Northern Territory Passes Law to Create Another Stolen Generations

The Northern Territory passed laws last week that abolished the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle, which is policy designed to ensure that when the state removes a First Nations child from their family, the authorities attempt to place the minor with relatives or kin, and it works to prevent a repeat of the Stolen Generations, or the mass removal of First People’s children.

In doing so, the mandarins of the NT Country Liberal party have developed their own Child Placement Principle, which is universal. This is predicated on the sort of dumb logic that underpinned the Voice No Vote campaign, which takes any seemingly different or “special” treatment that First Nations people receive as being discriminatory towards the rest of the non-Indigenous community.

The Stolen Generations involved the mass removal of First Nations children from their families to be placed in the care of European settlers. This was supposed to assimilate the children into western culture, as they left their old Indigenous past behind to expire. But this legislated practice, which is common amongst settler colonial nations, is these days understood to be a form of genocide.

These practices commenced in the 1860s and continued until the 1970s. But current out-of-home care figures reveal that First Nations peoples continue to be removed at starkly disproportionate rates than non-Indigenous people. So, the phrase ‘the continuing stolen generations’ has long been coined, and this makes the NT Finocchiaro government’s move that much more dangerous.

This reform was further been predicated upon the April 2026 murder of 5-year-old Kumanjayi Little Baby by a criminal in his 40s who had no relation to the child. Yet, the changes had already been flagged late last year. And this overhaul of the NT childcare system comes on the back of a truckload of discriminatory laws, policies and decisions made by the segratory Finocchiaro government.

Opening the flood gates

Introduced into the territory’s unicameral parliament by NT Child Protection Minister Robyn Cahill on 13 May 2026, Care and Protection of Children Legislation Amendment (Every Child Matters) Bill 2026 has served to replace the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle and has instead inserted a universal version of the principle into the Care and Protection of Children Act 2007 (NT) (the CPCA).

Section 12B of the CPCA contains the new law regarding removing children in the NT, and it prioritises placing them with a family member, if they can’t remain with a parent, or a person approved by the CEO of the NT Department of Children and Families, with priority given to “stable living arrangements” and those that provide “a sense of permanence and long-term stability”.

This is to be done in accordance with ten priorities listed in hierarchy of importance within new subsection 8(2) of the CPCA, which has safety as its chief concern, followed by protection from harm, the need for stable relationships and permeance in living arrangements, while subsection 8(3) contains secondary concerns, which include preservation and unification of family relations.

The prior requirement provided by the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle that involved the family having a right to identify who the child should be placed with has been removed. And while new section 12C now contains provisions recognising the importance for Aboriginal children to be close to family and in touch with culture after being removed, these are again secondary considerations.

Concerns about the mass removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families led to the emergence of the family and kin placement principle in the 1970s. The 1997 Bringing Them Home report reiterated its importance and recommended its use.

Indeed, the principle stopped the practice of settlers considering other settlers as being the best placed people to look after Indigenous kids, as well as bringing an end to the blatant and intentional attempt to assimilate all Indigenous children into the broader settler community.

Surveilling families in the NT

The Every Child Matters Bill has further shifted the family responsibility agreement regime out of the Youth Justice Act 2025 (NT) and into the CPCA, where it has been given an overhaul, and the legislation further reinstated family responsibility orders, which were initially introduced in 2008, alongside the family responsibility agreements, but were then revoked in 2021.

The family responsibility agreement regime now sits under part 2.1A of the CPCA. It involves families entering into agreements after a child has experienced an “event of concern”, which can include exhibiting criminal or antisocial behaviour, a school-age child not attending school, or “an event that adversely affects a child’s wellbeing”.

So, if a child has had an event of concern, or the police have made a referral about them, the CEO of the department can require the family to enter into a family responsibility agreement, which can include undertaking counselling or therapy, the guidance of parents, participation in group activities, taking courses and exercising relevant parental responsibilities.

The bill also reintroduces family responsibility orders into part 2.3 division 4 of the CPCA. These are issued by the courts, after the CEO applies for one if a parent is found to have not been holding up their end of an agreement. The order, which can last for 12 months, can make the same requirements as an agreement or require income management or a ban on drinking alcohol.

Section 102L of the CPCA provides that if a significant contravention of an order has taken place, the CEO can apply for a protection order for the child or vary the order. And section 121 of the CPCA provides the CEO with the power to apply for protection orders if they consider children are in need of one.

The North Bank

The 2026 Productivity Commission report outlines that in June 2025, there were 733 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care in the NT, compared with 90 non-Indigenous minors and two kids of unknown status. This means First Nations kids accounted for 88 percent of children in state care, yet they only comprise of about 43 percent of the overall populace.

More than 90 percent of the youth prison population in the Northern Territory is right now and usually is made up of First Nations kids, and at times, over the last decade, Indigenous youths have made up 100 percent of that group.

To further compound this, the Finocchiaro government passed youth justice laws that lowered the age of criminal responsibility back down to 10 years old, removed the law requiring prison only to be considered as a punishment of “last resort” for children, and it has reinstated the use of potentially deadly spit hoods in child prisons.

The Finocchiaro government took office in August 2024 and ever since it has been on a law-and-order drive that specifically targets the First Peoples of the jurisdiction. The authorities have armed transport and public housing estate inspectors with guns. And by February 2025, around 40 Aboriginal people were being taken into custody every day by the Northern Territory police.

Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe said on the day after the NT removed the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle that she was calling on the Albanese government to intervene and revoke these new laws. She further underscored that federal Labor has the power to intervene in NT law.

However, PM Anthony Albanese has simply watched on as NT chief minister Lia Finocchiaro opens up the frontiers once more.

“This is going to cause a lot of harm to our children and to our families – to our people,” Thorpe, a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung senator added last Friday. “And we know the system in the Northern Territory needs to be overhauled. Aboriginal people have been asking for this for a very long time. Even the children’s commissioner has asked for this.”

“So, there is a lot of work to do, but this particular action that they’ve taken in getting rid of the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle, that’s not the answer, so we need that back in place.”