"Powers to Intervene in Families Deserve the Highest Level of Scrutiny"
150 submissions were received for the Legislative Scrutiny Committee NT "Care and Protection of Children Legislation Amendment (Every Child Matters) Bill 2026 Child Protection Bill", which was only open for one week.
The cornerstone of the proposal is how the Bill approaches the Best Interests of the Child. This remains the paramount consideration of the new Bill. What the Act currently does is offer a list of criteria that the Court may consider when deciding what is in a child's best interest, now and into the future.
What the Bill proposes is to prescribe certain considerations, including safety and protection from harm are listed first with capacity of parents listed at the bottom of the list and given the least amount of weight.
It is important to note that intervention orders are often made ex-parte in the first instance, which means they are granted by the court on the evidence of Child Protection Authorities without families having their evidence considered by the court. It can actually be months before a hearing in a court and this impacts children's contact with their family and where they are living.
For this reason it is even more important that safety is considered as broadly and holistically as possible, due to the enormous power vested in Child Protection authorities, including the possibly of harm from removal, both immediately and in the long term.
One of the pieces of evidence that can assist families to be reunified is a Parenting Capacity Assistance, which looks at all a variety of factors around a parent and while the psychological tools used in writing these reports can be contentious, it can provide valuable information to the Department. The current Bill prioritises many of these factors much lower, reducing the need to prioritise such reports, which can highlight strengths of families that can be protective.
Child Protection receive a huge number of notifications each year and triage. The shift of language in the Bill may lead the Department to err on the side of safety and lead to more removals.
No one is saying that we should leave children in unsafe circumstances but child protection assessments are complex but removal can deprive children of things that make them feel safe and having a system focused on removal may fail to think carefully about how we assist children and families to address risks of harm and support communities to create safety. Simply moving kids out does not address safety within the community as a whole.
Listen to Andrea's conversation with Professor Paul Gray here: (42 minutes)
https://omny.fm/shows/kimberley-voices-6fx/child-protection-paul-gray-uts-may-29-2026
Professor Paul Gray also recently co-authored a paper led by Ash Wright titled "Attachment and the (mis)apprehension of Aboriginal children: epistemic violence in child welfare interventions
This can be accessed here: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/BBRMBRHRVQD3HAIIKPRZ/full?target=10.1080%2F13284207.2026.2682255&fbclid=IwY2xjawSQSRFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEev7gdBcXQS2S5XuYeis5RrhCFqiLq3Ckx9gSvNaElEh0v7yK_PQwPbvFtQNk_aem_yUafOz5s9aZGJ4vKAT5T-w#summary-abstract
Read all submissions on the Care and Protection of Children Legislation Amendment (Every Child Matters) Bill 2026 here:
https://parliament.nt.gov.au/committees/list/legislative-scrutiny-committee/67-2026
Photo: Professor Paul Gray Indigenous X
