Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge that I'm standing here today on the unceded land of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, and I honour their elders past and present and their future leaders. I'm thinking of those future leaders today as we debate the National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People Bill 2026 and the National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People (Transitional Provisions) Bill 2026. First Nations communities, the community controlled sector and the Family Matters leadership group have called for an independent national commissioner for children for many years. The role was announced in 2024 and began operating within the department, but this legislation will create the independence that the community has called for from the outset.

It comes at a critical time with much work to do. The latest Closing the Gap data confirms the ongoing and unacceptable overrepresentation of First Nations children in prisons and in out-of-home care. First Nations kids are now 20 times more likely to be in custody than non-Indigenous kids. Tragically, last year Western Australia recorded the first death of a First Nations youth while in custody. Overpolicing, institutionalised and systemic racism, racial profiling and draconian mandatory sentencing laws are all risk factors contributing to the overrepresentation of First Nations youth in detention. Lifting the age of criminal responsibility is an essential step to reducing overincarceration and addressing a key threat to the safety and wellbeing of First Nations youth. I will be moving a second reading amendment calling for all governments to finally listen to the experts and raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14.

Too often disadvantage becomes criminalised when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children lack access to appropriate supports and services. One in seven First Nations kids will have an out-of-home care placement by the time they're 13. SNAICC predicts that without significant policy shifts the numbers will increase by 34 per cent over the next 10 years. Despite significant individual care packages provided to residential carers, children in care are too often neglected, exploited or abused. Carers often lack the skills and the capacity to keep children safe and supported. Too many children leave care in poor health, without education or future prospects and deeply traumatised. Evidence shows that First Nations kids in care are regularly criminalised for behaviour that would not involve the youth justice system if it happened in a white family home. The most recent SNAICC Family matters report detailed exit pathways from out-of-home care and the failure to ensure kids leaving care can thrive. Too many kids age out of care without clear support. Many experience disconnection, poor mental health, homelessness or detention, and the cycle continues.

All of this is to say that the National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People has their work cut out for them. The commissioner's functions include promoting the rights and improving the safety and wellbeing of First Nations kids; building on their strengths and creating the conditions for them to thrive; identifying systemic issues and barriers; advising government; and driving greater accountability for the impact of government policies, programs and services. This could be a powerful and catalytic role, giving First Nations peoples a voice and forcing systemic issues into the spotlight.

I met with Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter last month. Her passion and ambition for the role, and her commitment to addressing priority issues for First Nations youth, were very clear. She brings years of experience and dedication to the enormous task ahead of her. Our concern is not with the commissioner's dedication but with the government's. Despite the wishes of 70 organisations who called for the national commission, the bill doesn't provide the commissioner with powers to investigate and determine complaints from First Nations youth. This is a huge missed opportunity. The bill also allows the commissioner to seek information from governments to inform her reports and recommendations, but the only thing compelling governments to comply with those requests is the threat that they will be named in the commissioner's annual report if they do not. Shame has not been enough for governments in the past.

At the Senate inquiry into youth justice last year, children's commissioners from around the country expressed their collective frustration that the governments they advised had failed to change. The Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Commissioner, the inimitable Natalie Lewis, spoke about the hyperincarceration of First Nations young people, who have long been politicised by kneejerk policies rather than supported by community led transformational change. She said:

What will it take for the Commonwealth to intervene in state and territory youth justice systems? Is the torture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children the standard to compel Commonwealth intervention, as we witnessed with the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre? Is the removal of detention as a last resort and the introduction of 20-year mandatory minimum sentences in Queensland's legislation grounds for Commonwealth government intervention?

Ms Zoe Robinson, the NSW Advocate for Children and Young People, urged the government not just to listen but to act. She said:

We have all the evidence we need to know that what we are doing right now is not the solution. … Each state and territory is taking a different approach, but it is clear that none of these have the safety, wellbeing and best interests of children and young people at heart. In the words of a child incarcerated who I sat with, 'The only way you get heard is to yell and scream.' So here we are as commissioners, guardians and advocates for all the children across this country, yelling and screaming—figuratively of course—on behalf of all children incarcerated.

The government must listen to these screams for action. As Ms Lewis says:

Agreements without meaningful action and without accountability for inaction are nothing more than an exercise in appeasement.

When stakeholders called for a national commissioner, it was not just to keep overseeing business as usual. The role is needed because successive governments have failed to do enough—or, in some cases, failed to do anything at all—on key issues affecting the health and wellbeing of First Nations kids. SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle said the national commissioner can be 'a true accountability mechanism to ensure governments follow through on their commitments to our children and families.' We know the government won't do that on its own. Without an obligation to act, the risk is that they hide behind reports and don't change anything at all. Reports without action do not keep children out of prison or out of care.

The Greens have proposed an amendment to the bill to hold the government accountable for its action. The amendment will require the government to formally respond to any recommendations made by the national commissioner. We understand that the government will not support that amendment. When we asked the government why it would not support a requirement to respond to recommendations—