Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People Bill 2026 and the associated transitional provisions bill. At the outset, I acknowledge the seriousness of the issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children today, issues that demand practical action, accountability and a relentless focus on outcomes and the front line. I make these comments on behalf of the responsible shadow minister.

The bill empowers the national commissioner to promote, improve and support the rights, safety and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, while driving greater accountability for policies impacting this group. The associated transitional provisions bill ensures the continuity of the national commission as it transfers from an executive agency to a statutory authority. But this empowerment, unfortunately, will do little.

Indigenous Australians deserve more than symbolism. They deserve more than Canberra-centric bureaucracy. They do not need more talk or more consultation. They need resources and for our focus to be on the front line. They certainly deserve more than the legislation constructed to sound transformative while offering little substance to turn the dial on disadvantage. They need a government focused on outcomes, not headlines. After carefully considering the bills, the detail of the proposed commission, the consultation undertaken and the record of this government, the coalition will oppose this legislation.

There's no question that improved outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children must be a national priority, but the evidence is clear. Under this Albanese Labor government, outcomes are going backwards. Under Labor's watch, four Closing the Gap targets are worsening: adult incarceration, children in out-of-home care, children commencing school developmentally on track, and suicide. Youth detention is up 11 per cent, preschool attendance is down 2.6 per cent and 1.2 per cent fewer Indigenous children are developmentally on track when they start school. Child safety indicators are worsening, and the system is not responding quickly enough. Yet this government's answer is to add another national bureaucracy rather than to direct resources to the frontline services in communities where they are now so desperately needed.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly pointed to structural change as the solution, but, in reality, structural change without functional outcomes is meaningless to a child living in overcrowded housing, exposed to violence, not attending school or being removed from their family. Structural change, Prime Minister, is not about building structures. It is about deploying the efforts of existing structures to maximise effect, and dealing with those organisations you fund that are not contributing as intended. This bill lacks any focus on frontline responses, and the coalition will not support it. The bill is not the answer that children in desperate need need.

The government argues the bill will create an independent and empowered national commissioner by transitioning the current executive agency to a statutory authority, but, when we look at it closely, it becomes clear this is not a commission designed to fix a failing system; it is a commission designed to look like reform. The commissioner's functions mirror what already exist across multiple Commonwealth, state and territory bodies. These functions include coordination, research, inquiry, advocacy, providing advice to government, engagement programs for children and education initiatives. These responses are about talking action, not taking action. There is a very big difference between these two points.

The bill adds extensive compulsory information-gathering powers, including the ability to compel individuals or organisations to provide information or appear before hearings, backed in by civil penalties. But who could the commissioner be consulting that is not already captured in consultation that governments and others are already undertaking? The commission will cost $33.5 million over the forward estimates, and it adds yet another layer of bureaucracy on top of a system already saturated with commissions, councils, working groups, peak bodies, statutory offices and advisory structures.

What the bill does not add is a single measurable, practical improvement to the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people needing a response to their crises now. This body duplicates existing roles and functions. It duplicates the work of the National Children's Commissioner, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and the multiple Indigenous-specific children's commissioners already operating in the ACT, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria. In addition, it overlaps with the Department of Social Services, which is already required to consult children and young people. It holds few functions not shared by state and territory child protection, education, youth justice and health agencies, where the real levers sit and which states and territories control. This new commissioner's work is essentially about consultation, providing advice to government, undertaking research and advocacy. As the gap continues to widen on the Albanese government's watch, there is no gap that this commission will fill. Instead, the focus should be on ensuring existing bodies do their jobs within their existing remits. The government's focus must be on ensuring resources are applied to where there is potential for the greatest and most immediate change, and that is in frontline services.

This commission reinforces and replays the Albanese government's track record of creating Canberra based structures to respond to community based challenges. It's bureaucracy masquerading as reform. The government says the commissioner will coordinate the efforts of states and territories, yet the bill offers no explanation of what powers or mechanisms the commissioner has to do so. There is no detail on how an educational program will be delivered across diverse, remote communities, nor an explanation of what unique power the national commissioner will have to speak directly to children when every government agency and independent commissioner already has that capability and responsibility.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people regularly report consultation fatigue. It is unclear how the national commissioner will not just be an additional outreach body consulting the same people on the same issues. Indigenous community leaders are clear and their message is consistent: ample consultation has been done. It is now time for action. It is time for implementation and respect for the work that has already been done.

It's extraordinary that the government's primary justification for this bill rests on consultation that was limited in scope, circular in nature and heavily reliant on advocates who are already supporters of the concept contained in this legislation. The person most consulted ahead of establishing the commission was the same individual appointed as the inaugural commissioner, Sue-Anne Hunter, fresh from her previous role as commissioner for the Yoorrook Justice Commission. The government relied heavily on a single, one-off First Nations youth roundtable tied closely to the SNAICC—again, one of the most vocal proponents of this commission. Stakeholder diversity was limited, and alternative perspectives, including from frontline workers, child protection case managers, school principals in remote communities and families themselves, were not meaningfully included. Yet, against the evidence, this government claims that the bill reflects the voices of children.

