Independent Senator and DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara Lidia Thorpe called on Labor to urgently implement the recommendations of the 1997 Bringing Them Home report on Sorry Day, on May 26.
The evidence shows that the systemic removal and incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children continues.
The final report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, conducted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (now the Australian Human Rights Commission), documented the forced removal of Indigenous children from their families. It described the practice as acts of genocide.
“Kids learn about the Stolen Generations in school,” Thorpe said, “but they’re not taught that these policies never ended.
“The [continued] removal of First Nations children is an ongoing genocidal project being perpetrated through government policy every day.”
Despite the report’s 54 recommendations, only 6% have been fully implemented over the past 28 years.
Thorpe said the Closing the Gap report shows that, under Labor, a whole new stolen generation of children are being subjected to the same trauma.
The Bringing Them Home report set out a series of recommendations, which included giving First Nations people “control over decisions about our children”.
“Minister [Malarndirri] McCarthy and Prime Minister [Anthony] Albanese should be ashamed of what’s happening on their watch,” Thorpe said. “Removals have been rising under Labor, traumatising our families and funnelling our kids into prisons.”
She said Labor tries to offload responsibility to the states, but “this is a national atrocity unfolding in every jurisdiction.
“Governments are knowingly placing children in harm’s way, failing to enforce legal protections, and enabling systemic neglect and abuse — including sexual abuse. Many kids have died in state care.
“Child abuse is a crime — so why is there no accountability when the perpetrators are state and territory governments or their contracted service providers?
“First Nations children removed from their families face significantly higher risks of poverty, homelessness, criminalisation, and suicide — outcomes for which governments must be held accountable.”
Data from a recent Productivity Commission report shows that First Nations children are being removed from their families at 10 times the rate of non-Indigenous children.
Nearly 24,000 First Nations children were in out-of-home care last year — constituting over 43% of all children in the system.
Thorpe said the federal government has constitutional powers “to set standards and hold states and territories accountable”, but it is “choosing not to act”. She said the new parliament, with a progressive Senate and First Peoples willing to work with them means it has no excuse not to act.
She said rather than spend billions every year removing and jailing children, Labor needs to set strong national standards, hold states to account and “fund culturally safe, community-led programs that keep our kids with family and connected to culture and Country”.
“There are proven, community-controlled services already doing this work — like Bubup Wilam, Yarrabi Bamirr, and Nelly’s Healing Place. Labor must properly resource these programs and expand them nationally, in full partnership with First Peoples.”