Submission to Legislative Assembly of the NT Legislative Scrutiny Committee

Review of the Care and Protection of Children Legislation Amendment (Every Child Matters) Bill 2026

May 2026

Download the Submission [pdf]

Acknowledgement of Kumanjayi Little Baby

We acknowledge the devastating loss of Kumanjayi Little Baby and extend our deepest respects to her family, community and all those grieving. We recognise the profound pain and concern this tragedy has generated across the Northern Territory and beyond. At the same time, we urge caution against allowing moments of grief and public shock to drive legislative responses that are reactive rather than evidence based. Tragedy should not be politicised or used to justify amendments that undermine the rights, wellbeing and cultural safety of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families.

Overview of the Submission

SNAICC strongly opposes the Care and Protection of Children Legislation Amendment (Every Child Matters) Bill 2026.

While SNAICC supports comprehensive reform of the Northern Territory child protection system, the proposed amendments, together with the review process announced on 13 May 2026, do not provide an appropriate or effective pathway to achieve meaningful reform or improve outcomes for Aboriginal children and families.

SNAICC acknowledges the consistent and strong opposition to this Bill across the NT and further endorses the concerns outlined in the submissions by the Office of Children’s Commissioner, Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory, North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency and Northern Territory Legal Assistance Forum in their submissions. We support and share their collective concern that the Bill is a significant regression in the protection of the rights of Aboriginal children and families that will not make Aboriginal children safer.

Reform of this scale must occur through an Aboriginal-informed and Aboriginal-led process undertaken in genuine partnership with Aboriginal communities, Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) and affected Aboriginal children and families in the Northern Territory.

The Bill weakens key cultural safeguards of Aboriginal children while expanding statutory intervention, compliance-based mechanisms and discretionary decision-making powers within a system already producing profoundly unequal outcomes for Aboriginal children and families.

SNAICC’s core concerns are that the Bill:

• weakens and removes key safeguards and protections for children provided by the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle,
• introduces an arbitrary reunification timeframe which will accelerate the permanent removal of Aboriginal children from their families,
• expands pathways linking policing, court intervention and child protection escalation,
• increases reliance on coercive and compliance-based intervention mechanisms,
• introduces a ‘proactive efforts’ framework for preventing removal and prioritising early reunification of children with family that, while positive, falls short of a robust statutory standard and will be ineffective without investment in services to support families, and
• does not establish delegated authority, Aboriginal community-controlled decision-making or accountability mechanisms consistent with Closing the Gap Priority Reforms.

Removal of Child Placement Principle Safeguards

 The proposed amendments would significantly alter the operation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (the Child Placement Principle) and the broader rights framework underpinning child protection decision-making, particularly through clauses amending sections 7, 10, 12B and 12C of the Act. The amendments to section 10 substantially reshape the statutory understanding of a child’s best interests by introducing a hierarchy of considerations prioritising safety, protection from harm, permanency and stability. This represents a significant departure from an established rights-protective framework by separating relational, cultural and participatory considerations from core understandings of child safety and wellbeing.

The Bill also weakens the enforceability of the Child Placement Principle by providing that principles operate only “as far as practicable” and do not create enforceable legal rights, introducing a high degree of discretion for decision-makers, reducing accountability and limiting legal recourse for children and families where critical safeguards are not applied. Further, the proposed amendments reduce the practical effect of the Aboriginal child placement framework by removing any requirement to prioritise placement with Aboriginal family, kin or community and by making Aboriginal child placement principles subordinate to broader best interests, permanency and discretionary placement frameworks.

These changes risk repeating historical approaches that separated Aboriginal children from family, culture and community in the name of protection, despite extensive evidence demonstrating that stable, nurturing relationships and cultural connection are central components of safety, wellbeing and long-term positive outcomes for Aboriginal children.

The Child Placement Principle is, itself, a child safety framework. It does not prioritise culture or connection at the expense of safety. Rather, it reflects the well-established principle that Aboriginal children’s long-term safety and wellbeing are strengthened through connection to family, kinship systems, culture, community and Country. Extensive evidence demonstrates that separating Aboriginal children from family, culture, community and Country has adverse impacts on their safety and wellbeing. Loss of cultural identity and family connection is associated with poor outcomes across health, education, justice involvement and lifelong wellbeing, including increased rates of youth suicide (SNAICC 2025). The Child Placement Principle is not limited to a placement hierarchy. It encompasses actions that span prevention, partnership, participation, placement and connection, and works to guard against both immediate and long-term harm to children.

SNAICC’s firm view is that the Child Placement Principle is in the best interests of Aboriginal children.

The principles reflected in sections 7, 12B and 12C of the existing Act are the result of decades of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership and advocacy in response to the harms of the Stolen Generations and subsequent inquiries into child removal and child protection systems. The Child Placement Principle is grounded in recommendations of the Bringing Them Home Report, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and commitments made by governments under Safe and Supported: The National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2021-2031. Full implementation of the Child Placement Principle was identified by the Royal Commission as critical to protecting Aboriginal children from harm and supporting their long-term wellbeing.

