SNAICC in the News

17–24 July 2026

This week, the Northern Territory Government passed child protection laws that weaken safeguards for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, despite overwhelming opposition from Aboriginal leaders, communities and child safety experts.

The laws passed on the same day a review confirmed serious departmental failures in the child protection system’s involvement with Kumanjayi Little Baby. Sadly, the Northern Territory government has failed to act on reforms that benefit children, instead they have chosen politics over evidence-based reforms. SNAICC has been clear that the system must be fixed, not the protections that keep children connected to family, community, culture and Country.

SNAICC also drew national attention to the coordinated racism targeting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children online, and on the Tiwi Islands the new Pumulayu Child and Family Centre opened in Wurrumiyanga under local leadership.

Here is a look at where the conversation has been, 17–24 July 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 Government Ignores Evidence and Passes Harmful Child Protection Laws

The Northern Territory Government passed its controversial child protection legislation despite sustained opposition from Aboriginal leaders, frontline organisations, legal experts and child safety advocates. The issue was covered nationally by ABC News, NITV, The New Daily, the National Indigenous Times and the NT Independent.

The laws weaken protections under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle. It also increases the risk that children will be permanently separated from their families because of systemic barriers such as housing shortages and inadequate family support.

On the day the Legislation was introduced, Aboriginal leaders and organisations gathered outside NT Parliament for a rally against this harmful Legislation. Reporting on the protest, the National Indigenous Times reported on SNAICC CEO, Catherine Liddle’s warning:

“These are not administrative changes. They are decisions that will shape the lives, families and futures of Territory children for generations.”

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

Appearing live on ABC News Breakfast on Wednesday morning, Catherine Liddle said disappointment did not adequately describe SNAICC’s response to legislation that ignored the evidence of child protection experts, child health experts, Aboriginal organisations and people working directly with children and families:

“What we know is these laws have the potential to harm children. Overwhelming evidence was put to the scrutiny committee, overwhelming evidence from people who work with children every single day of their lives.”

“Politics do not keep children safe. Evidence-based practice keeps children safe. Families keep children safe.”

The interview also challenged false descriptions of the Child Placement Principle which does not prevent a child being removed when they are unsafe. Once that decision is made, it requires the department to consider family, kin, community, culture and Country when deciding where a child is placed.

Catherine Liddle also pointed to recent findings that almost one in three children in the care of the Northern Territory Government had been subject to a serious substantiation of harm, and said the legislation did nothing to address those failures:

“All this legislation does is make it easier to remove children and harder for families to reconnect with them.”

Speaking with Sally Sara on Radio National Breakfast, Catherine Liddle said ignoring the evidence about what keeps children safe was indefensible:

“It is absolute cruelty to ignore that evidence. It is unforgivable to make decisions that you know will unfairly impact and damage children for the rest of their lives, the most vulnerable children in the country.”

Catherine Liddle also told Radio National that the Child Placement Principle exists because Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are treated unequally within child protection systems. They make up almost half of all children in out-of-home care in Australia, and the Family Matters Report 2025 shows this over-representation becomes more severe as children progress through increasingly intrusive stages of the system.

Child protection ministers from across the country responded with a joint statement reaffirming the Child Placement Principle. Catherine Liddle said the response demonstrated the seriousness of the legislation:

“It is almost unprecedented to see a move like that, and basically it signifies how very serious this change to legislation potentially is.”

Ministers across the country were prepared to put their names to the Principle. The National Indigenous Times questioned how the NT Government could claim to have strengthened it when the Child Protection Minister would not clearly affirm her support for it.

SNAICC will continue to hold the NT Government to account for laws that ignore evidence, undermine genuine partnership and move Australia further away from its commitments under Closing the Gap and Safe and Supported.

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

Review Confirms Kumanjayi Little Baby’s Family Was Failed by the System

An interim review into the Northen Territory’s child protection system’s involvement with Kumanjayi Little Baby found serious failures in how risks were identified, assessed and addressed. The findings were reported in detail by The Guardian, ABC News, 7NEWS and The Nightly.

Speaking to Sally Sara on Radio National Breakfast, SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle said the review confirmed what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, organisations and advocates had been saying for a long time:

“There was a fundamental failing in the child protection system.”

“It was not a failing of the family. It was a failing of the system overall, and that is what it found.”

Catherine Liddle rejected any suggestion that Kumanjayi Little Baby’s family was responsible for the failures identified by the review:

“Little Baby’s family did not fail her. They did not fail to keep her safe.”

