A new national champion for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children will be tasked with raising their voices and reducing the number of Indigenous children in out-of-home care and detention, the government has announced.
The National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People will begin work in January.
A First Nations person will be appointed to lead the body, charged with protecting and promoting the rights of Indigenous children and youth on a range of issues.
“It has taken some time to get to this point, but we need to get this role right,” said Catherine Liddle, chief executive of the Indigenous Children’s Peak Body SNAICC and chair of the Safe and Supported Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Federal Government Leadership Group. .
“Our children deserve it.”
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are almost 11 times more likely to be in out-of-home care than non-Indigenous children and 29 times more likely to be in youth detention.
Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy said the national commissioner will focus on working with First Nations people and organizations on evidence-based programs and policies to turn these numbers around.
“The national commissioner will be informed by the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people, whose voices deserve to be heard,” she said.
Their strengths, their sense of hope and new ideas will be a driving force for systemic change.
Ms Liddle said the new Commissioner had been created through shared decision-making processes under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, and would have the strong roles that communities have been asking for for a long, long time.
“This particular commissioner will be the champion of our children,” she told NITV.
“It will be the person who brings their voice forward, and it will be the person who can hold systems, processes, programs and services to account.
“We know that what we are seeing in Australia right now is terrible rhetoric around Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, and yet we are not seeing what actions are needed to actually change what is happening on the ground.
“This position is that position.”
In recent months, advocates have repeatedly raised concerns about First Nations children being used as political footballs, especially during state and territory election campaigns.
Human rights groups have also highlighted attacks on children’s rights in several jurisdictions, as the Northern Territory’s new CLP Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has pledged to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10; Victoria went backwards when raising the age to 14 and NSW introduced tough bail penalties.
“This is the person who can look out there, shine a light in every dark corner, raise the voices of hope and aspiration and who will literally change the landscape for our children and families,” Ms Liddle said.
Some states and territories already have their own Indigenous children’s commissioners, including South Australia, where Mirning and Kokatha woman April Lawrie are working to address the overrepresentation of First Nations children in out-of-home care.
‘South Australia has the worst statistics in the country, and [Ms Lawrie] I could say the problem is we don’t have the legislation, we don’t have the teeth in the legislation,” Ms Liddle said.
“That means we’re really holding the system to account and we’re really committed to doing what we need to ensure that children are protected and that families are strong.
“What a national commissioner can do is work on these kinds of incredible recommendations to make sure that everyone is looking at how they can also lift… what national levers need to be pulled very hard, and how we can make sure that our children are where they are. need to be home with their families.”
Earlier this week, National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds told the National Press Club that Australia is failing to address child protection and youth justice, and is lagging behind other countries closing detention centers for young people.
A national task force to reform Australia’s children’s justice systems and the development of a 10-year roadmap are both needed, Commissioner Hollands said.
Referring to research from the Productivity Commission, Ms Hollands said even America would do better by closing youth detention centres.
“They are much, much more likely to experience juvenile crime,” she said.
“If they need some sort of secure facility, it’s usually a community facility, not this big institutional prison environment.”
Scotland and Ireland have also found better ways to tackle the problem, she said.
“Far too many children and young people across Australia struggle every day with poverty, homelessness, health and mental health issues, disability and learning difficulties, and – especially for many First Nations families – systemic racism and intergenerational trauma,” Ms Hollonds said.
‘Research also shows that more than one in three children live in homes where there is domestic, family and sexual violence.
“Many of these children end up in child welfare systems, which are overwhelmed and unable to respond with the care children need.”
Ms Hollands also called on the federal government to appoint a minister for children.
Australia can no longer continue with ‘business as usual’ and must abandon its failed approach of longer sentences, more police and more child prisons, she said.
What she saw during visits to the country’s youth detention centers left the commissioner “shocked and saddened.”
“These children could not tell me about any hopes, dreams or plans for the future,” Ms. Hollonds said.
“All they could see in their future was more of the same, but in adult prison.
‘The light had gone from their eyes.’
The children themselves were victims of crimes, but because their stories were rarely heard, it was easy to demonize and dehumanize them, she said.
The commissioner warned that unless the nation started paying attention to the evidence, the community would be having the same conversation 10 years from now, only with many more tragedies to come.
Ms Liddle believes the new Indigenous Children’s Commission is a step in the right direction.
“We will be able to really look at what is causing the massive systemic failure of our children being removed from their families, and the over-representation of our children in the justice system,” she said.
“But we will also have that voice that allows our communities to talk about how wonderful our children are, so that children can actually express their hopes and dreams and work with governments to ensure that every hope and dream becomes a reality. ”
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