In Melissa\u2019s* five-bedroom home, with a large back-yard granny flat, space is at a premium. It has to be. Over the years she has made room for her brother\u2019s children and teenage foster kids and their partners, as well as her two children.<\/p>\n
Her extended family has been entangled with the child protection system for years. Melissa was just 15 when her brother\u2019s four children were removed from his care as he struggled with substance abuse and incarceration, and watched as her mother fought to keep the family together. After several months, her mother was able to bring the children home.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother was so strong in that these are our babies, and you will be with us. We are family. You are never to ever say that you are anything different,\u201d she tells Guardian Australia.<\/p>\n
Now in her 30s, the Brisbane-based Aboriginal and South Sea Islander woman\u2019s home has become a haven for children \u2013 a place where, despite the system, family tries to hold on to family.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlackfellas step up for each other, or they should, and often sometimes we get lost \u2026 or we get sucked up by a system that says that we\u2019re not good enough or that we\u2019re not worthy to be treated with respect, because all of our lives as children you\u2019ve told us that our rights to family does not exist,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
The battle between First Nations people and the state for control of their children is as old as the First Fleet. In recent months, it\u2019s flared again. Queensland and the Northern Territory<\/a> are considering changes to their child protection systems that erode protections put in place in the 1990s to keep Aboriginal families together. And advocates working with Aboriginal children and families say children are being caught in the middle.<\/p>\n The debate has narrowed to a false binary between safety and culture.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a>History of removal<\/p>\n Advocates say the most concerning changes being put forward by state and territory governments involve the erosion of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (ATSICPP), a framework designed to ensure that connection to family, culture, community and country is maintained, and that removal from Indigenous families is a last resort.<\/p>\n It is a principle born out of trauma and decades-long advocacy, in response to the Stolen Generations, a statewide genocidal policy which saw between one in 10 and one in three Indigenous children removed from their families between 1910 and 1970 in the name of assimilation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have to go very far back in the history books to see that that method not only didn\u2019t work but led to a future of litigation, a future of confusion, a future of displacement,\u201d Melissa says.<\/p>\n The NT is proposing replacing the ATSICPP with a \u201cuniversal principle\u201d<\/a>, with draft laws, circulating for public comment, saying that a child \u201cmust be removed \u2026 if there is a significant and likely risk of harm to the child\u201d and that as far as practicable they should be placed in \u201cclose proximity\u201d to their family.<\/p>\n In Queensland, the child safety commission of inquiry<\/a> made 52 recommendations ranging from removing all children under five from residential care \u2013 a widely supported move \u2013 to considering adoption as a \u201cgenuine permanency option\u201d for children who cannot return to their families \u2013 including Indigenous children. In its final report released last month, the commission said it \u201cacknowledges significant concerns\u201d held by the Indigenous community about adoption, but says reform is needed.<\/p>\n Kay Smith was born in New Zealand but has lived in Alice Springs for more than 40 years. The former foster carer worked in aged care services in Yuendumu and other remote central Australian communities and formed strong ties with local elders and families, connections she nurtured when raising three Aboriginal siblings, making sure they not only had each other but were allowed to grow up strong in culture, language and ceremony. It was a placement made at the request of the siblings\u2019 family. \u201cI\u2019ve been involved with them for 30 years,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n One of the siblings had been placed with a non-Indigenous family and had no contact with her family until she was nine years old. It was only after she came to live with Smith and her brothers that she was able to reconnect.<\/p>\n \u201cShe didn\u2019t speak her language, she wasn\u2019t involved in ceremony until her grandfather made sure she was involved in the brothers\u2019 initiation, and it\u2019s utterly crucial,\u201d Smith says. She remained connected to Smith until she passed away two years ago due to poor health, at just 32.<\/p>\n Smith opposes the changes proposed by the NT government, and says Indigenous children are best being cared for in community. She says the focus should instead be on addressing structural inequalities \u2013 such as poor housing, healthcare and food security \u2013 which disproportionately affect Aboriginal communities.<\/p>\n \u2018Culture is safety\u2019<\/p>\n Child safety is always paramount when making decisions around custody and care, says Arrente woman Catherine Liddle, the CEO of SNAICC \u2013 National Voice for Our Children<\/a>, but it\u2019s being waylaid by \u201cdebate and politicking\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we were genuinely serious about children, what we\u2019d be doing is having really hard conversations about how the systems have failed, our communities have failed our families, and most importantly, harmed our children,\u201d Liddle says.<\/p>\n \u201cThere should not be a debate between culture and safety. Culture is safety. In legislation, where we do have the child placement principle embedded, it says \u2018best interests of the child\u2019. Now that means whole child \u2013 who you are, who you are right now, where you\u2019re going, and who you\u2019re going to become.\u201d<\/p>\n The NT children\u2019s minister, Robyn Cahill, defended the changes in a statement to Guardian Australia, saying the ATSICPP continues to guide decision-making, with connections to family, culture and community \u201ca priority wherever it is safe to do so\u201d.<\/p>\n Cahill says concerns raised by SNAICC and others arose from a\u201cfundamental misunderstanding\u201d of the bill\u2019s intended outcomes. \u201cThe intent of this legislation is fewer children in out-of-home care, not more, by getting help to families sooner so children can stay safely at home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n