Thirty years ago, Australia's Bringing Them Home report laid bare the national shame of the systematic, state-sanctioned removal of Indigenous children due to forced assimilation policies designed to sever cultural ties and erase traditional languages, identities, and heritage. Australia called it the Stolen Generations.

In 2008, Kevin Rudd delivered a landmark apology in Parliament on behalf of the nation to the Stolen Generations, committing to "righting the wrongs of the past". Since then, however, given the persisting overrepresentation of Indigenous children in Australia's criminal justice system and in out-of-home care, that apology has rung increasingly hollow and the nation's resolve on the issue has progressively and systematically eroded.

The latest manifestation of this faltering commitment is the roll-out of the Care and Protection of Children Legislation Amendment (Every Child Matters) Bill 2026 (NT) by the Northern Territory Government in May this year, following the tragic passing of five-year-old Kumanjayi Little Baby in Alice Springs.

During a rushed one-week public consultation process, the Northern Territory Legislative Scrutiny Committee received hundreds of submissions objecting to the Bill from independent statutory bodies, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peak bodies, legal and human rights organisations, and child welfare and social advocacy groups, many of which referenced breaches of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Major concerns centred on the Bill's dilution of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle and introduction of rigid hierarchies to assess 'best interests' of a child based on an artificial separation of safety from culture in disregard of empirical data demonstrating connection to community, language and culture are an integral component of safety for Aboriginal Children. New provisions fast-tracking transition from temporary intervention to permanent removal, as well as compressed timelines for reunification were also opposed.

Despite the objections, the NT Legislative Scrutiny Committee tabled a report endorsing the Bill last week, resulting in overwhelming backlash, including the NT Children's Commissioner's protesting resignation.

For William, an Arrernte survivor of the Stolen Generations, the Bill and the Committee's report are a harrowing echo of his past. He and his visionary brother Tracker Tilmouth were separated from their birth-parents and Mpwartne home when they were toddlers, taken first to Retta Dixon Home in Darwin, and then to Croker Island mission. William ran away from the mission at the age of fifteen in a desperate attempt to connect to culture and family, and was consequently criminally charged, incarcerated and forcefully medicated. He survived the system, as well as the humiliation and trauma it caused, by hanging onto the words of a psychiatrist and cottage nurse at the mission who told him: "There is nothing wrong with you. It is the system that is wrong".

Reminiscing upon and standing by the powerful "Eulogy for my Brother" he delivered at Tracker's funeral in 2025, William warns the Bill is a purposeful repetition of the historical gaslighting he and Tracker, among other members of the Stolen Generations, experienced as children, and is rooted in the enduring colonial narrative that Aboriginal people do not know how to look after their children.

An International human rights law analysis supports William's lived-experience view that the Bill constitutes legislative abuse. Article 5 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Australia has signed and ratified, prohibits states from engaging in any activity aimed at the destruction or excessive limitation of guaranteed human rights.

Utilising a crisis as a pretext to enact family separation triggers the operation of this provision. In a recent op-ed for National Indigenous Times, Maithili tested the Bill against International Human Rights criteria for legislative abuse and concluded that it was a textbook case. If the Bill is passed, Australia will almost certainly be formally condemned by the UN Human Rights Committee, much like it was in 2008 at the time of the Northern Territory 'Emergency Response' intervention.

Despite these warnings, there is a strong possibility that next week, the NT Parliament will vote to pass the Bill, further entrenching the same paternalistic assumptions that caused the Stolen Generations.

At this critical point in time, the authors urge the members of NT Parliament to open their eyes to the empirical evidence before them in determining their vote next week. We cannot afford to wait for history to judge this Bill, and for a future Australian Prime Minister to issue another apology 50 years down the line. Australia owes it to William, Tracker and other members of the Stolen Generations to show that when the Prime Minister apologised and said never again in Parliament in 2008, it actually meant something.

William Tilmouth is an Arrernte man from Mparntwe (Alice Springs) and a member of the Stolen Generations. Taken from his family to Croker Island Mission as a child, William has dedicated his life to advancing justice, opportunity and self-determination for First Peoples. He served as Executive Director of Tangentyere Council for over two decades, was Central Australian ATSIC Regional Chair and has led numerous community organisations. Since 2011, he has been the founding Chair of Children's Ground, First Peoples-led reform movement. In 2023, William was honoured as NAIDOC Male Elder of the Year, and in 2025, was awarded the prestigious Human Rights Medal by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Maithili Mishra is a Senior Lawyer at Hugo Law Group specialising in criminal law and civil litigation and 2026 MSc International Human Rights Law Candidate at the University of Oxford. Views expressed are her own.