SNAICC in the News – National Child Protection Week, changes to youth justice policies in the NT & Indigenous Literacy Day
The week of 2 September 2024 covers National Child Protection Week 2024, Indigenous Literacy Day and further discussions on the Northern Territory Government’s age of criminal responsibility decision and additional proposed changes to youth justice policies.
This week National Child Protection Week 2024 was acknowledged along with the theme Every Conversation Matters. As part of the week, SNAICC has called for decisive action from both the government and the out-of-home care sector to take substantial action to keep children safe and turn around the rising tide of family separations. Catherine Liddle, CEO of SNAICC, pointed towards data on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care that indicate a completely unacceptable trend towards an increase in both the number and over-representation of our children in care. Catherine emphasises the need for community-led solutions and increased investment in prevention and early support services to change these trends.
Several legal, advocacy and human rights organisations have expressed serious concerns about the proposed changes to youth justice policies in the Northern Territory under Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro. The new measures include lowering the criminal responsibility age to ten years, reintroducing spit hoods and enforcing stricter bail laws. Catherine Liddle has spoken out on the disproportionate impact the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility has on Aboriginal children, who are over-represented in the system. She and other experts continue to advocate for evidence-based, community-led solutions to address the root causes of youth crime, rather than relying on punitive measures that criminalise, traumatise vulnerable children and punish them at such a young age.
On September 4, 2024, Indigenous Literacy Foundation hosted a vibrant event at the Sydney Opera House to celebrate Indigenous Literacy Day. The day showcased stories from Vincentia, Cunnamulla and Ratuati Irara/the Tiwi Islands and featured performances by ambassadors Jessica Mauboy and Bianca Hunt. The day also saw the launch of three new books that celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytelling, reinforcing the profound impact literacy has on empowering culture and community, and ensuring that our stories and languages continue to thrive for generations to come.
For complete coverage, read the news and media stories linked below.
Topic: National Child Protection Week 2024
This week National Child Protection Week 2024 was acknowledged along with the theme Every Conversation Matters and SNAICC has called on government and the out-of-home care sector to take substantial action to keep children safe and turn around the rising tide of family separations.
This year’s National Child Protection Week theme, Every Conversation Matters, stresses the importance of dialogue in keeping children safe and well. The theme emphasises that conversations—whether between children and caregivers, families and professionals or decision-makers and communities—are crucial for understanding issues, crafting solutions and fostering safe environments for children. This National Child Protection Week, the call to action is clear: engage in important conversations, promote the value of conversations and equip us to have conversations that keep kids safe.
Catherine Liddle, CEO of SNAICC, pointed towards data on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care that indicate a completely unacceptable trend towards an increase in both the number and over-representation of our children in care. She noted that the 2023 Family Matters Report found 22,328 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being 10.5 times more likely to be in care than non-Indigenous children. Catherine expressed concern over the current trajectory, saying that the 2024 and subsequent reports should not follow the same trend and stressed that the gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and non-Indigenous children in out-of-home care is widening, not closing.
SNAICC is urging the government to act on the substantial evidence supporting community-led initiatives, with Catherine saying that by investing in community-led solutions, we can reverse the trends we have seen in previous Family Matters reports. There is evidence that the transfer of authority to Aboriginal community-controlled organisations to make child protection decisions is having a real impact on increasing reunifications, and more investment is needed in prevention and early support services that will help to reduce child removals.
Family Matters will release its next report in late 2024 and the target remains to eliminate the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Australia’s child protection systems by 2040.
For complete coverage, read our media release linked below.
Read our Media ReleaseArticle: Round and round: one boy’s tragic story highlights how the state harms children Croakey Health Media (published 6 September)
Excerpt:
Catherine Liddle, CEO of SNAICC, National Voice for our Children, described Jack’s story as “devastating” [a 15-year-old Indigenous boy with a significant intellectual disability who was, according to the presiding magistrate, on a “sad merry-go-round of offending, incarceration and hopelessness” because of failures by the state to provide him with proper care].
