SNAICC in the News

7–14 August 2026

This week, SNAICC told the final public hearing of the Senate inquiry into racism, hate and violence directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that systemic racism continues to shape decisions about our children across child protection and youth justice systems.

Coverage of National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day continued across local, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, health, broadcast and regional media, while The Sector examined South Australia’s new Aboriginal Early Childhood Strategy.

The Koori Mail kept national attention on the Northern Territory’s Every Child Matters laws and on our calls for greater accountability under Closing the Gap.

Here is a look at where the conversation has been, 7–14 August 2026.

Systemic Racism Is Driving Child Removals and Youth Detention

SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle told the final public hearing of the Senate inquiry into racism, hate and violence that systemic racism is a key driver of the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in child protection and youth justice. Our evidence was reported nationally by ABC News and the National Indigenous Times.

Appearing in Naarm/Melbourne on the inquiry’s final day of public hearings, Liddle was asked whether racism was driving the high number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children entering care. The National Indigenous Times reported that her answer was unequivocal:

“Absolutely.”

Liddle expanded on that answer, telling the inquiry this is not a failure at one point in the system but a pattern running through all of it. The same National Indigenous Times coverage reported her explaining:

“At every stage of a decision-making tree, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are treated differently.”

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children make up around seven per cent of Australia’s child population but account for 60 per cent of children in juvenile custody and 45 per cent of children in out-of-home care. Liddle told the inquiry these numbers are what structural and systemic racism looks like inside the departments and programs responsible for children.

The inquiry also heard how poverty, overcrowded housing and limited access to healthcare can be interpreted as parental neglect, meaning systems respond to disadvantage by removing children rather than addressing the circumstances affecting families.

ABC News reported Liddle’s account of a child removed from community and taken to Darwin, where nobody in the foster care environment spoke the child’s language. She told the hearing:

“A little one was removed and taken up to Darwin … the little one could not speak English and there was no-one … in the foster care environment that could speak the language.”

“The baby cried consistently for two months and would not let anyone cuddle them and got sicker and sicker.”

“This is the impact of not being able to respond to systemic racism.”

Reporting on the hearing separately, the National Indigenous Times covered Liddle’s evidence on how our children are used in political debate. She told the inquiry that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are too often weaponised by politicians for political gain, through narratives that misrepresent our communities.

Our evidence included the experience of Malayangapa and Wankumarra teenager Amelia Whyman, who has spoken publicly about being racially abused by a stranger at a train station when she was 15, while bystanders did not intervene. Speaking to the National Indigenous Times, Liddle told the hearing what that isolation meant:

“She was alone while she was being attacked, and let’s be very clear: racism is a form of attack.”

Liddle also told the inquiry that governments continue to overlook the expertise of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and disregard the evidence. She pointed to the Northern Territory Government’s recent weakening of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle, and the National Indigenous Times reported her naming what sits underneath that debate:

“We see a debate where racism is at the core that claims the principle pits safety against culture, when that simply is not true.”

The hearing came a week after the latest Closing the Gap data showed targets on out-of-home care, suicide, adult imprisonment and childhood development continuing to worsen. Speaking to the National Indigenous Times, Liddle refused to let those results be read as misfortune:

“In some cases, the targets that focus on our children are going backwards. These statistics are not accidental, and they are not inevitable.”

Liddle told the inquiry that governments are investing in the wrong places and moving too slowly to hold mainstream organisations accountable. Cultural competence, she said, should not be optional.

This evidence sits alongside our submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Racism, Hate and Violence, which sets out how racism operates through government systems, policy design, political discourse and public institutions.

Governments cannot address what they will not name. Confronting institutional racism means mandating cultural safety and accountability and shifting decision-making power and resources to Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations.

Read our submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Racism, Hate and Violence.

Children’s Day Message Continues in Communities

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day continued to generate coverage after 4 August, with Ngaarda Media interviewing SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle about children’s voices and truth-telling, and Croakey Health Media looking at how organisations and communities around the country embraced this year’s Living Our Truth theme.

As we reported last week, Living Our Truth celebrates the voices, stories and knowledge of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, families and communities. It honours truth-telling and the passing of knowledge between generations.

Speaking to Ngaarda Media, Liddle said Children’s Day creates rare space in the national conversation to celebrate our children rather than talk about them:

“Children’s Day is one day of the year where we get the opportunity to show off how incredible our children are.”

