The 1997 Bringing Them Home report into the removal of Aboriginal children from their families was a turning point in Australia’s history. The inquiry rejected past government policies of assimilation and endorsed the importance of keeping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children with their families.
Reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care is now a target of the federal government’s Closing the Gap policy.
Yet the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care is increasing. Between 2021–2022 around 4,100 Indigenous children were placed in out-of-home care nationally. The highest rates were among children under one year old.
Across all age groups, Indigenous children are placed in out-of-home care at almost 12 times the rate of non-Indigenous children. In Western Australia, Indigenous children are placed in out-of-home care at 20 times the rate of non-Indigenous children.