Almost one-third of NT children in care allegedly harmed, report finds

The report found in the NT, 29 per cent of all children in care were subject to at least one alleged harm notification in the last financial year. (ABC News: Daryna Zadvirna)

A new report from the Office of the Children's Commissioner has found almost one-third of children in out-of-home care in the NT were allegedly harmed last financial year.

The Monitoring Harm in Care Report has been criticised by the NT's child protection minister, who questioned the data's validity.

The report comes after the NT government introduced new child protection legislation into parliament last month, which critics say risks weakening Aboriginal kinship care.

Nearly one in three children in out-of-home care in the Northern Territory were allegedly harmed last financial year, a new report has found.

The Monitoring Harm in Care Report was released by the Office of the Children's Commissioner (OCC) on Tuesday, examining alleged and substantiated harm against children in out-of-home care over the past two financial years.

Its findings have subsequently been attacked by Child Protection Minister Robyn Cahill amid a fierce debate about the NT's child protection system.

The report was authored by the office of NT Children's Commissioner Shahleena Musk. (ABC News: Michael Franchi)

The report includes data sets from both the Department of Children and Families (DCF) and the OCC, with the OCC noting it was unable to obtain DCF data "of the integrity, completeness or year‑on‑year comparability required for confident statistical reporting".

It said the OCC data used was "manually collated from individual case files" and "independently verified by the OCC".

DCF data referred to in the report shows 292 individual children — 29 per cent of all children in care in the NT — were the subject of at least one alleged harm notification in 2024-25, more than double than in the previous reporting year.

Of those 292 children, 243 were the subject of multiple notifications.

In the same reporting year, compared with other jurisdictions, the report also found the NT had the highest proportion of children who had experienced substantiated harm while in care, at 6.1 per cent.

More than half of those children were harmed by the person responsible for their care.

The report found in the NT, 6.1 per cent of children in care have experienced "substantiated harm". (ABC News: Liam Patrick)

In the report, the OCC notes that an unsubstantiated allegation "is not equivalent to no harm having occurred".

"Child protection substantiation requires reasonable cause to believe harm has occurred (or i