“I feel for this boy who has been failed time and time again by the child protection, and now by youth justice systems,” she told Croakey.
“This case really does highlight what we know about young people who continuously reoffend – they are the children who need our help the most and require supportive intervention much earlier than their first offence,” Liddle said.
The case comes as states and territories are once again ratcheting up ‘tough on crime’ approaches particularly for young people, including the new Northern Territory Government which has pledged to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 10, restrict bail for children, and re-introduce spithoods in detention – measures condemned by the Royal Commission into Don Dale youth justice abuses.
Read the full article
Article: For children’s safety, every conversation matters Croakey Health Media (published 5 September)
Excerpt:
According to Anne Hollonds, the National Children’s Commissioner, children who engage in troublesome behaviour often experience social disadvantage, including poverty, homelessness, and violence.
For children of First Nations and migrant families, systemic racism and intergenerational trauma – products of our history of colonialism – are additional risk factors also acknowledged by the RACP.
Indeed, Indigenous children are over-represented in detention and out-of-home care with a 17-fold and 10.5-fold greater likelihood than non-Indigenous children respectively, demonstrating the persisting health inequities.
The peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children, SNAICC, has called for governmental action to reverse these trends, including investment in community-led solutions.
Read the full article
Topic: Changes to youth justice policies in the Northern Territory
Several legal, advocacy and human rights organisations have expressed serious concerns about the proposed changes to youth justice policies in the Northern Territory under Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro.
The Northern Territory’s newly elected Chief Minister, Lia Finocchiaro, and her Country Liberal Party government, have proposed changes to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 10 years, reintroduce spit hoods and implement harsher bail laws. These measures have sparked widespread concern among advocates, legal experts and human rights groups.
Catherine Liddle, in a radio interview on ABC Breakfast Alice Springs, emphasised the damaging effects of criminalising children as young as 10, pointing towards the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory that had already revealed the inhumane conditions inside detention centres and the ineffectiveness of incarceration as a means of rehabilitation for young offenders. She expressed concern that these reforms would disproportionately affect Aboriginal children, further entrenching cycles of disadvantage. The vast majority of children in detention are First Nations, and many experts, including Catherine, argue that instead of punitive measures, what is needed are community-led prevention and diversion programs that address the root causes of crime, such as poverty, access to education and family instability. National Children’s Commissioner, Anne Hollonds also recently released a report urging a more compassionate approach to youth justice, recommending that the age of criminal responsibility be raised to 14 in line with international standards.
Another key proposal by Chief Minister, Lia Finocchiaro, and her Country Liberal Party government is the reintroduction of spit hoods for children in detention, a practice that was banned in the NT in 2016. Despite this ban, it was revealed in 2022 that NT Police had continued using spit hoods on children as young as 12. A 2023 report by NT Ombudsman Peter Shoyer detailed several cases where spit hoods were improperly used. Latoya Aroha Rule, spokesperson for the Ban Spit Hood Coalition, condemned the proposal as a step backward for the NT. Finocchiaro’s government also plans to introduce a bail amendment bill known as ‘Declan’s Law’, which aims to impose stricter bail conditions on violent offenders, including a presumption against bail for serious violent crimes, mandatory electronic monitoring for those granted bail and reintroducing the offence of bail breaches for youth.
Catherine and other advocates point out that harsher measures fail to address the underlying social drivers of youth crime, such as poverty, housing instability and lack of educational opportunities. They say that data consistently shows tough-on-crime measures do not lead to long-term reductions in reoffending. Catherine stresses the need for community-led, evidence-based intervention and prevention programs that are tailored to the unique needs of Aboriginal children, rather than policies that criminalise and punish children at such a young age.
For complete coverage, view the news and media stories linked below.
Radio interview: Catherine Liddle interview Alice Springs Breakfast (ABC) (broadcast 3 September: timestamp 1:12:48)
Excerpt:
“The issue is that there’s no evidence—either from any state or territory in Australia or internationally—that locking children up reduces crime.
