Senator Lidia Thorpe is calling on Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, to ramp up pressure on states and territories to reduce incarceration and child removal rates as she meets with the country’s Attorneys-General today.

Thorpe is urging McCarthy to use the meeting to demand urgent national action on the incarceration crisis, deaths in custody, and child removals — and to hold states accountable that continue to breach their Closing the Gap targets.

The Standing Council of Attorneys-General meets several times a year. This meeting is usually not attended by the Minister for Indigenous Australians, but McCarthy has confirmed she will be present to discuss justice system reform with Attorneys-General from across the country.

The meeting comes just two days after yet another First Nations person died in custody, and as new data shows the number of children in custody in New South Wales has jumped by 34 per cent — with Aboriginal children making up 60 per cent of those incarcerated.

For further detail of Thorpe’s policy priorities, see the bottom of this email. 

Quotes attributable to Lidia Thorpe, Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung independent Victorian Senator:

"Last month, we reached the grim milestone of over 600 Black deaths in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission.

This week, we learned of yet another death in Hakea prison, and we’ve seen shameful numbers out of NSW showing how the Minns government's policies are targeting our children. 

Child stealing, jailing, deaths in custody and suicides are all getting worse, but we’re seeing no plan to take this on. The latest Closing the Gap figures should have triggered a national reckoning. Instead we see states and territories continuing to introduce punitive laws that are making things worse.

We know there is plenty the federal government can do. If states are breaching their Closing the Gap targets — especially on incarceration and child removals — there must be real consequences.

McCarthy needs to be talking with Attorneys-General today about withholding federal funding from states and territories that are actively working against progress.

She must make it very clear that the Commonwealth has the power to legislate national minimum standards across the criminal legal system.

This government must stop the state violence being committed against us in every jurisdiction across the continent.

We don’t need more reviews, reports or inquiries — we need action. Governments already know the solutions because our people have been telling them for decades. What’s missing is the political will to act.

The Attorney-General meeting is an opportunity to turn this around. The federal government must show leadership, use its powers, and step in when states and territories are harming our people. Anything less is complicity in this crisis.

If the Commonwealth won’t use its powers to stop states killing our people, then it’s part of the problem."

Further detail - Senator Thorpe's First Nations Justice priorities.

Senator Thorpe is calling on the Albanese Government to take real action to address the incarceration crisis. Her priorities include:

• A national oversight body to monitor and drive the implementation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing Them Home report.
• A framework of penalties for states and territories that breach Closing the Gap targets — particularly where states enact policies that drive the criminalisation and incarceration of First Peoples.
• An urgent National Cabinet meeting on deaths in custody and youth incarceration.
• National minimum standards for prisons and youth justice, aligned with UNDRIP, OPCAT, CPRD, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and other relevant international human rights instruments. These standards would include the removal of hanging points; banning spit hoods, solitary confinement, and shackling during childbirth and end-of-life care; and preventing children being jailed in police watch houses.
• Bail reform: Legislate Pocum’s Law as a minimum standard nationwide, and invest in community-controlled bail support services, including culturally safe bail accommodation for children.
• Community-led first responders: Expand First Nations-led crisis response services to reduce police contact and incarceration.
• Real justice reinvestment: Scale up and properly fund justice reinvestment, with long-term, flexible funding directed to communities.
• Healthcare in prisons: Guarantee equitable access healthcare in custody, including Medicare, PBS medicines, disability supports, and culturally safe care in custody. Resource First Nations Community-controlled health organisations (ACCHOs)  to deliver prison healthcare and improve access to medicines. Improve disability screening for people in contact with the criminal legal system.
• Increased and sustained funding for legal assistance services, to ensure First Peoples can access justice.