To Prime Minister Anthony Albanese,

Right now, there are more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in prison than ever before.

From coast to coast across our lands, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are being criminalised and imprisoned at alarming rates because of political point-scoring rather than evidence-based reforms.
This is an emergency.

And Prime Minister, this has happened under your watch.

As the Uluru Statement from the Heart says: Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not innately criminal people. Our children are alienated from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our children languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.

This is happening because governments from every state and territory across Australia are actively pursuing policies that are driving the mass incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and in particular, our children.

That is why we are urging you, Prime Minister, to show leadership. We are urging you to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children to thrive, rather than be subject to harmful policies and practices at the hands of state and territory governments who are more concerned with political gains than the care and safety of our people.

We, the undersigned, are urging you to call an emergency summit on youth justice, so that key decision makers in government can listen to the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal experts and leaders in a setting where community-controlled organisations lead the discussion.

We are the experts on what our children need; we know what will stop them from entering into a cycle of crime, caused by generational trauma that violent colonial systems have imposed on our people for centuries.

You have promised to be a government that supports reconciliation with, and a more just society for, First Nations people.

But when 36 per cent of the prison population is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and with the continuing and shameful lack of progress on justice outcomes under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, it is not possible for you to achieve this vision without urgent and meaningful action to change the justice system.

It’s time for you to take urgent and meaningful action to protect our children and our communities.

The time is now, our children deserve better futures.