Queensland's Child Safety Inquiry exposes deep failures within the child protection system and risks reopening old wounds through expanded adoption recommendations. Yet adoption is only one of several concerns emerging from the report, alongside unresolved questions about self-determination, the transfer of authority to Aboriginal communities, the role of culture in child wellbeing, and the continued reliance on state-centred approaches to permanency and care.
The real question is this: who gets to decide what permanency means for Aboriginal children? The answer offered by child protection systems is courts, departments and legislation. The answer offered by Aboriginal communities is family, kinship, culture and Country. These are not simply different solutions. They are fundamentally different understandings of care, belonging and responsibility. And right now, only one of them carries the force of law.
Contemporary child protection debates offer a familiar set of false choices. Either children remain in unsafe situations, or they are removed. Either families succeed on their own, or the state intervenes. Either children are reunified, or they require permanent alternative arrangements such as adoption.
These binaries leave little room to imagine different ways of caring for children. Aboriginal communities have never needed the state to teach them how to care for children. They have always possessed systems of governance, accountability and kinship that predate — and outlast, every child protection framework Australia has ever built.
Across Australia, Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations have demonstrated the importance of community-led responses that strengthen families before crises escalate. Kinship care networks continue to care for thousands of children, often with limited resources and support. Elders continue to play vital roles in maintaining family connections, cultural identity and community accountability.
The question is not whether alternatives exist. The question is whether governments will ever trust them — or whether "community-led" will remain a slogan dressed up as policy.
In our recent work with the Barkindji community in Menindee, New South Wales, community members developed what became known as the Minintitja Care Model. Rather than beginning with risk assessments, statutory thresholds and removal decisions, the model begins with relationships.
Children are understood not as isolated individuals but as part of families, kinship systems, communities and Country. Responsibility for children is not held solely by parents or government agencies. It is shared across families, Elders and community members who hold obligations to support, guide and protect children throughout their lives.
Importantly, the model does not deny the need for safety. Rather, it asks a different question. How can communities be supported to resolve challenges before removal becomes necessary? This shifts the focus from intervention to prevention. From surveillance to support. From risk management to relationship building. From statutory authority to community responsibility. Such approaches challenge one of the foundational assumptions of contemporary child protection systems—that governments are always best placed to determine what is in the interests of Aboriginal children.
Increasingly, Aboriginal communities are asking a different question: What would happen if governments transferred greater authority to those who know the children, know the families and remain accountable to the community long after statutory involvement has ended? Some will call this radical. It is not. It is the principle that underpins self-determination. And it is increasingly recognised internationally as essential to improving outcomes for Indigenous children and families.
The Queensland Child Safety Inquiry has framed this as a debate about overreliance, outcomes, shortages, adoption and colonial intervention. It is not simply that, It is a debate about power. Until governments are willing to transfer real authority — not just consult, not just "partner," but genuinely cede control — debates about adoption will keep treating the symptom while ignoring the disease.
Aboriginal children deserve safety. They deserve stability. They deserve permanence. But they also deserve to know who they are, where they come from and who they belong to. Governments will insist they face a choice between safety and culture. They do not. For Aboriginal children, safety and culture have never been separate. Governments that treat them as opposites have always been asking the wrong question.
Dr James Beaufils is a Senior Research Fellow at the Jumbunna Institute of Indigenous Education and Research and the Faculty of Law University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He is a Gundungurra man from the Pejar area and Kanak from New Caledonia.
Dr Todd Fernando is a 2026 Paul Ramsay Fellow, senior researcher, and policy strategist focused on social justice, systems reform, and structural change in Australia.
