SNAICC in the News

1–7 August 2026

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day put the voices, stories and strength of our children at the centre of the national conversation this week, with SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle and 2026 Ambassador Marlee Silva carried across national television, radio and online media under the theme Living Our Truth.

Coverage of our Closing the Gap response continued into health and regional media, South Australia launched the country’s first Aboriginal Early Childhood Strategy, and Northern Territory Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) used Children’s Day to call for more kinship carers.

Running through all of it is the same argument we have made all year. When governments fund and partner with our organisations, our children thrive. When they do not, the cost is written across every stalling target.

Here is a look at where the conversation has been, 1–7 August 2026.

Living Our Truth: Space for Our Children to Tell Their Own Stories

SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle and 2026 Children’s Day Ambassador Marlee Silva joined ABC News Breakfast live from Kummara Early Years Services in Ipswich/Tulmur to launch National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day, with the National Indigenous Times and First Nations News also covering the day, and SBS News carrying it in its Evening News Bulletin.

Children’s Day has been held on 4 August every year since 1988, on a date historically used as a shared birthday for children of the Stolen Generations who did not know their own. A day that began in the absence of a child’s own story is now the day we make room for our children to tell theirs. That is what this year’s theme, Living Our Truth, asks of the country.

Marlee Silva, the acclaimed Gamilaroi and Dunghutti writer, podcaster, presenter and sports commentator, was announced as this year’s Ambassador in June. Her work telling stories of strength and success about our communities is the reason the partnership matters, because Children’s Day is about who gets to tell our children’s stories. The flagship event was hosted with Kummara, a Deadly Early Education and Care centre and a Connected Beginnings site supporting almost 3,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families.

Catherine Liddle told ABC News Breakfast that our children need space to speak about their creativity, their ambitions and their experiences:

“Right now, we think it’s more important than ever that our children are given the opportunity to step up and tell their stories.”

In the same interview on ABC News Breakfast, 2026 Children’s Day Ambassador Marlee Silva said that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are too often discussed through a deficit lens, and in conversations they are not part of:

“Often, when we’re spoken of as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, we’re spoken of in rooms we’re not in.”

“A day like today is really about celebration. It’s about how amazing our next generation of kids are. That’s what the truth is. That’s what Living Our Truth is.”

Marlee Silva described culture as the foundation of identity, resilience and belonging, and Catherine Liddle said our children need that strength as they move into schools and other environments where their identity may be challenged:

“Culture is the backbone of survival.”

“Our children have to be strong enough to go to school. That means they have to be deadly enough.”

Marlee Silva closed with a message for our children:

“I want our kids to know that their connection to culture is their superpower.”

You can hear Marlee reflect on this year’s Children’s Day theme on our SNAICC Yarns podcast:

During the interview with ABC News Breakfast, SNAICC’s CEO Catherine Liddle was asked about the recent Closing the Gap preschool enrolment milestone saying that the result shows what becomes possible when governments work differently with communities and invest early:

“If we get in early enough, we truly can close all of those other gaps.”

SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle also spoke to the National Indigenous Radio Service, in a Children’s Day feature syndicated through Ngaarda Radio, Koori Radio, Radio Goolarri, Umeewarra Radio, 4K1G and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander broadcasters. During the interview she reflected on growing up in Central Australia and seeing media coverage that did not resemble the families and communities she knew, an absence that led her into journalism and later into national advocacy for our children and families:

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

That absence is what Living Our Truth exists to correct, and it is why the day belongs to everyone, not only to us:

“What we’re hoping for today is that we’re able to bring that story out, the one that talks to how fantastic it is to be an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child, how strong our families are, how important our stories and our connection to our Country are, and why that’s something that should not only be celebrated by us but shared and celebrated by everybody.”

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day is an opportunity for all Australians to recognise and celebrate the strength, pride and potential of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

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

Learn more about 2026 Children’s Day Ambassador Marlee Silva

Continued Closing the Gap Coverage

Continued coverage of our response to the latest Closing the Gap data was published this week, with HealthTimes, Western Sydney’s Western Weekender and Parra News reporting.
The coverage reported on the successful milestone in preschool enrolments, but the worsening outcomes in out-of-home care, youth detention and childhood development are a warning of the consequences of failing to invest.
Speaking to the Western Weekender and Parra News, SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle said:

“The lack of progress on out-of-home care and youth detention should act as a reminder that the same ambition is now needed further along a child’s journey, with sustained investment in prevention, early supports and Aboriginal-led solutions.”