Liddle told Ngaarda Media that she became a journalist because the coverage she grew up reading did not resemble the community she knew:

“They didn’t talk about the incredible love of our families and the incredible lives that we lived.”

Liddle reflected on this year’s theme, which recognises that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are frequently spoken about without being given the chance to speak for themselves.

Speaking to Ngaarda Media, Liddle invited non-Aboriginal Australians to reflect on what truth-telling asks of them:

“It’s just someone saying we need to tell you what’s happened to us. It’s not an attack on anybody.”

Liddle also spoke to the National Indigenous Radio Service Weekly News in Review to unpack the theme and what Children’s Day asks of the country. The SNAICC segment begins at 16:05.

Across the country, regional media outlets also shared Children’s Day events in their communities. In regional New South Wales, the Condobolin Argus reported on a celebration organised by Central West Family Support Group, bringing together children from Condobolin Early Learning Centre, Lachlan Children’s Services and the wider community.

The Broken Hill Times also put Children’s Day on its front page, reporting on families gathering at the Maari Ma playgroup for culturally responsive activities, a roast lunch and opportunities for children and Elders to spend time together. A full-page photo spread later in the edition captured local children and families taking part.

This year’s theme, Living Our Truth, is a reminder that the voices, stories and knowledge of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, families and communities belong at the centre of national life, not at its edges.

Learn more about National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day.

Community Control Sits at the Centre of South Australia’s Early Childhood Strategy

Early childhood publication The Sector has examined what South Australia’s new Aboriginal Early Childhood Strategy will mean in practice, reporting that Aboriginal leadership, cultural authority and community control sit at the centre of the state’s $35 million reform.

South Australia is the first state to launch a dedicated Aboriginal Early Childhood Strategy, backed by $35 million over four years and co-designed by the Office for Early Childhood Development and the South Australian Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation Network.

SNAICC has long argued that culture is not an addition to quality early learning. It is the foundation of it. The Sector reported that the strategy treats cultural identity and belonging as fundamental to Aboriginal children’s development and wellbeing, rather than as an additional component of early childhood education.

The strategy also strengthens connections between early childhood education and family services and improves family access to Aboriginal Community Controlled services. That is the architecture that turns enrolment into genuine participation. South Australia has set out how it can be done, and we will be watching how it is delivered.

Learn more about our early childhood development advocacy.

Read the SNAICC Sector Transformation Principles Framework.

Children’s Rights Concerns Over NT Laws Continue

The 12 August edition of the Koori Mail continued national scrutiny of the Northern Territory Government’s Every Child Matters laws, reporting warnings from Aboriginal leaders, human rights commissioners and child protection experts that weakening the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle puts children’s rights at risk.

The Koori Mail coverage follows sustained national opposition to the legislation reported in recent editions of SNAICC in the News, including warnings that the changes weaken safeguards developed in response to the Stolen Generations and will not address the systemic failures within the Northern Territory child protection system.

Speaking in the Koori Mail coverage, SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle said:

“The Northern Territory government is choosing politics over evidence and our children deserve better.”

In the same Koori Mail story, Liddle warned:

“Territory children and families will live with the consequences of this harmful legislation long after the political debate is over.”

The Northern Territory child protection system needs comprehensive reform, but weakening the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle will not make children safer. Culture and safety are connected and cannot be separated.

The evidence points instead to the need for investment in prevention, housing, family support, Aboriginal Family-Led Decision Making and Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations, and for reform to be Aboriginal-led, evidence-based and developed in genuine partnership with children, families, communities and frontline organisations.

Learn more about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle.

Closing the Gap Warnings Continue in Aboriginal Media

The 12 August edition of the Koori Mail also carried the national AAP report on the latest Closing the Gap data, extending coverage of our call for governments to match the success achieved in preschool enrolment with sustained investment throughout children’s lives.

As we reported when the data was released, more than 95 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are now enrolled in preschool in the year before full-time schooling. But childhood development, out-of-home care, adult imprisonment and suicide are moving backwards, while youth detention has shown no improvement from the baseline.

Speaking in the Koori Mail AAP report, SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle said:

“The same ambition is now needed further along a child’s journey.”

Liddle called for sustained investment in prevention, early supports and Aboriginal-led solutions:

“When governments partner with Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, children thrive.”

The Koori Mail story is continued pickup of the AAP coverage first published following the release of the data. The original story was also carried nationally and regionally, including by First Nations News.

Learn more about our Closing the Gap advocacy.