Queensland's outgoing human rights commissioner has accused the state's non-Indigenous leaders of "walking the state backwards" from reconciliation.

Scott McDougall, whose seven-year term as Queensland's first-ever human rights commissioner ends next month, used his address on Monday night to criticise the Liberal-National government's approach to truth-telling and its relationship with Traditional Owners.

Last year, the Crisafulli government abolished the state's truth-telling and healing inquiry without informing its chair, Josh Creamer, a move Social Justice Commissioner Katie Kiss called a "devastating step backwards for First Nations rights".

Describing it as "one of the biggest steps backwards" on the road to reconciliation, Mr McDougall said the inquiry was shut down via a Bill to "improve the governance" of the 2032 Olympic Games.

"One can only wonder what the International Olympic Committee were thinking when they were told that the Pathway to Treaty was extinguished by the Pathway to the Olympics," he said. "What a terrible message to send to the international community – let alone to Queensland's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people."

"The great tragedy of the decision to terminate the Truth Telling Inquiry was the lost opportunity for today's generations of Queenslanders to fully appreciate the nature of what occurred during the formation of the state we call home."

Punitive Laws and Indigenous Incarceration

Mr McDougall also highlighted the state's 'adult crime, adult time' laws, which breach Australia's international human rights obligations and disregard the Closing the Gap agreement. The laws have resulted in thousands of children — some as young as ten — being charged under rules that allow life imprisonment for certain offences.

"These type of punitive laws do not work and do not make our communities safer. They entrench inequality, rip children from their families and communities, and cause lasting harm that affects everyone," First Nations Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, Maggie Munn, told National Indigenous Times last month.

The Queensland government has repeatedly pushed back on calls to rein in its policies, criticising the UN and promoting its political sovereignty.

When federal attorney-general Michelle Rowland pressed states on Indigenous incarceration rates at an August meeting of the Standing Council of Attorneys-General, the state's attorney-general, Deb Frecklington, reportedly said her government "won't be changing anything".

In response, Mr McDougall said: "To those who defend the current policy stagnation by claiming a commitment to Closing the Gap, I simply say this: The National Agreement on Closing the Gap is not working and needs a complete overhaul."

"It is fatally compromised by its flawed design and lack of enforceability. Without any vehicle for mandated First Nations' representation or community control, the Closing the Gap implementation plans mostly amount to just bureaucratic wish lists," he said.

Criticism of Government Decisions

Mr McDougall called the LNP's election campaign on the law a "calculated political decision", launched at a time when the state's children were "already being subjected to inhumane treatment in Queensland's overcrowded detention centres and watch houses".

"One could be left wondering how the approach of this government could be seen as anything other than hostile when considering this and other decisions it has recently made against the interests of First Nations people," he said.

The human rights compatibility statement introducing the laws even noted they were more punitive than needed to appear to protect the community, disproportionately affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Labor supported the laws, having already suspended the state's human rights act twice themselves in the previous 18 months.

The Commissioner also criticised the government for excluding First Nations representatives from the Olympic Games Organising Committee, halting the planned First Nations Cultural Centre in Queensland, and rejecting the recommendation to name the new QPAC theatre after one of Australia's most celebrated poets, Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

"We are not walking together towards reconciliation — our non-Indigenous leaders are walking us backwards," he said.

He noted an "almost immediate 180-degree turnaround" was needed for Queensland to "radically reset its relationship with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities" before the 2032 Games.

Indigenous Children Disproportionately Affected

Despite the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommending imprisonment only as a last resort, Ms Frecklington told parliament estimates that "nearly half of all juveniles sentenced for an adult crime" were spending time "remanded in custody before their case is finalised".

Queensland incarcerates more Indigenous children than any other state or territory. Recent Closing the Gap data shows that in 2023–24, the state accounted for over 45 per cent of all First Nations children held in custody on an average day across Australia.

Earlier this year, more than 100 First Nations leaders issued a statement condemning the Queensland government for committing an "ongoing violation of human and cultural rights," particularly "the targeted harm perpetuated against our children and young people."