Extreme laws and policies are having a disproportionate impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, legal experts have said.
In an online forum hosted by the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS), community leaders, legal experts, and youth advocates slammed governments across the country for introducing laws that have "failed" in the past.
"We are facing an emergency," NATSILS Chair Karly Warner said. "Across the country, governments are prioritising political point scoring in the name of community safety."
The Palawa women observed that state and territory governments have "demonstrated they're not interested in preventing crime" or addressing the "underlying reasons for the disproportionate contact with police, courts and prisons".
Instead, she said, they're "interested in policies that we know make communities less safe".
"Our kids are not the problem," she said, "the system is failing them."
Across the country, governments have introduced laws that experts say are opposed to the aims of the Closing the Gap agreement.
These include youth bail law changes in NSW and Victoria, the so-called "adult crime, adult time" laws in Queensland, and the NT government reintroducing spit hoods in youth detention and lowering the age of criminal responsibility.
"South Australia is working to give police dealing with children similar powers to what they have for outlaw bikie gangs," Ms Warner said.
"They are further harming and traumatising our young people who are already at an increased risk due to systemic racism and bias in Australia's police and justice systems."
The inquest into the death of 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd, who took his own life in Unit 18 - a small area for youth detainees in the maximum-security Casuarina Prison in Perth's south - has revealed a litany of lies and mistruths amongst government departments.
Nonetheless, the WA government has remained unmoved on their housing of children in Unit 18 and has routinely commented on the behaviour of the children in custody, rather than addressing the myriad of complicated issues at play.
Citing the statement of compatibility with the youth laws, which the Queensland government admitted didn't comply with human rights, eminent barrister, Tony McAvoy SC, argued all the states "know what they are doing".
"They know that their legislation is inconsistent with the international conventions and norms," he said.
"This generation...will be the generation which will be remembered as the one that continued to incarcerate children when we know that their brain development is not such that they should be held accountable."
Last year, a report highlighted the death of two disabled Indigenous children who died in the aftermath of spending more than 600 days combined in separation—the government's term of solitary confinement.
The children had a history of exposure to extensive sexual and violent trauma, substance abuse, and loss of culture, and likely had suffered from undiagnosed foetal alcohol syndrome.
A report from the NT's Child Commissioner found of the children aged between 10 and 13 in NT detention, 77 per cent had mental health needs or a cognitive disability and 47 per cent had been diagnosed with multiple cognitive disabilities.
Reiterating comments he made at the youth justice Senate inquiry in February, Mr McAvoy said the federal government is a signatory to these international conventions and is "presiding over a system of Federation where the states are failing to observe the international norms".
"The federal government has an obligation to do something," he said.
Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) chief executive, Nerita Waight, repeated Mr McAvoy's comments, arguing the Commonwealth needed to "take responsibility to protect our future generations from harm and allow them the opportunity to thrive".
VALS' Balit Ngulu youth practice has seen a 300 per cent increase in clients being held on remand since June last year and Ms Waight said, "Every one of my kids that is currently in custody, has a mental health issue - a significant one."
"Most of the time, the state was supposed to be their parents, but failed," she said.
The Yorta Yorta and Narrandjeri woman has been outspoken in her criticism of the bail laws in Victoria, which came after a campaign from conservative media and influencers.
She noted an "inherent part of the colonial project is to see people suffer and fail," arguing the new laws are "just another way to harm our communities".
Ms Waight said the state government - who admitted the laws that came about after the death of Indigenous woman Veronica Nelson were wrong - would rather "pursue popular votes and pander to conservative media narratives" than show any "modicum of leadership on the issues that affect" Indigenous young people.
"They don't want to do the hard work. They don't want to do the long-term transformational change," she said.
"They want short-term things that hit in the paper [and] make them look great; it's really much easier to do those kind of knee-jerk, short-term solutions than really go down into that deeper systemic level."
