Tabloid newspapers and talkback radio have been in hysterics all week over the NRL's decision to charge Johnathan Thurston, the Queensland State of Origin halfback, with thumping a referee.

This was clearly a NSW conspiracy.

"Queensland fans rightly think it stinks," shrieked Brisbane's parish pump, The Courier-Mail. It was "a pathetic act of desperation from a state that will do anything to stop Mal Meninga's team from claiming a sixth straight series win, and grinding more salty humiliation into the Blues' gaping Origin wounds".

Uh-huh. Thurston was actually cleared by a judiciary committee of three former NSW players on Wednesday, thus demolishing the conspiracy theory. But the outrage was wondrous to behold, an eruption of stage-managed shock horror at its finest.

Thurston, it so happens, is of Aboriginal descent. Or an indigenous person, as we now say ever so politely. I mention this because, on the statistics, he is lucky not to be in jail.

Last Monday night, a report with the rather clunky title of Doing Time - Time for Doing: Indigenous Youth in the Criminal Justice System was tabled in Federal Parliament.

Its contents were anything but clunky. They were horrifying. Aboriginal Australians are being thrown into prison at a greater rate than ever before, in every state and territory. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of black males in custody increased by 55 per cent, and the number of black females by 47 per cent.

Far too many of them were and are kids. The report found that: "The detention rate for indigenous juveniles is 397 per 100,000, which is

28 times higher than the rate for non-indigenous juveniles (14 per 100,000). In 2007, indigenous juveniles accounted for 59 per cent of the total juvenile detention population."

And it gets worse. To quote again:

Aboriginal Australians make up about 2.5 per cent of the national population, but 25 per cent of the prison population.

Indigenous juveniles make up 53 per cent of all juveniles in detention.

Twenty-two per cent of indigenous juveniles in detention were 14 or younger, compared with 14 per cent of non-indigenous juveniles.

NSW has the highest total number of indigenous people in prison: 2139.

Western Australia has the highest number per capita: at least three indigenous people in jail for every 100 state residents.

In case you're wondering, this report was not the work of a bunch of bleeding-heart lefties. It was compiled by an all-party committee of MPs - Labor, Liberal, the lot - who agreed unanimously that "this situation is a national disgrace" and that "all governments, including the Commonwealth, states and territories, have failed to adequately address this problem".

The reasons given were many: alcohol, drugs, poverty, isolation, lack of education and opportunity, poor health, sexual abuse. All the usual. And, in despair, the committee noted it was now 20 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody brought in sweeping recommendations to fix things.

But does anyone care? It barely made the news. There was not a peep of tabloid fury. The Canberra press gallery was obsessed with Kevin and Julia, Julia and Kevin. TV news cameras trailed Tony Abbott around the countryside from stunt to stunt. And Johnathan Thurston got more time in Parliament, with no less than North Queensland's very own home-grown nutter, Bob Katter, attempting to have his plight debated on Wednesday.

Doing Time is online. Read it and weep for the sickness at the dark heart of our country.

Mike Carlton