It's shocking, horrifying, and they didn't know.
That's the refrain Northern Territory authorities have been singing ever since damning footage was aired on the ABC's Four Corners, showing juvenile detention centre staff assaulting young prisoners, stripping them naked, hog-tying them, and laughing while tear-gassing them.
Australia is right to be appalled, and perhaps most appalling of all is the fact that none of this is new.
Well might the chief minister, corrections commissioner and police commissioner say they hadn't seen the footage, but they cannot plead ignorance of the abuse.
In February and September last year two reviews of the youth justice system were made public.
One, by the former NT children's commissioner Howard Bath, quoted extensively from the centre's own CCTV and handicam footage of an incident that was initially falsely depicted by Corrections as a riot, telling police there were multiple prisoners armed with broken glass smashing up the centre.
In fact, only one boy escaped his cell and was still contained.
The reports were extensively covered by local media, and at least one clip of inmate Dylan Voller being forcibly stripped naked was broadcast by the ABC in December 2014.
"The matters were referred to the police," Mr Bath told ABC local radio. "The Corrections Department itself reported it to the police, but reported false information."
Former corrections commissioner Ken Middlebrook is heard in the tear-gassing video saying "I don't mind how much chemical you use, we gotta get him out", and one ABC reporter said he had shown her the CCTV videos himself.
He has since been sacked.
But despite widespread knowledge of the contents of the videos, Chief Minister Adam Giles maintained his ignorance, saying the footage was deliberately withheld as part of a "culture of cover-up within the corrections system".
He may not have seen the videos, but it's inconceivable he was unaware of the transcripts in Mr Bath's report.
Former corrections minister John Elferink, who was sacked from the portfolio on Tuesday, told Four Corners he had only recently viewed the videos, which were in some cases up to six years old.
"There's no cover-up, they've been fully aware of what's been going on, the reports show it," said Priscilla Collins, CEO of the North Australia Aboriginal Justice Agency.
"They had access to the footage; they knew about it."
Indigenous Affairs Minister and NT senator Nigel Scullion said the matter "hadn't come to my attention, hadn't piqued my interest sufficiently", despite the fact 95 per cent of young people in detention are indigenous.
"I assumed that the NT government were taking care of this matter and I didn't take any further action in that," he said.
Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said much of the footage was new to police, despite the fact the tapes were government property, and police had already investigated centre staff in relation to some of the recorded incidents.
The Country Liberals government has been plagued with scandals for the past four years, and has made law and order a popular campaign issue as it heads to the August 27 election.
But is that enough for a government that says it was blind to abuse which has been in the public domain for years?
