Reforms to the Northern Territory child protection system have sparked alarm and warnings the move could contribute to another Stolen Generation. Experts say the new laws weaken the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle, which is intended to keep kids connected to family, country and culture. The NT government argues the reforms are necessary to put safety first.
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TRANSCRIPT
Warning: the following content contains the name of an Indigenous person who has passed.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the Northern Territory parliament this week - outraged at reforms to the child safety system they say could usher in a new Stolen Generation.
SPEAKER: "Shame on both." CROWD: "Shame."
Billed as the biggest overhaul in a generation, the legislation passed in a late-night sitting on Tuesday, despite strong opposition from Aboriginal organisations and experts in child protection .
Of 150 submissions received during a short period of parliamentary scrutiny, 120 called for the law to be scrapped or substantially revised.
Earlier this month, NT Children's Commissioner Shahleena Musk resigned, with the Larrakia lawyer saying she can't support the government's approach.
Wurundjeri and Ngurai Illum Wurrung woman Sue-Anne Hunter is the National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children.
"When the person whose job is to safeguard NT children can no longer do that job inside that system, that tells you something about the system."
The NT government says the laws will prioritise child safety above all else, regardless of background, but advocates argue they fail to adequately value culture as a protective factor.
The strongest criticism is that the legislation removes the legal enforceability of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle.
"When you weaken the Child Placement Principle, you make it easier to permanently remove a First Nations child from family, from community and from culture. This is the same architecture that produced the Stolen Generations. It's just dressed in 2026 language."
The principle emerged from the recommendations of the Bringing them Home report into the Stolen Generations.
Placement with family, community or First Nations carers is just one of five elements contained in the principle.
It also includes prevention of removals, partnership with Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, participation of families and community in decision making, and connection to kin, community, culture and Country.
Cindy Torrens is a Warlmanpa/Wambaya woman and chief executive at the North Australian Aboriginal Family Legal Service.
"The idea behind the principle is simple. It says that Aboriginal children are safest and strongest with their family, culture, community, and country are considered together."
Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman Lidia Thorpe is an independent Senator for Victoria.
She says the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle has never been fully applied, but weakening it further will have devastating impacts.
"This is only going to cause harm and we're going to see more and more of Aboriginal children put into non-Aboriginal people's homes, which means disconnection from family, from kin, from culture, from the very essence of who these young people are. They will be completely robbed of that birthright through these new laws."
The principle is recognised nationally as a key mechanism for reducing over-representation of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care.
It also forms part of various government commitments under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.
In a joint statement, all governments except Queensland have expressed their concern about the NT reforms.
Larrakia elder Uncle Richy Fejo raised that response at the protest this week.
"So the only jurisdictions that have not agreed to this is Northern Territory and Queensland. We know why. We do know why, but the message that I'm getting through this is we are not alone. We have other jurisdictions around Australia who are watching us, they're listening to us, and they're understanding the pain that we're experiencing, the pain that we're enduring, the pain that is being inflicted on us by this government."
The NT government maintains its position that the reforms will enable early intervention, linking the issue to its tough-on-crime approach to youth justice.
Children's Minister Robyn Cahill says the laws are necessary to put safety first.
"What other jurisdictions do and what they think is right for their jurisdiction is entirely up to them. I will make the observation that not one of those people reached out to me to have a discussion about why we were taking the approach we were. Not one of them asked why we felt that it was so important to put safety first, and to be honest with you, that they don't think that that's important is something that I truly find incomprehensible. So, whatever you need to put in your laws down south, by all means do that. But here in the territory, we have one goal, and that is to keep our children safe."
It's an argument that has been rejected by many, including Cindy Torrens, who says safety was already the top priority under existing laws.
"The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child placement principle is not a rule that culture comes before safety. It never has been. It does not stop authorities acting when a child is in danger. Child safety is already the first consideration under the current laws. What the Aboriginal child placement principle does is ask a better question: How do we keep Aboriginal children safe without cutting away everything that tells that child who they are and where they belong in the world."
Independent territory MP Justine Davis sat on a government-dominated committee tasked with reviewing the legislation.
"I think throughout this whole process, there's been an astounding lack of willingness to listen to people, both in that committee, from the minister, from the government more broadly. That's a pattern that this government has shown over and over again. The chief minister has said, if you don't agree with me, you can leave the territory. There is clearly no willingness to listen to evidence, to experts, to people on the ground unless they agree with the narrative of the government."
Shadow Children's Minister Chansey Paech has also criticised the legislation.
