There must be an examination into what the Commonwealth is doing around First Nations child removals, Senator Lidia Thorpe says, as she calls for a parliamentary inquiry.
Child protection was again thrown into the spotlight last month when reporting from The Australian revealed allegations that vulnerable Aboriginal children were being left alone, sometimes for days at a time, in a home in the Pilbara region owned by the WA Department of Housing and Works.
On Wednesday, Senator Lidia Thorpe said she would move a motion in the Senate next week to establish a federal inquiry into child safety and removals. Calling it a "national crisis that requires a national response," the Victorian senator said governments are failing Aboriginal families across the country.
"Children and families across the country are being harmed by the systems that are supposed to support them," she said.
"We need to look at the Commonwealth's role. This is not just a state and territory issue. Albanese cannot keep dodging responsibility for this."
Indigenous children are placed in out-of-home care (OOHC) at 11.5 times the rate of non-Indigenous children, according to the latest Productivity Commission data, an increase from 12 months previously.
"Despite Commonwealth frameworks like Safe and Supported and Closing the Gap, Aboriginal children continue to be removed from their families at deeply concerning and rising rates," Senator Thorpe said. "We need to address this urgently."
Speaking last month, National Indigenous Children's Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter said urgent action and attention are needed to protect the rights of First Nations children.
"This is not the responsibility of the child protection system alone," she said. "This requires a whole-of-government approach. This cannot continue to be siloed. We will continue to see the same things happen again and again if urgent action is not taken."
Senator Thorpe said that while the federal government had frameworks in place and coordinates with the states and territories, things were clearly not working.
"We need to look at what the Commonwealth can do to improve child safety across the country," she said. "The federal government has the ability to provide much-needed support for families, set minimum standards, and deal with the harms being perpetrated by government agencies."
The Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurring woman said she had developed terms of reference for the inquiry and would work with the government, opposition and crossbench to have it come to fruition.
"We need to look at what is putting children at risk in the first place, why families aren't getting the help they need, and why governments are often not responding early enough before things reach crisis point," she said.
"We also need to look at what happens when agencies do intervene. Because often, children who are removed are exposed to abuse, neglect, exploitation, violence and criminalisation under state supervision. And children continue to die in the supposed care of governments."
At the roundtable in WA last month, Aboriginal leaders from across WA called for sweeping reforms of the state's child protection system, a dedicated WA Commissioner for Indigenous children, and a First Nations children and families representative peak body in WA.
Dr Hannah McGlade, a member of the Noongar Family Safety and Wellbeing Council, said at the time they were calling for their voices to be heard.
"We are talking about systems' failures and the lack of attention to the voices and concerns of Aboriginal women about what needs to change to keep our children and family safe," she said.
"We are thinking about the future generations. If we don't act now, this is incredibly dangerous to children."
Senator Thorpe said the federal inquiry must put a strong focus on First Peoples "because our children are disproportionately impacted". However, she said, "it should also be about every child and family caught up in the system".
"We need to seriously look at why these systems are not keeping children safe and families supported, and what the Commonwealth should do about it," she added.
Additional reporting by Giovanni Torre
