Attributable to the National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People - Sue-Anne Hunter.
Today the Queensland Government passed the Youth Justice (Circuit Breaker) Amendment Bill 2026 (the Bill).
This is a devastating day for our people, particularly our children in Queensland.
What we are witnessing is a deeply concerning erosion of children’s rights.
I pose a question to the Queensland Government. How can you claim to support Aboriginal children while continuing to pass laws that disproportionately restrict their rights and risk their safety and wellbeing?
This decision by the Queensland Government shows yet another instance where legislation has been passed that will have critical and disproportionate consequences for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people, and goes directly against the views and recommendations of experts and our people.
The passing of this Bill is not a productive response, nor is it a humane one.
Children in contact with the justice system retain their rights as children. Responses to offending must respect their best interests, dignity, development and right to be heard. Deprivation of liberty must only be used as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, these protections must also be understood alongside their rights to culture, family, community and identity.
With this Bill now passed through Parliament, First Nations children and young people will face the consequences at a disproportionate rate when compared to their non-Indigenous peers.
Our children are already vastly overrepresented in Queensland’s youth justice system. Queensland should be working to change that, not passing laws that will make it much worse.
This is just not good enough and should not be endorsed by the governments and systems put in place to protect our children.
At the National Commission, we recognise that every community has a right to safety… But we want to be clear, protecting a child's rights and protecting communities are not competing objectives.
The evidence shows that the most effective youth justice systems do both: they prevent offending, address its underlying causes and reduce reoffending, while keeping children out of the justice system wherever possible. Everything in this Bill goes directly against this evidence.
The Bill allows children as young as 10 years old to be removed and placed in circuit breaker sites, including sites far from their home communities, risking their safety, wellbeing and connection to kin, community and culture.
The Bill also raises serious safeguarding and accountability concerns, including circumstances in which adults may have a lawful reason not to report harm to a child. When the State places children in these settings, it carries a heightened responsibility to keep them safe and ensure their rights can be exercised in practice.
What we know is the bare minimum is that our children must have effective access to justice. They must be able to understand their rights, access independent advice and advocacy, raise concerns and make complaints safely, and have access to independent oversight and effective remedies when their rights are breached. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, these mechanisms must also be culturally safe, accessible and responsive to their circumstances.
The Queensland Government has today agreed to a genuine lack of care for our future generations. Evidence tells us that measures of this kind will never deliver sustained reductions in offending or make communities safer.
Circuit breaker will fail children, and it will fail the community.
Queensland has tried similar approaches before. Previous experience in the State should provide important lessons about the limitations of punitive and detention-like responses. But even with more than a decade of learnings, we find ourselves at this same impasse.
We need a practical rights-based approach, with our children at the centre of the decision-making. We need our governments to recognise their harm and listen to experts. That means investing in prevention, early intervention, diversion and culturally safe, community-controlled responses that address the underlying drivers of offending and keep children connected to family, culture and community.
I urge the Queensland Government to reconsider the implementation of this Bill. Every child deserves a future nurtured by family, culture, and community; however, this legislation stands in direct opposition to children's fundamental rights.