“There were multiple system failures that resulted in a very, very dangerous offender having access to a child. That is unforgivable, and that is something that was known by government systems, and those systems failed this baby girl.”

The review found the central problem was not a lack of statutory authority or available protective mechanisms, but the timeliness and effectiveness with which risks were identified, assessed and addressed. Despite repeated indicators of domestic and family violence, the cumulative danger to Kumanjayi Little Baby and her family was not properly recognised.

In coverage carried by 7NEWS, The Nightly and other AAP publications, Catherine Liddle said:

“The tragedy that prompted this review exposed failures inside the child protection system, not failures of the legislation protecting children’s rights or their connection to family and culture.”

“Yet those are the protections the government has chosen to weaken.”

Speaking separately to AAP after the laws passed, Catherine Liddle said:

“This was a little baby that was loved and cared for and protected by her families.”

“What contributed to that death were massive system failings, and none of those things are being responded to at this point in time.”

The Guardian also reported Catherine Liddle’s response to the joint statement from child protection ministers across Australia:

“A statement from every other Child and Family Minister from across the country reinforcing the very principle you are trying to destroy should be setting off alarm bells throughout the NT Ministry that they have got things horribly wrong.”

SNAICC is calling on the NT Government to implement the review’s recommendations and invest in prevention, early intervention, housing and Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs). Reform must fix the systems that failed Kumanjayi Little Baby and her family, not remove the protections that uphold children’s rights and connections.

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

Coordinated Online Racism Is Following Our Children into Their Homes and Schoolyards

The National Indigenous Times reported on SNAICC’s warning that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are facing increasingly organised, coordinated and deliberate racism online. The coverage followed SNAICC’s submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Racism, Hate and Violence directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

SNAICC’s submission documents how coordinated groups are using coded language to avoid existing online moderation mechanisms, with activity intensifying around state and federal elections. Almost one-third of reported incidents of racism involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people occurred online or through other media.

Speaking to the National Indigenous Times, SNAICC CEO, Catherine Liddle said:

“What we are seeing more and more, particularly with state and federal election cycles, is our politicians’ using issues about our children as political fodder.”

“That rhetoric is setting headlines, and those headlines are setting off the trolls.”

The effects extend far beyond social media platforms.

“Those trolls follow our children into their home, into their feeds and into their schoolyards and that is having a huge impact.”

Online racism harms children’s safety, identity, sense of belonging and social and emotional wellbeing. Research cited in the coverage found that 68 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children had experienced hurtful or nasty treatment online, compared with a national average of 45 per cent, and that they were almost three times more likely to experience online hate speech.

Catherine Liddle said governments must name racism and act on it:

“Our children deserve to grow up safe, strong and proud of who they are, not to have their safety and identity debated.”

“Governments need to name racism for what it is, and act. Before it is too late. Because Closing the Gap starts with our children.”

SNAICC is calling for governments to establish evidence-informed standards for political and media discourse, examine how social media systems amplify racism and hold platforms accountable for harmful racist content.

Read SNAICC’s submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Racism, Hate and Violence

Community Control at the Heart of New Tiwi Child and Family Centre 

The Tiwi Islands community celebrated the opening of the Pumulayu Child and Family Centre in Wurrumiyanga, with NITV reporting on the first centre of its kind for the Tiwi Islands. 

The centre was designed and delivered in partnership with the Mantiyupwi people, the Traditional Owners of Bathurst Island who manage it. It brings early childhood development, youth support and family safety services together in one place, with local governance, employment and training central to a model grounded in community priorities, culture and knowledge. 

NITV’s coverage cited SNAICC’s advocacy around child and family centres being key to participation in the early years, and SNAICC’s research to show that a 70 per cent increase in participation is needed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children to be on par with their peers. 

A new Report on Government Services data expands on this idea, showing that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children attending Child Care Subsidy funded early childhood education and care rose from 3.4 per cent in 2021 to 5.3 per cent in 2025. However, developmental outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children have not followed. 

In SNAICC’s media release, SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle said: 

“The next phase of reform can’t just be about getting more children through the door. It has to be about giving every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child access to the kind of early learning that sets them up to thrive at school and throughout life.” 

Centres like Pumulayu are how that happens, and they have been promised before. In 2008 governments committed to at least 35 child and family centres in remote and regional communities under Closing the Gap. Federal funding was paused in 2014. Today 11 operate in the Northern Territory, with two more funded. 

Pumulayu shows what is possible when services are built with community, governed by community and accountable to the children and families they serve. 

Learn more about SNAICC’s work on sector transformation