Minister raped me in his Parliament office

By Damien Murphy
Sydney Morning Herald
Sep. 28, 2007

A MAN has told how the late Labor minister Bob Collins raped him when he was a 12-year-old, while watching pornographic videos in his Senate office.

Ben Helwend has told the Herald that Collins was a friend of his family in Darwin and offered to pay for his journey to Canberra in 1989 so he could learn about the workings of democracy.

"Over a period of four days in Canberra he penetrated me, masturbated me and had me [perform oral sex]," Mr Helwend, 30, said. "I was just 12. I didn't know anything about sex and I was scared not to do as Mr Collins asked me because I played with his kids and my mum and dad were friends of the Collins family."

The Federal Government has granted Collins, 61, a state funeral in Darwin this Saturday following his death last Friday - just three days before he was due to face a committal hearing in Darwin on child sex offences against another three boys in the western Arnhem Land township of Maningrida some 30 years ago. The charges were dropped on Monday, but now there are claims Collins committed suicide to avoid the humiliation of being prosecuted.

Collins was also charged in Canberra last September with two counts of committing acts of indecency on Mr Helwend and one count of sexual intercourse with the child in the capital when he was a senator in September 1989. Mr Helwend said last night his lawyer had told him those charges had also been dropped.

He has come forward as The Bulletin, published today, details allegations by the Aboriginal actor Tom E. Lewis of being sexually assaulted by Collins.

"It's caused a lot of bitterness, and twistedness in my spirit," Lewis tells the magazine. "I've been beaten, flogged, you name it, when I was a kid. I can forgive those people. I've been ripped and called a f---in' whitefella in a black community. Everything. I can still forgive those people. I've got no room to forgive this Collins. Bullshit. [If] black people rape everybody and anybody who do anything like that, they have their name splattered everywhere."

Collins is being afforded a state funeral on the grounds of protocol, as he was the Northern Territory's first federal cabinet minister.

The journalist Paul Toohey, who wrote the Bulletin story, said the former senator had not died of cancer, as was widely reported. Rather, the NT coroner was planning to investigate whether he killed himself on the eve of his case.

The magazine also quoted an unidentified former Darwin woman saying her former husband had been abused by Collins. The woman had appeared before the NSW Wood royal commission on police corruption, which also investigated police-related pedophile activity, and named Collins in a closed session. Her complaint had gone nowhere.

It also claimed other youngsters molested by Collins years ago had served or were serving jail terms on child-sex charges.

Collins was one of the first ALP members elected to the NT Legislative Assembly in 1977 and as leader of the Opposition encountered opponents for supporting Lindy Chamberlain during her murder trial. In 1987 he was elected senator for the Territory. He served in both the Hawke and Keating ministries until he resigned in 1998.

Mr Helwend said Collins in 1989 had spoken about the Australian government system at the Berry Springs Primary School, an hour's drive south of Darwin, when he was a sixth grader.

"My parents were poor and couldn't afford to send me on a school excursion to Canberra so Collins drove me home and offered to pay for my trip. He fondled me while I was in the car outside home and he kept on doing it and other things when we got to Canberra, in his flat and in his office. He told me he was on the film censorship board or something and showed me pornographic tapes in his parliamentary office."

He recalled the trip to Canberra took place during the 1989 pilots' strike. Other students had to travel from Darwin to Canberra by bus, but he was afforded special privileges as the senator's guest and flew with him. He spent most of the visit under the supervision of the teacher on the excursion but spent the first two nights and the last two sleeping at Collins's flat.

Mr Helwend, who now lives in northern NSW, said he had kept quiet about Collins until he saw a report on breakfast television news in June 2004 that the former senator had been injured when his Toyota LandCruiser rolled in Kakadu National Park.

The report also revealed that Collins was under investigation by NT police for sexually assaulting children at Maningrida, where he kept a market garden before entering politics in 1977.

"I saw the report and thought, 'He's tried to commit suicide,' " Mr Helwend said. "I'd kept it inside me for years. I waited until my dad died before telling my mum six years ago. She couldn't believe it. I mean, they were friends of the family. I played with Robbie, Elizabeth and Daniel [Collins's children from his marriage to Rosemary Tipiloura] when we were kids. I saw one of them a while back but didn't say anything."

Mr Helwend was outraged by the obituaries after Collins's death at his Darwin home.

"They all got it wrong. He wasn't a hero. Whatever he achieved in politics was obscene when you compare it to what he did to me. I don't know what he did to the others, but I know what he did to me. It's with me forever."