He’s prowling on Hanson Road,[1]
knife and fork poised to eat the lusty flesh
of the younger of two Koori girls,
crouched in front of the shop
—on the corner of Hamilton Street.

A young’n he wishes to bargain buy, tho’
she’s probably already serviced a platoon of prowlers
No matter! 
He semaphores using the lashes
—of his lascivious eyes.

White BMW hovers
Gubba[2] testosterone burns hot
Electric windows dipping,
lips licking
—phallus kicking

"Are you looking for a girl?"
Out of touch with space or time,
suspended on an Eastern-suburb’s fiscal line
"How much?"
—"Thirty bucks for head: seventy for full!"

"Do I get fries with that?
Oh, piss off!"
Just another hot asphalt day in a moving bordello
for this cold cat
—Car fumes his aphrodisiac

Speeding to industrial lot,
one eye poised for the cops
his one-eye wonder blinking
Sinking, she sighs
—"I said seventy mate."

"Blacks only get forty
I want the complete naughty
So take it or leave it!"
She pauses, purses her lips,
—followed by the notes

Condom flung intact out of window gaping
Protest silenced 
Two hands round face,
small finger in eye
—witness egalitarian lie

The sun melts the chill of her life
as she peels her skin
He spins his tyres between her thighs,
smokes a doughnut
—Leaves rubber on her neck and chin

Run over by the colour of her skin
She wipes her face, adjusts her pants,
ready again for another dance
"Drop us back at Hamilton?"
—"No chance!"

Feds scour homelands for paedophiles black
Shaming, blaming
Nose-in-air media all a flutter
Truth melts like heated butter
—Hypocritical shits.

8,000 mandatory checks over 40 years
37 cases of abuse physical
Sexual assault numbers only four
Army helps open door
—for whining mining
 
Then AFP[3] does moonlight flit
Skulks away: finds "Jack Shit"
But who permits the bikies and other armed militias
To drug the Homelands anyway?
—Crime Gangs Task forces

In cities they cowardly bash, entrap, gaol
but protect fortressed bikies
Allow the icing of suburb and region
Tear at the blindfold of a winking Ms Justice
—Drug Squads are Mr Hydes[4]

Sun-glassed patrols of black-shirted Jeckyls
can’t see the street walkers
Mount ‘media-event’ operations on stealthy stalkers
for the sake of wet-behind-ears reporters 
—Community languishes
 
Yet Mulligan[5] turned up 162 cases
Cops, administrators had reddened faces
Politicians fudge and media mute
They’d told us "No underage sex here!"
—"Adelaide’s beaut!"

So where’s the intervention here then?
Let’s "Welfare Card" politician payments!
Or close this deviant community
I.C.A.C. SAPOL? (Sorry, closed sessions only!)
—Police Complaints: in name only

On Hanson the thirteen-year olds
have become invisible
Media’s pulled focus,
cops are all myopic
—‘White’ paedophilia disappears as a topic

Meanwhile Licensing Branch secretly manage
two hundred white brothels illegal
In suburbs and on main roads, 
reproducing like cane toads
—while Nungas are left to walk the streets

When motor prowlers come stalking
for black girls it’s "su casa es mi casa"[6]
Legislators scream "let’s criminalise the buyers" - 
"Swedish model well adopt!"
—Either way it’s honey for the cops

Girls will tell you 
rapes by ‘protecting’ coppers number most
Top cops smooth media frowning
while in their private cars they come motor prowling
—Knife and fork poised

Chris explains how this poem came about:

"The intent behind this poem was to highlight the glaring contradictions between the supposed 'child abuse' excuses used to justify the 2007 Intervention and the ongoing reality of under-age Indigenous sex in Adelaide.

"I asked myself the question: if there were 162 cases sent to trial out of some 500 reported incidents brought to light by the Mulligan Inquiry into child sex,^[5] then why wasn't there an equivalent armed intervention imposed on that aberrant and deviant community? Why wasn't t there a closer scrutiny of the role of these community leaders - politicians and SAPOL [South Australia Police] - and the break down of law and order with a subsequent welfare-carding of their salaries?

"The poem asks the curly question why 200-odd illegal, tax-evading brothels are allowed to operate unimpeded by the Licensing Branch while Indigenous prostitutes are forced unfairly to ply their trade on the streets and are subjected to ongoing racist harassment and imprisonment."

Chris is a non-Aboriginal writer.