Every time an Aboriginal child dies, the response is the same. Not fund services. Not resource families. Demonise an entire culture.

I cannot think of a single instance where a non-Indigenous child's death prompted calls to demonise all non-Indigenous people. Yet here we are. Again.

The data tells a different story to the one being weaponised right now. 92 per cent of children in NT care are already Aboriginal. The system has never gone soft on Aboriginal people. 82 per cent of those removals are for neglect — the lowest level on the risk continuum, the most vulnerable to cultural bias, and the one that warrants intensive family support. Not removal.

Sexual abuse — where people's minds immediately go — accounts for six per cent of notifications for Aboriginal children. It's 10 per cent for non-Indigenous children.

We have now surpassed 25,000 Aboriginal children removed from their families. The same number as the Stolen Generations. We are not learning. We are repeating.

In WA, removing just four of 20 child protection districts — the most remote, the most under-resourced — drops the Aboriginal removal rate from 61 per cent to 38 per cent. In the Kimberley, 100 per cent of children in care are Aboriginal. The Pilbara, 96 per cent.

It defies logic. We are supposed to believe there has never been a non-Indigenous child in the Kimberley deemed in need of state protection.

The Kimberley also has the highest rates of child suicide in the country — Indigenous children dying at six times the rate of non-Indigenous children. Removal does not protect children. It destroys them. And the harm is generational.

Meanwhile, the government funds intensive family support programs that 80 per cent non-Indigenous families access — delivered by a workforce that is 90 per cent non-Indigenous.

Over the past decade, the non-Indigenous removal rate has fallen 13 per cent. The Indigenous rate has risen 120 per cent. Same system. Same decade. One group served, one group not.

Only five per cent of child protection notifications come from wealthy suburbs. We are targeting poor Black families while other children go unseen. Child abuse is a human issue. Linking culture to abuse is eugenics. It has always been eugenics. The pipeline is straightforward: removal → justice system → substance use → violence → poor health → poor education. Every organisation working on those outcomes exists largely because of the Stolen Generations.

We are building the next generation of that client base right now.

The Child Placement Principle has never stopped authorities from protecting a child at genuine risk. If Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and the CLP believe otherwise, they need to show us exactly where. Not rhetoric. Actual cases. And report those cases. Don't stand in front of the country and demonise an entire culture acting like the system hasn't removed children at breathtaking numbers, and deny the fact that when families reach out for help they are being harmed instead.

What the Child Placement Principle does is prevent us from repeating history.

We are repeating history.

Dr Tracy Westerman is a Nyamal woman and the founder and executive chair of The Westerman Jilya Institute for Indigenous Mental Health.

This piece was first published by Dr Westerman on LinkedIn.