Former NT Minister claims child neglect is being 'hushed up' in Northern Territory Indigenous communities
Bess Nungarrayi Price says "people don't know how to discuss" child safety in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
Growing up in Yuendumu in the 1960s, Bess Nungarrayi Price recalls a childhood surrounded by family, connected to the bush, far from the threats of alcohol and drugs.
The former Northern Territory government minister believes that sense of safety is no longer present in many of the remote and urban Aboriginal communities of Central Australia.
"Our families were more or less mindful and together and looking after each other," Ms Nungarrayi Price told 7.30.
"But today, children are left to themselves to do whatever they want to do.
Ms Nungarrayi Price says children are sometimes left with "no adult in sight". (ABC News: Emily Jane Smith)
"I've seen that around here in Alice Springs, where young ones around seven, eight, nine … are just wandering around Alice and the town camps, and there's no adult in sight."
Ms Nungarrayi Price's observations come as the NT faces renewed scrutiny of its child protection system, which has been amplified in the wake of the alleged murder of five-year-old girl Kumanjayi Little Baby, who went missing from an Alice Springs town camp home in April.
The NT government has ordered a review into the circumstances surrounding Kumanjayi Little Baby's death, led by former New South Wales police commissioner Karen Webb, after reports that the girl was the subject of child protection notifications prior to her disappearance.
The exact nature of those notifications has not been made public.
The Northern Territory is facing renewed scrutiny of its child protection system. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
7.30 has confirmed Ms Webb has begun her investigation in Alice Springs and has three months to gather evidence and deliver her findings.
For Ms Nungarrayi Price, who is the mother of federal Coalition senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, there are questions about the short and tragic life of the five-year-old that she doesn't want to see glossed over.
She is also a relative of Kumanjayi Little Baby and believes the time is right to be talking about the territory's child protection systems and the issues that have long beleaguered it.
"It's one that people don't want to talk about," she said.
"If it's an Aboriginal child, there's a lot that stops us from talking openly about what we really should be doing about a case like this, to be able to understand or talk about it."
Ms Nungarrayi Price believes there's a culture of silence that stops NT communities talking openly about child neglect and sexual abuse. (ABC News: Emily Jane Smith )
She said conversations around child safety, abuse and neglect in NT Aboriginal communities were often "shut down or hushed up" because it's seen by some as too sensitive or culturally taboo.
"We don't know how to discuss anything like that within our people and it's frustrating,"she said.
NT Child Protection Minister Robyn Cahill said in a statement she agreed with Ms Nungarrayi Price, and added that she believed "this is not unique to NT communities".
"There is a reluctance nationally to openly discuss and acknowledge the abuse and neglect of Aboriginal children, which is often fuelled by fear of reprisal for speaking out," she said.
"That fear and the resultant silence comes at a significant cost to the safety of children."
Debate over changes to child protection laws
The NT's Country Liberal Party (CLP) government has also been working on amendments to child protection laws for a year, but debate around the proposed changes has come to a head in the wake of Kumanjayi Little Baby's death.
The NT government has proposed changes to child protection laws. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
The Country Liberal Party government says amendments will prioritise child safety above all considerations, regardless of background.
Changes also include a new two-year limit on short-term protection orders, during which time the department must make efforts to improve the family's situation and ensure "every opportunity to reunify a child with their family" is investigated.
In response, a multitude of non-government Aboriginal service organisations have come out hard against the proposal, expressing concerns the changes will create more problems than it will solve.
“Numbers of children in out of home care will explode. There’s significant evidence to demonstrate that that’s what will happen," the CEO of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) Catherine Liddle told public hearings last week.
The interim chief executive of Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, Dr John Boffa, believes the approach from the NT government is a "kneejerk" response to a system rife with shortfalls.
"Child neglect has been a significant issue for a very long time," Dr Boffa told 7.30.
"But I think it's important not to knee-jerk on this issue.
Dr John Boffa has labelled the NT government's response a "knee-jerk" reaction. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
"The issues that need to be looked at are process and procedural issues within the department.
"I think this is something that needs careful examination, as to whether the assessment processes are working, or whether the tools that are being used need to be improved."
Ms Cahill said that given the "legislative amendments have been in development for over 12 months … that is not a kneejerk response by any definition".
"These reforms are specifically designed to intervene early and keep children safely with their families wherever possible — before situations deteriorate to the point where removal becomes necessary," she said.
"The intent is fewer children in out-of-home care, not more."
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