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The universal safety of all children should be paramount. The Northern Territory Government’s proposed Care and Protection of Children Legislation Amendment (Every Child Matters) Bill 2026 presents serious risks to the protection of First Nations children and the rights of families. The proposed changes, including weakening the protection of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (ATSICPP) must be revoked.
The child protection crisis in the Northern Territory is not due to the ATSICPP. It is due to wholescale failure of the current system and the ATSICPP is being used as a scapegoat.
First Nations children are vastly overrepresented in out of home care and detention systems across the Territory. A culturally responsive legislation is needed to prevent ongoing harm.
Governments across generations created this crisis through the ongoing failure to invest in the conditions that keep children safe and families strong, including housing, healing, healthcare, early support, culture, language and self determination. Aboriginal families love their children.
The continued overrepresentation of First Nations children in child protection systems reflects systemic failure, not family failure.
The ATSICPP exists because generations of Aboriginal children were removed from family, kin, culture and Country under policies carried out in the name of protection. The harm caused by these removals is generational and continues to be felt across communities today. These proposed reforms diminish the role of First Nations families, communities and cultural authority in decisions affecting their children. They weaken critical protection. For First Nations children, safety requires a strong connection to family, kinship, language, culture and Country. Child safety and cultural safety are inseparable.
Every child deserves safety, dignity and the opportunity to thrive. Children’s Ground supports universal rights for all children. Children’s Ground supports legislative and procedural systemic reform to address the crisis, but this reform must be deeply considered and include all stakeholders, including the families and communities who are affected the most.
While the ATSICPP is a critical protection, the evidence shows it is not enough.
Governments must be cautious about expanding interventions while failing to address the structural conditions driving children into contact with the system in the first place.
Solutions exist. They have been ignored by successive governments on both side of political spectrum, both at the Territory and national level. This crisis is preventable. The leadership of Children’s Ground want this message to be clearly heard: the solutions are here, they are on the table, they have been on the table for many years and it is time for action.
First Nations communities and organisations have identified solutions grounded in prevention, healing, kinship systems, Elders’ authority and community leadership. Long term reform must centre First Nations leadership, culture and authority and be developed in genuine partnership with First Nations communities.
First Nations children deserve protection, safety and accountability by political systems. Not politicisation of their culture, families and future. It is time for systems built on safety, dignity, culture, respect and love.