If it did, we wouldn’t be seeing the situation we have now, with detention facilities full.
If locking up children was working, it would be working now.
…when you look at the legal statistics, there’s a story people hear, but there’s also a story of what actually happens.
That story says that at every stage of the decision-making process, when children enter the legal system, an Aboriginal child will suffer a more severe consequence as a result of being in that system.” – Catherine Liddle.
Listen to the full interview
Article: Lawyers slam ‘unacceptable’ plan by incoming NT government to lower age of criminal responsibility LawyersWeekly (published 2 September)
Excerpt:
The CEO of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait advocacy group SNAICC – National Voice for Our Children, Catherine Liddle, criticised the Northern Territory government’s plans to lower the age of criminal responsibility while speaking on ABC News Breakfast this week.
Liddle said: “At 10, you are just a child. The evidence had long shown, and again it was a royal commission that unearthed it in the Northern Territory, that the conditions in detention centres were absolutely inhumane.”
“And those findings have been backed up by reports right across the country to say conditions in detention centres actually do very little to work on the rehabilitation of the child and protection of the child.
“In actual fact, children come out more harmed than when they went in.”
Read the full article
Article: NT’s youth crime crackdown ‘locking up a generation’ NIT (published 31 August)
Excerpt:
Justice Reform Initiative executive director Mindy Sotiri said the CLP’s proposed changes would increase the number of people in prison in the NT, entrenching disadvantage and making future reoffending more likely.
“The solutions to reducing crime are not found in legislative reforms like restricting bail, but are in the community,” she said.
Dr Sotiri said it took real investment and hard work at the grassroots level with individuals, families and communities to address the drivers of crime.
The evidence showed “tough-on-crime” measures increased the likelihood of further offending, making communities less safe, she said.
Recent data showed only five out of 19 Closing the Gap targets were on track, and the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is not on track to close as targeted by 2031.
Read the full article
Topic: Indigenous Literacy Day
On 4 September 2024, Indigenous Literacy Foundation hosted a vibrant event at the Sydney Opera House to celebrate Indigenous Literacy Day, an annual event that honours the stories, cultures and languages of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
This year’s celebrations, hosted by the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, featured a special event showcasing stories from Vincentia, Cunnamulla and Ratuati Irara/the Tiwi Islands. The event was graced by Indigenous Literacy Foundation ambassadors Jessica Mauboy, Bianca Hunt, Gregg Dreisse, Josh Pyke and Justine Clarke.
The Indigenous Literacy Foundation has been pivotal in transforming literacy for our children by providing culturally relevant books and resources. Ben Bowen, Indigenous Literacy Foundation CEO, said that the foundation’s strengths-based approach celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children’s multilingual abilities and cultural heritage. The Indigenous Literacy Foundation’s commitment to preserving and promoting languages and stories has earned it the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, a global recognition for children’s literature.
The Literacy for Life Foundation has focused on improving adult literacy in community. With over 40% of Aboriginal adults facing low literacy, the Literacy for Life Foundation community-driven approach, led by Professor Jack Beetson, trains local individuals to conduct literacy campaigns in their communities. This approach not only enhances literacy but also opens up economic, health and cultural opportunities.
The day also saw the launch of three new books that celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytelling:
- Ngayawanj Bagan‑nggul, Ngayawanj Barra Barra‑nggul (We Belong to the Land, We Belong to the Sea) – a poetry collection from Vincentia High School students, created with Kirli Saunders and Jaz Corr
- Bagan, Barra Barra, Mirriwarr (The Boys Who Found Their Way) – written by Vincentia High School students Tyran Uddin and Kayden Wellington with Kirli Saunders and Jaz Corr
- Yaltji Ngayuku Papa? (Where’s My Dog?) – a story from Tjuntjuntjara Remote Community School students, with Stewart Ennis and Ange Leech.