In support of the advocacy of Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts, Bundjalung Widubul-Wiabul lawyer, social worker and advocate for Indigenous people’s rights and children’s rights: 

We, the undersigned, ask you to urgently intervene to stop the imminent removal of a two year old child from her Aboriginal mother and from Australia. 

We are concerned that this child, who is being breast-fed, will be at risk of grave harm if she is removed from the care of her mother and sent overseas to live with her father, who has a reported history of alleged domestic violence and coercive control against the child’s mother and abuse and threatening behaviour towards the child.  News.com.au reports that the father has a current apprehended domestic violence order against him and quotes statements from the mother that he has previously threatened to kill her and the baby. 

We understand that a spokesperson for the Hon. Mark Dreyfus has recently informed a journalist from Mamamia that "there are no legal grounds for the Attorney-General to intervene in this case". However, the lawyer representing the mother has requested your government to immediately intervene to prevent the removal of this child in order for further consideration to be given to avenues to meet the safety needs and human rights of the child within the parameters of Australian law and the international conventions.

Furthermore, on the return of Parliament in 2023, we request that you take immediate action to further amend The Family Law (Child Abduction Convention) Amendment (Family Violence) Regulations 2022 to ensure that where considerations of family violence and domestic violence are relevant to cases relating to the Hague Convention, they can be retrospectively applied.

Furthermore, we request that the Australian Parliament convene a Parliamentary Enquiry into the ways that the Hague Convention is impacting on Australian parents, in light of the 2020 European Parliament report that found that at least 75% of cases filed under the Hague Convention are against mothers, many of whom have fled domestic violence or abuse, against themselves or their children.