The survival of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory depends on the royal commission into youth detention acting on its findings and not just talking about the issues, a social justice advocate says.

Patricia Anderson, an Aboriginal woman who in 2007 co-authored the Little Children are Sacred report, today made an impassioned plea for change at a hearing for the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory.

"Please, I beg you, do not just put it in the filing cabinet," she told the hearing in Darwin's Supreme Court.

She said the commissioners were "morally bound" to do something about the issues facing the Northern Territory.

"That's all this country ever does is talk about blackfellas.

"I would go so far as to say the very survival of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory depends on this commission making a real impact here," Ms Anderson said.

The royal commission was prompted by revelations contained in an episode of ABC's Four Corners program, which detailed years of abuse in the Don Dale youth detention centre but is looking more broadly at child protection in the Territory.

Ms Anderson said often people felt good talking about issues and reports were "dropped into a filing cabinet somewhere".

"Nothing ever happens. So that has got to stop," she said.

"We are not going to be here in another 20, 25, 50 years."

Intervention brought Indigenous Australians 'to their knees'

The Little Children are Sacred report was used by then prime minister John Howard to justify the federal intervention into Indigenous communities in the NT.

Among other measures, the army was sent in to provide services, welfare money was quarantined and alcohol was banned from most communities.

Ms Anderson said that response was a "betrayal" of Indigenous Australians and had made their lives worse.

"We're on our knees here, the last 10 years have just been appalling," she said.

"So it's an extension of that abuse, the further abuse of Aboriginal people. That's what the intervention was."

She said no politician who used her report to justify one of the most dramatic changes in Indigenous policy in recent history has ever spoken to her about it.

"To this day there's not a single politician or any decision-maker of any kind in the Northern Territory or anywhere else for that matter, has had a single conversation with me. Not one," she said.

'CLP showed no interest in recommendations to improve child protection'

Earlier today a former children's commissioner in the Northern Territory told the royal commission the previous Country Liberals party (CLP) government showed no interest in implementing his recommendations to improve the child protection system.

Dr Howard Bath, who was NT children's commissioner from June 2008 until March 2015, gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory, which is conducting hearings in Darwin.

Dr Bath told the commission that when there was a change in government in the NT in 2012 and the CLP took power the department in charge of protecting children was reduced in status and there was a change in priorities.

"It became an office rather than a department or a branch. There was significant turnover in personnel," Dr Bath said.

He said an external monitoring body was abolished.

Labor took away my power: ex-ombudsman

He also said there was little appetite for enacting recommendations he made that would have seen as much effort put into preventing child abuse as was put into caring for children who had been abused.

"Although I think there was a broad commitment to the general nature of reforms, very specifically some of the key reforms the Government announced they would not be pursuing," Dr Bath said.

Yesterday, on the first day of hearings, former NT ombudsman Carolyn Richards told the inquiry that she had power to investigate the child protection system taken away from her by a former Labor minister.

National Children's Commissioner Megan Mitchell also addressed the hearings yesterday, saying children were frequently isolated for 23 hours a day for several weeks at Don Dale.

The royal commission was also told by the counsel assisting, Peter Callaghan SC, that there had already been 50 reports written in the past that relevant to the hearings.

Mr Callaghan said there was a risk of an "inquiry mentality" in which investigating issues became a substitution for action, and reporting was accepted instead of results.