This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The number of Indigenous children in out-of-home care has doubled in the decade since the 2008 apology to the stolen generations, according to figures released by the Productivity Commission.

The report on government services, released on Thursday, said there were 17,664 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care in 2016-17, compared with 9,070 in 2007-08.

Healing Foundation chief executive Richard Weston said the “shocking” figures reflected the failure of Australian governments to address intergenerational trauma caused by the stolen generation and other colonial policies, and said effort should be focused on healing and supporting families before they reach the point where children are removed.

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“[The system] keeps failing Aboriginal families and communities because it is punitive, not supportive,” Weston told Guardian Australia. “We are spending the money in the wrong place. We are spending the money to remove the kids and put them in out-of-home care, separating them from their families and not putting any strategies in place to help them get their kids back.”

The rate at which Indigenous children were removed from their families increased by 80% between 2007-08 to 2016-17, from 32.7 per 1,000 to 58.7 per 1,000.

Meanwhile, the proportion of children placed in accordance with the Aboriginal child placement principle, which states that children must be housed with Indigenous family members, other kin, or with an Indigenous foster carer, decreased from 74% in 2007-08 to 67.6% in 2016-17.

The number of non-Indigenous children in care between 2007-08 and 2016-17 grew 36%, from 22,096 to 30,069, while the rate of removal increased just 24% to 5.8 per 1,000.

The total number of children in out-of-home care grew 53.7% over the period, from 31,166 to 47,915, while the total rate of removal increased 38% from 6.3 per 1,000 to 8.7 per 1,000.

The growth in child removal indicates that Australian governments have not learned the lessons of the stolen generations, New South Wales Greens MP David Shoebridge said.

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The 10th anniversary of the apology is on 13 February.

“[The apology] was a clear statement of regret and empathy with Aboriginal people that had seen their children taken by state and territory governments that didn’t care about the damage being done to Aboriginal communities and cultures,” Shoebridge told Guardian Australia. “The fact of the matter is the same damage is being done now. In my view, you can’t see it as other than a continuation of the stolen generations.”

A report by Indigenous organisations in November warned that the number of Indigenous children in out-of-home care would triple by 2036 unless the funding was focused on early intervention and support. About 60% of the $5.2bn spent on child protection services in Australia in 2016-17 went toward out-of-home care.

Shoebridge said the decline in the number of Indigenous children in out-of-home care who had been placed in accordance with the Aboriginal child placement principle was “the clearest evidence of system failure”.

“The best way of achieving 100% placement with Aboriginal carers and kin would be to markedly reduce the number of Aboriginal children taken in the first place,” he said.

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The Victorian government last year committed to move all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care to the management of Aboriginal organisations, with the aim of keeping children culturally connected to their community and ensuring they are reunified with their families as quickly as possible.

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The Productivity Commission report did not include data on reunification, which is not published by most jurisdictions, but did say that almost half of all Indigenous children in out-of-home care remained in care for more than five years.

The outgoing Victorian commissioner for Aboriginal children, Andrew Jackomos, has called for reunification targets for Indigenous families to be included in the Closing the Gap targets, which are currently being reviewed.