STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator NAMPIJINPA PRICE (Northern Territory) (13:42): There is a quote attributed to Nelson Mandela that seems most fitting: There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children. In 2022, three of our children—Port Hedland's Jamelia, Arnda and baby Kelvin—were murdered. Their grandmother had sounded the alarm to authorities, to no avail.

Reports have emerged that, just kilometres away, some 15 children were living in squalor. Labor politicians have tried to pass the buck, but the fact remains that our children were failed by the systems meant to protect them. In Alice Springs, my own family buried our five-year-old niece Sharon Napanangka, a beautiful little girl with a bright future unforgivably stolen from her.

And who can forget the 2024 case of Jeffrey Alan Brown, who abused four Indigenous children but had his sentence reduced because of his 'significant connection to country' and 'commendable attempts to keep his culture alive'? What does it say about the soul of our nation when we treat our most valuable, our most precious, like this? When the Prime Minister was asked about child protection, he pointed to the states.

Well, Mr Albanese, leadership is not something to be palmed off at a state border. These are Australian children, full stop. We need urgent improvements to the way warnings of abuse and neglect are treated, and properly-resourced frontline services, because, Mr Albanese, if you cannot protect our children—the very soul of our nation—who are you governing for?