SNAICC in the News

16–24 May 2026

The Northern Territory Government has narrowed the scope of its child protection inquiry while pushing legislation that would weaken the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle.

Here is a look at where the conversation has been, 16–24 May 2026.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this edition of SNAICC in the News contains the name and image of Kumanjayi Little Baby, and links to coverage of someone who has died.

NT Child Protection Inquiry Too Narrow

SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle has raised the alarm over the narrow scope of the Northern Territory Government’s child protection inquiry, as the National Indigenous Times reported, saying the terms of reference are too narrow to examine the interconnected issues shaping poor outcomes for children and families across the Territory.

We are calling for a genuine, independent inquiry developed in partnership with Aboriginal leadership.

The current scope of the inquiry the NT Government have proposed cannot deliver any meaningful reform. As the Guardian reported, Catherine Liddle said:

“Given the overwhelming calls for a genuine inquiry into the system, these narrow Terms of Reference could reasonably be viewed as an attempt to avoid scrutiny of a failing child protection system and a government unwilling to undertake the work, reflection, and partnership necessary to ensure the wellbeing of the children in its care.”

The National Indigenous Times also reported SNAICC’s concern that the inquiry has no scope to examine the leaking of confidential child protection information relating to Kumanjayi Little Baby and her family:

“The leaking of this information is incredibly serious and has the potential to place families, particularly those fleeing domestic and family violence, at further risk of harm. The fact that this breach occurred in the first place undermines trust in the very system designed to keep children safe.”

The terms of reference cannot examine the systemic failures connected to this tragedy. SNAICC remains ready to work with the Northern Territory Government on a serious, independent inquiry capable of delivering the reform children and families deserve.

Weakening the Child Placement Principle Will Not Keep Children Safe

SNAICC and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child protection experts have called on the Northern Territory Government to abandon legislation that would weaken the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle, as Lawyers Weekly reported. More than 330 organisations have condemned the proposed changes to the Care and Protection of Children Act 2007.

As a NITV explainer set out this week, the Child Placement Principle was developed in response to the child removal policies that led to the Stolen Generations.

Speaking for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership Group, which we convene under Safe and Supported, Professor Paul Gray rejected the claim that the Principle compromises children’s safety, as the National Indigenous Times reported:

“There is no aspect of the Child Placement Principle that accepts unsafe circumstances for any child, or prevents child protection authorities from taking action to ensure children are safe.”

More than 90 per cent of children in out-of-home care in the Northern Territory are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. The Family Matters Report 2025 reveals the Territory’s dismal record: the highest proportion of our children in care living with non-Indigenous non-relatives, around three-quarters, and the lowest proportion living with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander relatives or kin, about one in six, which is the lowest rate of kinship placement in the country.

This is a failure of government implementation, investment and accountability, not a failure of our families.

Speaking to the National Indigenous Times, Professor Gray pointed to the Territory’s record of poor compliance:

“The Northern Territory has consistently had some of the highest rates of Aboriginal child removals in the country and some of the lowest rates of compliance with the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle.”

“This data suggests that the NT is already ignoring the Child Placement Principle and failing to adequately keep our children safe. This is exactly why the Child Placement Principle is needed, with strengthened processes to improve compliance and accountability.”

Reform cannot be rushed or reactive. As The Daily Aus reported, Catherine Liddle said overhauling the system without Aboriginal leadership, expertise and lived experience risks repeating the failures of the past. She said:

“This work is too important to be reactive. Connection to kin, community and culture is one of the strongest protective factors for our children.”

The NT Government allowed just one week for public submissions on changes with lifelong consequences for our children, closing on 22 May, despite the amendments reportedly being in development for more than a year. The Child Placement Principle is a safety framework built on decades of evidence. It needs strengthened compliance, not weakening.

The Failure Was Never Our Families

Speaking with the BBC in the wake of the tragedy and the reforms it has prompted, SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle reflected on what the national response to Kumanjayi Little Baby’s death had revealed.

“For the very first time this story brought to the surface how deeply Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people love and care for their children.”

The BBC coverage set the tragedy against the conditions that surround it, including overcrowded and underfunded town camps around Mpartwe/Alice Springs, and a long history of failure. Catherine Liddle reflected on the damage of the Northern Territory Intervention, which she said left lasting harm:

“Men stopped bathing babies, they stopped helping out because what they heard was if you do those things, you’re a paedophile and you’re going to get locked up and your children are going to get taken away.”

We have advocated for an end to the forced removal of our children since our establishment in 1981, and in 1991 we became the first national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisation to call for an inquiry into the Stolen Generations, the inquiry that produced Bringing Them Home.

The Child Placement Principle exists to prevent the failures SNAICC has spent more than four decades calling out. Catherine Liddle highlighted just how damaging abandoning the Child Placement Principle could be:

“When you look at the prison system in the Northern Territory, it is nearly always 100 per cent Aboriginal children and nearly every single one of those children came out of the child protection system.”

The answers, she said, will not be found in tougher laws or more removals, but in community, and in investment that too often goes the other way:

“There have been a lot of fences go up instead of what we really, really need, and that is the investment into ensuring that people are safe.”

The deep inequalities the BBC reported did not begin with this tragedy. They are decades in the making, shaped by housing, justice and social policy failures that governments have not adequately addressed.

They are what the narrow inquiry will not examine. They are what the abolition of the Child Placement Principle ignores. They are what the budget fails to fund.

Connection to Country, culture, community and kinship is the foundation reform must be built on, which is why we keep calling for change led in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and why connection to kin, community and culture remains the strongest protection our children have.