Irrespective of what's happening in local communities, you can't actually just arrest your way out of an issue."In May 2026, a United Nations report expressed alarm over the persistent over representation of Indigenous children in Australia's criminal justice system.The report noted that on an average day in 2023-2024, 65 per cent of children in detention were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, noting also that the minimum age of criminal responsibility in several jurisdictions is lower than the threshold under international human rights law.Malarndirri McCarthy says the government must keep pushing states and territories to improve justice outcomes."Well, it's very, very difficult to deal with these situations where you have particular pieces of legislation that see the high incarceration rates of First Nations people All too often, governments are making decisions in vacuums and not including those who are most affected by those policy decisions in the ultimate design and development of what those programs and initiatives need to look like."Five targets, including education and housing, are improving, but are still not on track to reach targets by 2031.Areas like employment and land and sea rights, however, are on track.In the areas showing most improvement, Selwyn Button says the government works in collaboration with community."If we then look at other places, and certainly similarly where we're going backwards, what's not happening in those instances is effectively that