Reconciliation Week 2025 – SNAICC in the News
This week, we acknowledge National Reconciliation Week 2025, a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to reconciliation in Australia, beginning with National Sorry Day on Monday, 26 May.
National Sorry Day 2025 commemorates the 28th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home Report, a landmark inquiry into the Stolen Generations that documented the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children under government policy. The report revealed the immense trauma inflicted on families and issued a clear message: never let this happen again. Yet, nearly three decades later, only 6% of its recommendations have been fully implemented.
This year’s Sorry Day, and the start of Reconciliation Week, come amid fresh warnings that Australia is failing to learn from its past. As reported by NIT, Arrernte Elder and Children’s Ground Chair William Tilmouth said that the trauma of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child removals is not a chapter of the past, but one that is still unfolding. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still being removed from their families, and at significantly alarming rates. According to Family Matters Report 2024, 41% of all children in out-of-home care are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander—despite Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children making up only 6% of the total child population in Australia—and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are 10.8 times more likely to be in out-of-home care than non-Indigenous children. Tilmouth said that real change requires more than symbolic gestures, calling for justice, self-determination and truth-telling as the foundation for reconciliation.
Arrernte and Luritja woman Catherine Liddle, CEO of SNAICC – National Voice for our Children, shared these concerns in her appearance on the ABC News Breakfast program. Catherine spoke deeply about the ongoing human cost of current child protection policies, reflecting on how generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families continue to live with the trauma of removal. She said that children today still face a system that unfairly targets them and causes harm. Responding to an ABC article, I thought being a perfect mum was the only way to keep my kids safe, Catherine spoke about proud Yuin woman Carly Schofield’s story—a woman whose mother was forcibly removed and who grew up under the constant fear that her own children would be taken too. That fear shaped her entire life; making herself invisible in classrooms and later suffering from postnatal depression and deep anxiety. Catherine said that this is the truth-telling that Aboriginal people are asking for and that Aboriginal people want the opportunity to share their stories—and for those stories to be heard and acted on.
According to reports, national spending on family support, intensive family support, protective intervention and care services totaled $9.4 billion in 2022-23, with 63% ($5.9 billion) allocated to crisis-end out-of-home care and placement services, while more than $1 billion was spent on keeping children in youth detention, but the outcomes remained disastrous. In Queensland, authorities recently acknowledged the state’s system is unsafe and have announced a 17-month Commission of Inquiry into the Queensland child protection system. Nationally, a third of children in the youth justice system have been through out-of-home care. Catherine pointed out that despite billions of dollars being spent, the system remains fundamentally broken, failing to prioritise early intervention and community-led solutions. She said that where positive change is occurring, it is because Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled services are involved, as they understand how to work with families to keep children safe and connected to culture.
Catherine said that solutions already exist in the Safe and Supported national framework, which all states and territories have endorsed, incorporating the Bringing Them Home recommendations and focusing on strengthening families and communities. The data show that when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations lead, outcomes improve—but the majority of funding still goes to mainstream providers or residential care settings with high rates of disconnection and harm. Catherine said that investments need to go where they are most effective; community-led services that allow children to grow up safe, cared for and connected to their families, communities and culture.