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

When governments do not partner with Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, the consequences are written across the targets that continue to stall and worsen, and are felt every day in the lives of our children and families.
Explore our Closing the Gap work

South Australia’s Aboriginal Early Childhood Strategy Shows What Funding Community Delivers

SNAICC has welcomed South Australia’s launch of the country’s first dedicated Aboriginal Early Childhood Strategy, backed by $35 million over four years, with SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle telling NITV that the strategy matters because it was built with Aboriginal communities rather than for them.
The strategy was developed with ACCOs, families, Elders and educators. It includes preschool fee relief, Aboriginal-specific playgroups, community liaison officers, an Elders in Residence program and increased support for community-controlled early childhood services.
Catherine Liddle told NITV that the way the strategy was designed is what sets it apart:

“What makes this strategy significant is that it was developed with Aboriginal communities, not for them.”

“We know when governments partner with community in the design of reforms, they deliver better outcomes.”

The announcement lands days after SNAICC released the findings of Doing Things Differently: Funding ACCOs to keep families together, which sets out reforms to funding ACCOs for better outcomes.
SNAICC looks forward to supporting the implementation of the strategy, and seeing the benefits of working with ACCOs and the community to deliver outcomes.
Explore our early childhood development work

Our Jarjums Are Precious: Prevention Before Removal 

Barkindji woman Wendy Knight, the Executive Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Practice and Partnerships at Life Without Barriers, wrote in the Newcastle Herald about the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care, and about the work under way with SNAICC to keep children connected to family, kin and culture. 

Life Without Barriers is one of the mainstream organisations which make up the Allies for Children, which works in partnership with SNAICC and the First Nations NGO Alliance. Together those organisations deliver around 15 per cent of child and family services nationally and are responsible for the care of approximately 1,900 of our children.  

Their commitment is to return children to family and kin, strengthen connection to culture, and shift resources, responsibility and decision making to ACCOs. 

That work is guided by our Sector Transformation Principles Framework, released to help mainstream organisations begin transitioning child protection services to ACCOs and align with Closing the Gap commitments. Transition is not a gesture. It is the staged transfer of responsibility, resources and decision making to the organisations our communities trust. 

Progress on Target 12 has stalled nationally. There are approximately 23,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care, and more than half are placed with non-Indigenous mainstream organisations, as our Family Matters Report 2025 sets out. That is the gap this work is designed to close. 

Culture is not an addition to a case plan. It is a birthright and a protective factor, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle exists so that decisions about our children are made with that understanding.  

This year’s Children’s Day theme Living Our Truth asks Australia to listen when we speak about the systems affecting our children, and to properly resource the solutions our communities are already delivering. 

Read the Family Matters Report 2025 

Living Our Truth in the Territory: A Call for More Kinship Carers 

Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations across the Northern Territory marked Children’s Day by celebrating the strength of Aboriginal families and calling on Territorians to come forward as kinship carers, as the National Indigenous Times reported. 

Kinship care is how a child who cannot live with their parents stays connected to family, community, culture and Country, and our research shows that connection is central to a child’s identity, healthy development and lifelong wellbeing.  

Only 17 per cent of our children in out-of-home care in the Northern Territory are placed with an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander relative or kin, the lowest rate in the country. That is exactly what the Child Placement Principle exists to change, and it is why we have opposed the Territory’s new laws, which require the Principle to be applied only as far as practicable and cap protection orders at two years in favour of permanency. 

A Principle that applies only when convenient is not a protection. Weakening it while so few of our children are placed with their own family moves the Territory in the opposite direction to the evidence. 

Kinship carers must be backed with practical, financial and culturally safe support, and governments must invest earlier in families so that fewer of our children enter care at all. That is what Living Our Truth looks like in policy: our children staying connected to everything that makes them who they are. 

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