It really didn't need to be said, let alone by a senior United Nations official.
The human rights of Indigenous people in Australia are not being upheld by state and territory governments.
This was the message from the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The human rights of some people are being disregarded; they are being made "unsafe" by state and territory governments.
The only thing more shocking than the statement — that governments across the country are failing in their most basic tasks to look after every person — is how unshocked people will be.
Everyone knows.
Speaking on Friday, the Special Rapporteur, Albert K. Barume — who was barred from entering youth prisons in the NT and Queensland during his visit over the last two weeks — didn't mince words: "The state of protection of Indigenous peoples' rights is a bit embarrassing."
Asked by this publication about the biggest human rights concern from his visit, the Democratic Republic of Congo expert said it was the "lack of national minimum mandatory standards on human rights that can be implemented by the different states and territories".
"I'm really concerned that the delivery on human rights differs from one territory to another. But not only that, the Indigenous peoples' human rights gains can simply be deleted or disappear because of a change in government."
He slammed the federal government's routine abdication of responsibility to the states. Only one 'state' is a signatory to United Nations human rights obligations, and it isn't the Northern Territory, he said.
"The Commonwealth government is the state responsible for international human rights standards in Australia."
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The federal government knows this as well.
Australia's Constitution gives the states a great deal of power. But it doesn't give them absolute power.
The Commonwealth, Dr Barume says, "should take leadership in setting those minimum mandatory human rights standards".
The federal government has been given legal advice that it can intervene under the external affairs power of the Constitution to enforce minimum standards for the age of criminal responsibility.
A Senate report released in September found that, on an average night during the June 2025 quarter, Indigenous children made up 60 per cent of those in detention across Australia, despite accounting for less than 7 per cent of the general population.
When Dr Barume was first told about women being shackled whilst giving birth in custody, he said he had to ask other people across the country to make sure he was hearing things correctly; that he wasn't somewhere else.
"I really wonder whether it's sustainable to keep looking at this level of injustice," he said.
At every Senate hearing, we see the buck passed from minister to minister, department to department, state to state, when asked about people languishing in prison, being shackled whilst giving birth, or being removed from their families, culture and kin.
All the right sentiments are uttered about how 'no one wants this' and how closing the gap matters.
And it does.
But this publication has covered report after report; UN delegation after delegation; and human rights experts one after another, all slamming the government — not out of some political attack, but out of concern.
They aren't attacking a right-wing government — where every progressive can say, "look what happens over there" and shake their head — but a centre-left government with a huge parliamentary majority.
Human rights, Dr Barume said, should not be political.
"Human rights are not domestic issues. Human rights are international issues, and the standards are internationally set."
For Australia, this is all getting a little bit embarrassing.