Arbitrary reunification timeframe and focus on permanency

The increased emphasis on permanency under section 8(2)(d), together with limitations on repeated short-term parental responsibility directions under sections 123 and 128, will reduce opportunities for reunification and kinship care for Aboriginal children. While timely decision-making is important, the framework prioritises expedited permanency outcomes over intensive family preservation and culturally safe reunification efforts.

Experience in other jurisdictions demonstrates the risks associated with permanency-focused child protection frameworks. A similar two-year time frame and tightened permanency settings introduced in Victoria resulted in significantly increased numbers of Aboriginal children being permanently removed from their families (Yoorrook Justice Commission 2023). Victoria has walked back these changes through reforms that were enacted in the same week that this Bill was introduced to the NT Parliament.

For Aboriginal children, stability includes maintaining connection to family, culture and Country. Jurisdictions’ emphasis on stability in permanency reforms relies on Western concepts of attachment that are not appropriate for Aboriginal children and families.

Increased surveillance and coercive intervention through family responsibility orders

The new requirements outlined in the Bill lower the threshold for child protection investigation. This includes new powers to initiate an investigation where a ‘family responsibility agreement’ is put in place, which must be done when vaguely defined ‘events of concern’ occur such as an ‘event that adversely impacts a child’s wellbeing’. This would extend investigatory powers beyond well-established and evidence-based thresholds of concern regarding child abuse and neglect, increasing surveillance, and driving increased intervention in family and community life.

Family responsibility agreements proposed in the Bill would place obligations on families to engage with supports that are not widely available and accessible across the Northern Territory. In practice, Aboriginal families may face heightened scrutiny or child protection escalation where safe housing, parenting programs, culturally safe Alcohol and other Drugs (AOD) counselling, disability services and therapeutic supports are unavailable, geographically inaccessible or subject to prolonged waiting times. The impact would be punishment of families experiencing service exclusion and poverty rather than reinforcement of the obligations of government to address the extensive deficiencies of the NT family and community service system.

The Explanatory Statement repeatedly emphasises escalation pathways, parental accountability and executive intervention powers while failing to establish corresponding family support, Aboriginal community-controlled governance and shared decision-making mechanisms. Sustainable reform requires a fundamental refocusing of the child protection system toward prevention, early intervention and family preservation delivered through the Aboriginal community-controlled sector.

Failure to respond to and address the broader failings of the NT child protection system

The Bill must also be considered in the context of the Northern Territory’s existing child protection outcomes, where Aboriginal children are over 13 times more likely to be in out-of-home care (OOHC) than non-Indigenous children and kinship placement rates remain the lowest nationally. Only 16.7% of Aboriginal children in OOHC in the Northern Territory are placed with Aboriginal relatives or kin, while 74.3% are placed with non-Indigenous non-relative carers (SNAICC 2025). These outcomes demonstrate longstanding failures to implement the Child Placement Principle in practice, rather than failures of the Child Placement Principle itself.

Failures to support families, prevent harm and removals and prioritise reunification supports are endemic to child protection systems across the country, and particularly evident in the NT. In 2022-23 only 5.2% of Aboriginal children were reunified from OOHC in the NT, representing a continuing decrease from rates of 6.6% in 2021-22, and 7.7% in 2020-21 (AIHW 2024b, Table 10.15). In the Northern Territory, investment in supporting families, Aboriginal family-led decision making and kinship care services is extremely low compared to investment in intervention, removal and out-of-home care, including high expenditure on purchased home-based care services. Alongside this lack of investment in supporting families, there is low investment in Aboriginal community-controlled organisations that are best placed to understand and respond effectively to child and family needs (SNAICC 2025). All available evidence and data points to the need for system reform to strengthen families and prevent harm, rather than legislative changes that aim to increase intervention and will do nothing to address the circumstances that lead to safety concerns for children.

Conclusion

The Explanatory Statement does not provide significant clarity on the justifications underpinning the amendments or the reasons for progressing them urgently without thorough consultation. The Minister’s tabling statement appears to mischaracterise the operation of the Child Placement Principle by suggesting that the amendments are required to foreground safety and ensure children’s participation. Safety and participation are already integral components of the Principle and its five interconnected elements: prevention, partnership, participation, placement and connection. In this context, progressing significant legislative reform without transparency, meaningful consultation and careful consideration of consequences creates substantial risks for Aboriginal children and families and undermines confidence that the reforms will improve child safety and wellbeing outcomes.

While the Bill adopts universal language and framing, Aboriginal children are overwhelmingly and disproportionately impacted by the Northern Territory child protection system. Laws and policies that appear neutral will likely produce deeply unequal impacts in practice because they do not address the specific needs of Aboriginal children.

SNAICC strongly recommends that the proposed amendments not proceed and that legislative reform be paused pending establishment of an independent Aboriginal-informed and Aboriginal-led inquiry into the Northern Territory child protection system, undertaken in genuine partnership with Aboriginal communities, ACCOs and Aboriginal children and families. The inquiry must recognise and incorporate the critical statutory oversight role of the Northern Territory Children’s Commissioner.