Our people have always told the truth about what January 26 means. Dispossession. Violence. Stolen Land. Stolen children. Attempted cultural and linguistic erasure. It also means survival, against the odds of murder, displacement and discrimination that continues to occur every minute of every day.
This year, that truth sits beside another one. Australia is under much deserved international scrutiny. The world is watching how we treat our people in our courts, our prisons, and our child protection systems.
On Geneva time, Australia faces the Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations. It is a formal check on our human rights record. It is also a mirror that we must not shy away from. It shows the gap between what Australia says and what Australia does.
A new Joint NGO Report, endorsed by more than 100 organisations, lays out that gap in plain language. It describes ongoing systemic injustice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including rising incarceration and repeated government failure to implement long-standing recommendations. In simple terms, it demands more than just talking - it requires meaningful commitment and action - something successive federal and state governments have failed us on time and time again.
It calls for reforms that should not still be up for debate. Raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14. Enact a federal Human Rights Act. Commit to truth-telling and self-determination, and properly implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples - commit to change, don't just put it on a title of a document.
It also names an uncomfortable fact. Australia's constitutional and institutional settings still produce racially biased outcomes, and the country has failed to establish an adequate national process for truth-telling and treaty.
None of this is new. That is the point.
Australians are regularly told that the system is improving. That the problems are complex. That change takes time.
But Aboriginal families have lived the consequences for generations. Complexity has become a cover for delay. Time has become a reason to do nothing. Time has become meaningless.
Youth justice is one clear example.
Across this country, Aboriginal children are policed earlier, charged more often, refused bail more readily, and held on remand in conditions that do damage. The pipeline is not an accident. It is the predictable result of laws and decisions made by governments, parliaments and courts.
But youth justice is not the only measure of whether Australia is serious about rights.
We are still burying loved ones after deaths in custody that were preventable. We are still watching governments ignore recommendations that were written in blood and grief whilst they espouse reconciliation and equality. We are still seeing Aboriginal children removed from families at rates that should shame any country that claims to care about child wellbeing.
In April 2025, Professors Megan Davis and Hannah McGlade lodged a complaint with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination about youth justice in Australia. It points to a crisis of mass incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. This is not fringe commentary. It is a serious legal step under international law.
In December 2025, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention visited Australia and issued findings. That visit should have been a wake-up call. Instead, too many leaders treated it like background noise.
Now we are at another moment. The UN process will continue. This is where leadership matters.
The Prime Minister cannot pretend this is only a state and territory issue. The Commonwealth has power. It has influence. And it has responsibility. It's time it did something with it to protect Aboriginal children and young people and their communities.
We need the Prime Minister to take ownership of Australia's human rights record. We need him to speak plainly against the current tide of punitive law changes that are putting more Aboriginal people in prison, including more children on remand.
Silence reads as consent. If the Prime Minister wants Australia to be taken seriously in Geneva and on the global stage as we navigate uncertain times around the world, he should start by setting a clear national direction at home. If he wants us to take his commitment to Aboriginal communities seriously he should stop the escalation and put prevention and Aboriginal-led solutions at the centre. And demand that every jurisdiction lifts its standards.
Will the government carry truth into Geneva, or will it keep selling a false story of progress while the harm continues?
What should happen next is not mysterious. Stop expanding laws that push more people into remand and prison. Stop pretending this equals safety.
Fund what works. Aboriginal-led prevention. Aboriginal-controlled services. Safe housing. Education. Health care. Family support.
Put rights into law. Human rights for Australians should not be a symbolic gesture. It is a tool for accountability. And tell the truth. Properly implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, with Indigenous-led monitoring and real benchmarks. Commit to truth-telling and treaty, including a Makarrata Commission.
Invasion Day is a reminder. We survived invasion. We are still here. We are still fighting for justice. We still await our faith in this county to be honoured.
Nerita Waight is Acting Chair of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS).
