Heads are expected to roll in Australia after nine Aborigines who pleaded guilty to the gang rape of a 10-year-old girl were set free by a court in far-north Queensland.

There were calls Tuesday for the judge and the crown prosecutor to be sacked after a transcript of the proceedings revealed the former said the girl "probably agreed" to sex and the latter characterized the 2006 pack rape at Aurukun as "consensual sex."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd declared he was "disgusted and appalled" that the perpetrators had effectively been let off.

Queensland University academic Boni Robertson and other Aboriginal elders demanded the dismissal of Judge Sarah Bradley and Crown Prosecutor Steve Carter.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh announced a challenge in a higher court to the leniency of the sentences and ordered a review of court proceedings in sexual assault cases in remote Aboriginal communities in far-north Queensland.

"I want to satisfy myself this is not part of a broader sentencing trend that reflects the lower standards for those communities," Bligh said.

Bradley didn't record convictions against six teenagers and gave suspended sentences to three older males. "The girl involved was not forced, and she probably agreed to have sex with all of you," she said at an October 24 sentencing.

The transcript quoted Carter as saying that "it was a form of childish experimentation, rather than one child being prevailed upon by another."

One of the men was 26 and the girl, who had also been gang raped by five juveniles at Aurukun when she was seven, contracted the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea in the encounter.

She was taken into care after the first gang rape in 2003 because it was deemed her alcoholic mother couldn't look after her. But she was taken from her white foster family last year and returned to Aurukun. Just weeks later, she was gang raped again.