioners from other backgrounds. …

Attorney-General George Brandis yesterday similarly ­defended the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner’s outburst, but Australian Prison Officers Association president Brian Newman said Mr Gooda’s passion for indigenous youth issues raised questions about his capacity to lead the commission impartially.

“Emotion is not something to carry into an inquiry where you’re expected to assess the facts,” said Mr Newman, who is also indigenous. “Our concern will be, where does Mr Gooda’s passion stop?

How extraordinary. How hypocritical. Just a few weeks ago, Donald Trump was condemned by the PC globalists and the media as racist because he thought the judge in his Trump University case might be biased against him, because the judge had a Mexican background and links to Mexican activism in the US. They said then that this made Trump unsuitable for President or even polite company. Yet here they throw out a judge because he is not of the same race as the alleged victim, and appoint an unqualified person on the grounds of his race. Tsk tsk.

This of course is further evidence of the increasingly tribal nature of our societies, with tribalism and division along lines of race and sex being driven by leftists trying to stitch together  electoral majorities consisting of minority groups (except, of course, white men).

Mick Gooda’s passion points a finger at why he is unsuited, by Chris Merritt.

Gooda’s innate decency and passionate advocacy for his community were apparent when the disclosure of child abuse in a Northern Territory detention centre moved him to tears. His passion was admirable but it clearly got the better of him when he called for the Northern Territory government to be sacked. …

Gooda has already made up his mind, and pointed the ­finger at the Territory government.

The left’s racism rears its ugly head again:

His appointment is wrong for one other, comparatively minor, reason: it means Malcolm Turnbull is implementing Bill Shorten’s race-based agenda for the royal commission. Shorten fed the beast known as “identity politics” by ­asserting that Aborigines would receive “full justice” only if an Aborigine was appointed co-royal commissioner.

If the day comes when an Australian citizen can receive “full justice” only from people of the same racial background, we have embraced the detestable ethos of apartheid.

On Shorten’s logic, we should all insist on judges of the same ethic background if we are hauled before the courts.

This is the sort of sick thinking that is driving a wedge through society in the US. By endorsing Shorten’s madness, Turnbull has done his bit to ensure this noxious idea takes root in this country.

I wonder what Tony Abbott would have done?