This national commission will be rich in symbolism but devoid of practical measures. Symbolic policymaking has become the hallmark of this government. The bill uses expansive language about human rights and cultural identity but fails to address why children are unsafe, why school attendance is falling, why youth detention is rising or why entire communities are struggling to maintain stable environments for young people. The government cannot continue to ignore the real failures of existing systems, only to shift accountability to a new body when those systems fail. The job of ministers in this government is to demand accountability, not divest it to someone else. The first job of any government is to keep its people safe. Protecting vulnerable children is not a job the Albanese Labor government can outsource.

To be clear, everyone in this place is on a unity ticket that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children deserve every opportunity to grow up safe, supported and thriving. But there is nothing in this bill that ensures outcomes change. The Closing the gap report due for release later will likely try to gloss over worsening indicators for children in care, children developmentally on track and children experiencing harm. The government will attempt to point to this bill as proof that it is taking action to make a difference, but codifying a national commissioner with the power to write reports does not put a child in school, does not remove a child from danger and does not support parents to rear healthier, happier, safer children. This position will cost taxpayers millions of dollars but will do nothing to address the issues most immediately affecting Indigenous children and young people. Despite the best intentions, the national commissioner will not close the gap. The government must not be judged on the number of bureaucratic structures it creates but on the outcomes it achieves for the most vulnerable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people.

Currently, state and territory governments hold the responsibility for the key systems impacting children: education, child protection, corrections and health. Nationally, the Department of Social Services, the National Indigenous Australians Agency and the Coalition of Peaks also hold major roles in supporting Closing the Gap outcomes. As Minister McCarthy stated when scrapping cross-portfolio Indigenous estimates last year, improving outcomes for Indigenous Australians is a whole-of-government priority. It is therefore those agencies which must be held accountable—by her, not by a third-party, so-called independent commissioner. This bill explicitly shifts that accountability away from government and onto the commissioner. It does so by establishing a body that will drive accountability for policies impacting this group. The only real opportunity that exists here is for responsible ministers to blame the commissioner, not the ministers responsible and the policy responses that contribute to making the gap much worse and much wider.

The cost of this commission, as previously stated, is $33.5 million over the forward estimates and $9.33 million ongoing. The coalition believes that this funding could instead support dozens of remote school attendance programs, fund additional child protection workers in crisis-level regions, strengthen domestic violence interventions, support alcohol restrictions and community safety plans or provide early developmental support for vulnerable children. Every dollar should go where it can make the greatest difference. That's why the coalition has always prioritised frontline delivery, not bureaucratic expansion.

The coalition's position is guided by longstanding principles. Australia has had enough of symbolic gestures. Real improvements demand evidence based interventions. The answer is stronger governance, performance monitoring and transparency of existing organisations, not additional bodies that defuse responsibility. Funding must flow to organisations with proven governance and results, not those with the loudest voices, and the government must act to end funding to those whose operations fail the very people they are designed or exist to help. The coalition is focused on breaking welfare dependency, supporting families and ensuring children attend school—all protective factors that change trajectories and change lives.

Finally, community-level challenges will never be solved from Canberra. These principles stand in stark contrast to what this bill represents. The coalition has further, deeper concerns about this bill that must be addressed. The government has repeatedly elevated structures, panels and bureaucratic bodies in place of genuine engagement and measurable improvements. Across multiple areas, including family violence, youth justice, community safety and child protection, the Albanese government has consistently failed to listen to the voices of children. For instance, the University of Adelaide's report into the impacts of the cessation of the cashless debit card, vetted and watered down by the Department of Social Services, notably did not include a single child's voice.

If the Albanese government were serious about improving outcomes, it would prioritise practical, measurable interventions. It would introduce policies to improve school attendance, especially in remote communities, where attendance rates have collapsed. It would strengthen child protection systems, ending the care-criminalisation cycle, where children in out-of-home care all too often end up in contact with youth justice. It would support early childhood development, ensuring every child commences school on track. As the National Children's Commissioner titled her landmark report, children need 'help way earlier'. It would also confront the drivers of violence, not just talk about them. This means responding to the havoc created by the Albanese government's reckless decision to allow alcohol restrictions to lapse in the Northern Territory and ideologically remove the cashless debit card. It is those things that contributed to the outcomes ending up much worse for Indigenous young people.

None of these priorities are meaningfully advanced by the creation of a national commissioner. For all these reasons, the coalition will oppose this bill. We oppose it because it duplicates existing structures. We oppose it because it diverts funding away from frontline needs. We oppose it because it shifts accountability away from agencies responsible for delivering the services that are designed to help.