An investigation by Australia's main crime-fighting agency has found no evidence of organised pedophilia in Northern Territory indigenous communities.
The finding by the Australian Crime Commission demolishes one of the central claims used by the Howard government to support its controversial NT intervention.
In the now-discredited claims underlined his push for the 2007 intervention, then-indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough, along with some commentators, claimed there were "pedophile rings" in the Northern Territory, Fairfax Newspapers say.
Crime commission chief John Lawler said his agency's 18-month multi-million-dollar investigation had determined there was "not organised pedophilia in indigenous communities".
The commission was directed by the Howard government in 2007 to use the special powers it was given in 2003 to fight organised crime such as drug trafficking and money laundering to investigate child abuse in the territory.
Among the crime commission's powers is the ability to force people to answer questions in secret hearings or risk being sent to prison.
"One of the early questions was being asked (at the beginning of the intervention) was: 'Was there organised pedophilia targeting indigenous communities and children?'" Mr Lawler said.
"One of the things the (crime commission) report has been able to find and report on is does not seem to be the case," he said, while stressing his investigators had found serious criminal offences, including cases of child sexual abuse.
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