The federal government must hold the states and territories to account in upholding the rights of children in youth justice, a senate inquiry has been told.
The system is "failing disgracefully", with Indigenous children over represented and a majority of young people incarcerated waiting to be sentenced, SNAICC chief executive Catherine Liddle said.
Ms Liddle told the Senate Inquiry into Australia's Youth Justice and Incarceration System the Commonwealth has a role to play in ensuring the rights of children are not breached.
"When children are separated from their families, communities, culture, the risk of adverse outcomes for their health, development and wellbeing increases," she said.
"Instead of meeting them with trauma-informed supports and therapeutic care, our systems are reacting in increasingly more and more punitive and often cruel ways."
The senate inquiry was announced following the deaths of two children in youth detention in Western Australia in 12 months, including 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd in October 2023.
"I ask the committee, in what other first world country do we see children dying in custody," Western Australia's Commissioner for Children and Young people, Jacqueline McGowan-Jones said.
"What first world nation do we think it's reasonable that we detain children in cells for up to 23 hours a day, that we leave them in great need and they die in a system that should be protecting them."
On Thursday, the Productivity Commission's report on government services revealed spending on youth justice rose nationally over 2023-24 to $1.5 billion.
The average cost to imprison a child is $3320 a day, which equates to $1.2 million per child per year.
"We can find a million dollars a year to keep a child in custody in Australia, but we can't find a million dollars a year to work with that family to provide the supports they need to make sure the kids don't end up in the justice system," Ms McGowan-Jones said.
"We are putting money at the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, and as we continue to do that, we continue to lose more children."
In the Northern Territory, the age of criminal responsibility has recently been reduced to 10 years old, the presumption of bail removed and a ban on using spit hoods reversed.
The NT Children's Commissioner Shahleena Musk said she's deeply concerned by these reforms and the politicisation of youth crime.
"The Northern Territory, particularly in the lead up to election cycles, focuses on tough on crime responses, rules and policies which win votes rather than acts on the evidence," she said.
"It is the responsibility of the Commonwealth Government to ensure states and territories protect and promote human rights."
Queensland Family and Child Commissioner Natalie Lewis said the Commonwealth should also be alarmed at what is happening in that state.
Ms Lewis told the inquiry in Queensland, children in custody have less protections than adults do after the state's human rights act was overridden multiple times to reform youth justice policy.
"Justice has long been prone to violent swings of the policy pendulum, highly vulnerable to politicisation," she said.
"It is almost always an election campaign issue and the opportunity for reform that follows has a shelf-life that is limited to election cycles."
