Indigenous Families and Child Protection in Australia

Systemic Disparities in Child Protection

5b8776d2: Welcome back to Critical Reflection, everyone. I'm Agnieszka, here with Paloma. Today we're digging into some difficult, but vital, realities about Indigenous families and children in Australia's child protection system. Paloma, the statistics we came across are honestly just staggering, aren't they?

Paloma Cesare: Yeah, absolutely. And look, I think a lot of people don't realise just how severe the disparity is. I mean, First Nations kids are 5.6 times more likely to be the subject of a child protection notification, 6.5 times more likely to have an investigation opened about them, and it just gets worse from there. They're 10.8 times more likely than non-Indigenous kids to end up in out-of-home care. It’s really confronting.

5b8776d2: I still remember reading one of those numbers for the first time and just—honestly—I had to double check, thinking it must be a typo or maybe I'd mixed it up. But no, it's real, and it's persistent across all of these child protection measures.

Paloma Cesare: There's this myth that things are getting better, but actually, removals of Aboriginal children are higher now than they were during the Stolen Generation period. That was something that really hit home for me at a seminar in Melbourne. I can't remember exactly when—last year, I think?—when visiting Elders talked about the trauma caused by repeated removals, especially the loss of connection to land and family. Just devastating long-term impacts. Those stories stay with you.

5b8776d2: Yeah, and the over-policing—it’s not just, like, a thing of history, it’s ongoing. So much of the policy focus is still about placement, not preservation, which is what the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle was meant to shift. But here we are, and the placement is mainly with non-Indigenous families. I mean, Paloma, I think you mentioned in the prep—something like two thirds of children in care were living with non-Indigenous folks?

Paloma Cesare: It’s actually about 66% living with non-Indigenous relatives or families, and only a small percentage living with kin. And in out-of-home care more broadly, it’s about 40% with non-Indigenous carers. Honestly, the more you look at it the more you realize this is still a system fundamentally not working for Indigenous families—if anything, compounding harm and repeating past mistakes.

Institutional Racism and the Legacy of Colonisation

Paloma Cesare: And it’s not just about numbers, is it? When you listen to the actual experiences of Indigenous parents and communities—what stands out is the sheer ongoing paternalism. There’s this sense from families and agencies that the system still operates as if it knows best, prioritising these Western ideas of how care should look. I mean, Agnieszka, didn’t you get that impression when you first arrived in Australia?

5b8776d2: Oh, completely. I remember my first year working in Brisbane—I’d, you know, just come from Europe, and to see how deeply the legacy of colonisation still shaped these so-called “support” systems was shocking. It was all about this nuclear family ideal, this Western concept of what “permanency” and security means for kids. But for the families I worked with, it just didn’t fit at all. The stories—parents saying things like, “They tell you to do one thing then leave you waiting forever,” or that sense of being continually punished, even after they’d done everything asked of them...

Paloma Cesare: Yeah, like Allen said in that testimony—he sorted himself out, did his time, but the punishment just didn’t end. And Marcia, who did the parenting courses, went to rehab, jumped through all the hoops—still, “what I do is not good enough.” There’s a kind of Kafkaesque futility, right? The system asks for the impossible and rarely supports actual restoration.

5b8776d2: And then the policies—permanency planning, third-party guardianships, even adoption—are experienced by First Nations communities as, well, a repetition of assimilation. They disrupt—not just family units—but whole kinship networks, and that connection to culture and country that we know is fundamental for wellbeing. That’s something we touched on in our last episode too, remember? How dominant ideas around attachment can be so narrow and actually harmful in practice, especially when it comes to collective caregiving models and cultural identities.

Paloma Cesare: Absolutely. Plus, the punitive focus—so many policies just assume neglect when what’s actually happening is, say, overcrowding, which can be about kin trying to support each other. But instead it’s framed as risk, as a problem, rather than an expression of community care. It’s institutional racism that keeps replaying itself right down to how cases are investigated, the assumptions made, and the lack of real autonomy for families to determine what’s best for their own children.

5b8776d2: It’s historical, it’s structural, and so much of the so-called reform misses the mark precisely because it doesn’t ask, “What does stability mean from an Indigenous perspective?” Instead, it imposes a one-size-fits-all, and kids end up—again—separated, sometimes left to seek healing much later in life. The removal of culture is, in a way, a second trauma layered on top of the first.

Towards Culturally Appropriate Solutions

5b8776d2: So, what do we do with all this? I know it sounds bleak, but there are strong calls for change led by Indigenous families themselves. They’re really clear—early intervention has to happen before things escalate to removal, and, crucially, any support has to be genuinely culturally appropriate and community-driven.

Paloma Cesare: Yeah, I think Indigenous parents are telling us what’s needed all the time: “Listen to us, support us, keep us connected to our own culture and community.” That restoration—restoring not just children but families, their ties, their identity—is central. It’s not just about physical reunification, it’s about weaving those cultural threads so kids know who they are and why, as Daylight and Johnstone put it.

5b8776d2: There are actually some powerful grassroots movements too, like Grandmothers Against Removals—they’re challenging these harmful policies and advocating for family preservation, not just placement. They keep pushing, reminding everyone that stability and wellbeing for First Nations kids comes from being connected to mob, land, and lore, not just having a physical roof and a new surname. It sounds so simple, but implementing it is where the system keeps falling over.

Paloma Cesare: The frustrating part is—we actually know what works, right? When you have early, culturally-respectful support, when you let families guide what’s best for their kids, you get better outcomes. I always come back to that line from an Aboriginal father: “There’s good parents who just took the wrong road—they need straightening back up and given back their kids.” The system has to be flexible enough, and humble enough, to make that possible.

5b8776d2: And it takes listening—real listening—plus, supporting kinship care, supporting restoration, taking a wide view of wellbeing, not just ticking boxes. I think we’ll keep seeing and talking about these issues in future episodes, because until we start truly centering Indigenous voices, the change we need will be pretty slow going.

Paloma Cesare: Thanks Agnieszka, and thanks everyone for sticking with us on this one. If you’re keen to keep thinking critically about these issues—or, I dunno, if you’re just as mad as we are—join us on the next episode. See you next time, Agnieszka.

5b8776d2: Thanks, Paloma. Thanks to everyone listening, and yeah, till next time—take care and keep reflecting. Bye!