The Eastern Arrernte and Gurindji man said he put forward 30 amendments, and all were turned down.
NT Children's Minister Robyn Cahill argues the new law has been misrepresented.
"There have been select pieces of the legislation that people have focused on and taken out of context. The absolutely critical component of this legislation is it in no way reduces the obligation of our government or the department to make sure that children stay connected to their family, to their culture, to their country. What it says is don't wait till it's too late. Don't wait until we have a disaster."
The new laws also impose a strict two-year time limit on short-term protection orders - which the government says is part of an increased emphasis on early intervention and long-term stability.
Advocates say this shifts the balance towards more permanent placements, with the government only required to proactively support family reunification for 24 months.
Chief executive at the North Australia Aboriginal Justice Agency, Ben Grimes says the legislation replaces key legal rights with more nebulous language that carries less weight in court.
"So currently, for example, the legislation really clearly says that Aboriginal families have the right to participate and to be enabled to participate in administrative and court decisions about their children. And that also extends to people who are the appropriate people for Aboriginal kinship."
He says that the right to participate previously provided an opportunity to challenge protection orders or permanent placement where families felt they were being rushed.
"And that's being replaced with should be given the opportunity to participate. Completely different. It'd be very hard for us to stand up in court and argue that there's inherent unfairness when a parent may not even know that decisions about their child are being made when all that we can point to is should be given an opportunity. And again, if you're a parent who lives out in a remote community and a plane ticket is $1,200 to get into Darwin, should be given an opportunity gives you nothing."
Mr Grimes expects NAAJA's case load to double as a result of the laws, across frontline services stretching from family support through to challenging removals in court, with no additional funding.
Mr Grimes is urging the government to turn more of its focus toward bureaucratic barriers he says often stand in the way of placing children in safe houses with family or extended kin - such as issues with housing access and overcrowding.
"And then there'll be plenty of other examples we see where they'll use the fact that somebody's house in a state of disrepair as a reason to refuse to place a child with that family. But of course, the irony or the hypocrisy there is that in most of these cases, it's the NT government that's responsible for repairs and maintenance of the houses."
The government's performance has also been in focus this week through an independent review into the NT Department of Children and Families.
A former police commissioner and public servant described systemic failures in their draft report and recommended a significant overhaul.
The review was commissioned in the wake of the alleged murder of five-year-old Kumanjayi Little Baby in Alice Springs.
Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter says it confirmed what experts have been saying.
"The failures in the NT are operational. We need to remember that. They are in practice, not in the legislation. So you don't fix practice failure by taking rights off children."
Although the review did not link the Warlpiri girl's death to failures by the department, it did raise concerns that the cumulative impact of domestic and family violence was not recognised and acted on.
The review found Kumanjayi’s mother was effectively left with the responsibility of protecting her child without support while experiencing violence herself.
More broadly, it found the safety of a child relies on social workers' subjective judgement and risk assessment.
NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has told parliament the new laws will help create clarity.
"The right of a child to be safe first and above everything else. The old Act had half a dozen, if not more, of varying principles, none of which were organised in a hierarchy of considerations, and so we had a system where health care and protection workers were essentially set up for failure by virtue of the fact that they had a litany of different areas in which they could choose from to try and ascertain whether or not a child and their family required some form of intervention."
She says her government has done the hard work.
"To outline and sequence so that there is a cascading or a tiered structure within this legislation to provide very explicit and careful direction to our professionals who have to do this very difficult, very often heartbreaking work to work through what interventions, if any, are required. Depending obviously on the on the very wide range of circumstances that they encounter every single day."
The review also identified significant challenges with workforce capacity, recruitment, retention, resourcing, information sharing and leadership.
Justine Davis says the government's reforms won't fix the deeper problems plaguing the NT child safety system.
"We had an opportunity to actually make things better for children here. The child protection system is in crisis. Every single witness that we heard from agreed with that. Yesterday the government's own report came out and said the issue is not with the law, it's with the system. Child protection ministers across Australia said that this law will not work. It is dangerous. When you've got a government that doesn't listen to the overwhelming evidence that's presented to them, child protection ministers across Australia, their own committee review and still barrels on and does things that they are being informed in no uncertain terms is going to harm the most vulnerable people in this community. I think we all need to be very, very worried."
Senator Thorpe says it's time for the Federal government to use its constitutional powers to intervene.
"If the federal government wanted to address this situation, they could at the next parliament sitting override territory laws and ensure that the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle is federally adopted through legislation from the federal government. That would override the territory."
Federal minister Murray Watt has said the Commonwealth has no plans to intervene.
