NT child protection laws: Parents fight for kids amid proposed changes

Warning: This story contains details and images of children with injuries, which some readers may find distressing.

When three-year-old Chloe* repeatedly arrived for visits with her biological parents with visible injuries, they became worried she was being abused in foster care.

"She'd show up with bad nappies … then it progressed from that to severe bruising, bite mark injuries and then to black eyes," her father Daniel* said.

"She went from being a beautiful, happy child to exhibiting behaviour tantrums.

For almost four years, Daniel* and his wife Lucy* have been fighting for custody of their daughter and two-year-old son from the Northern Territory's Department of Children and Families.

He told the ABC the children were placed under territory care as newborns over concerns about his previous involvement in Australia's underworld and criminal history.

"I understand I was a very bad person for a long time," Daniel said.

"I grew up and realised that wasn't the right way in my life … and that's when I actually started trying to make different changes."

Until Chloe was two years old, her parents were seeing their daughter weekly and did not have concerns about her physical safety.

Lucy said that all changed when her little girl started coming to visits with facial injuries, matted hair and soiled nappies, between June and November 2024.

After raising allegations that Chloe was being abused to the department, her parents said they were brushed off, and their scheduled appointments with their children became sporadic.

"We pretty much didn't get any explanations," Lucy told the ABC.

A spokesperson for the Department of Children and Families did not respond to detailed questions about the pair's experience, saying it "does] not comment on individual cases".

"The safety, wellbeing and protection of children is always our highest priority," it said.

Two-year reunification limit an 'arbitrary legal clock'

As of January 2025, the most recent month data is available from, Daniel and Lucy's toddlers are two of 887 children in out-of-home care in the Northern Territory who are set to be impacted by proposed changes to child protection laws.

In the wake of the death of five-year-old Kumanjayi Little Baby in Alice Springs, the NT government last week introduced new legislation in parliament, which it claims will prioritise safety "above all considerations" in deciding whether a child should be placed in care.

The proposal has attracted harsh criticism from child protection advocates, with Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT and the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC), saying the changes could negatively impact children in care and accusing the government of a lack of consultation.

Jacynta Krakouer, enterprise fellow with Adelaide University's Australian Centre for Child Protection, said the planned changes could set a "dangerous precedent, not only for the Northern Territory but also for Australia".

"This proposed change in the Northern Territory is going to wind back Australian child protection systems and potentially the practice itself by at least 20 to 30 years," the Melbourne-based researcher said.

Among the planned changes is a requirement for the department to make "proactive efforts" to ensure "every opportunity to reunify a child with their family" is investigated, while the child is under a short-term protection order.

However, the changes also restrict those short-term protection orders to a maximum of two years.

Dr Krakouer said if the bill was to pass, that change could make it easier for courts to issue long-term protection orders for children, which could keep them in care until the age of 18 and make it near impossible for families to win their children back.

"Children's futures should not be decided by an arbitrary legal clock," she said.

"The two-year time limit on reunification does not take into account the complex reality families often live with when they're intersecting with child protection.

"Specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, we risk repeating the harms we enacted as a country during the Stolen Generations."

The child protection specialist pointed to Victoria, where similar reunification restrictions were outlawed in March.

"The evidence showed that this time limit was causing harm and the evidence showed that it was disproportionately impacting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children," Dr Krakouer said.

Despite the law changes still being before parliament, Lucy said the process of having her children in foster care so far had been "heartbreaking", and she hoped the department would put more supports in place for families like hers.

"It's just unfair," she said.

"It's unfortunate that we've already been fighting for years, so no, I don't believe it's fair at all."