First Nations youth justice has again come under the spotlight with Anthony Albanese under fire and an Indigenous independent MP sensationally resigning over a territory government's "dehumanising" laws.
The prime minister has been urged to call an emergency youth justice summit after being accused of turning his back on First Nations people.
''Under the prime minister's watch our children are languishing in detention at unprecedented rates," National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services chair Nerita Waight said in Canberra on Wednesday.
"States and territories across the country are racing against one another for the most punitive policies they can come up with, for the sake of political-point scoring."
Ms Waight said the prime minister promised in his election night speeches to stand with Indigenous people.
"Yet it seems he is now sending a deliberate message that he is turning his back on us," she said in a statement.
Mr Albanese had declined to meet with her group in Canberra after his no-show at the Garma festival in the Northern Territory in June, Ms Waight said.
"So I put it to you prime minister, have you decided to abandon us after the referendum? Do our children matter?"
Any time spent behind bars increased a child's likelihood of reoffending and guaranteed the cycle of incarceration continued unabated, she said.
Ms Waight called for an emergency summit on youth justice, saying the matter was not just for states and territories, as the federal government had the legal authority to make laws on the issue.
Her call came as NT's only independent Indigenous MP resigned, accusing the territory's government of failing Aboriginal people with laws that contributed to a "slow genocide".
Yingiya Mark Guyula, the MP for Mulka in northeast Arnhem Land and a respected Yolngu elder, on Wednesday announced he was stepping down from the NT parliament, effective immediately.
Mr Guyula said he could no longer sit opposite a government that was not willing to listen or form partnerships.
Since its election in 2024, the NT's Liberal Party government had introduced too many laws that were "dehumanising, oppressing and destroying our communities and our people", he said in a statement.
"They have significantly failed Aboriginal people and their ongoing actions are contributing to the breakdown of our culture and people, in what is now becoming a slow genocide."
Aboriginal communities were the political football passed around with no real intention of working with the people to bring positive change, Mr Guyula said.
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