The “NT legal legend” described in media reports as backing the CLP Government’s controversial reforms to child placement legislation did not disclose that she worked for Minister Robyn Cahill as an adviser less than a month before making her submission to the parliamentary committee considering the new legislation.
Retired NT lawyer Sally Gearin, who was also recently appointed by the CLP Government as commissioner of NT Legal Aid and chair of the NT Liquor Commission, most recently worked for Ms Cahill as an adviser for domestic violence policies, which the government claims ended in April.
Ms Gearin’s submission in support of the proposed legislative reforms employs similar talking points used by NT Children and Families Minister Robyn Cahill and the Finocchiaro CLP Government, including claims that safety of children is not the primary concern when deciding if a child needs to be removed from their parents.
Despite the department’s placement policy specifically stating that “the safety, wellbeing, and best interests of the child…must be the paramount consideration”, Ms Gearin wrote in her submission that it “is almost Kafkaesque to have [to] argue that safety should be the primary basis of decision making when deciding whether children should be protected by being taken away from their family”.
“I have heard no argument as to why it would not be,” she wrote.
In addition to that not being true, nowhere in her submission did Ms Gearin state that she worked for the Minister who introduced the legislation as an adviser in formulating domestic violence policies.
She also raised Kumanjayi Walker as a case that showed why a child should be removed from family with no first-hand knowledge of that matter and also said she knew of “wealthy Aboriginal parents” who “do not choose to live on country and do not raise their children there”.
The Finocchiaro CLP Government introduced the proposed legislation last month, which would override the Aboriginal Placement Principle currently in legislation across the country and replace it with a “universal principle” that would make it easier for Indigenous children to be permanently placed with non-Indigenous carers or out-of-home care.
The legislative scrutiny committee received 150 submissions from individuals and groups in the short one-week window it was open for submissions, with the bulk of those submissions calling on the government to scrap the proposed changes.
Ms Gearin, who is a long-time advocate for the eradication of domestic violence in the NT, also caused confusion by not disclosing her role as commissioner of NT legal Aid in the submission and stating clearly that she was making it as an individual.
NT Legal Aid filed an official submission with the parliamentary scrutiny committee raising numerous concerns about the child placement reforms in the new bill, which it said “will carry unintended consequences, particularly as there are currently insufficient resources across legal assistance services, courts, domestic, family and sexual violence services, other non-legal support services and the department…”
After Sky News reported Ms Gearin’s support for the proposed legislative reforms, the NT Independent sent questions to Ms Cahill’s office about Ms Gearin’s employment status.
“Ms Gearin undertook a short-term contract with the Minister’s office earlier this year focused on analysis of domestic violence issues in the NT, under the Minister’s portfolio for Prevention of Domestic Violence,” said Ms Cahill’s chief of staff and media adviser Jodi Nobbs.
“That contract concluded in April 2026.
“Ms Gearin had no involvement in the development of the child protection legislation reforms and was not engaged by the Minister’s office at the time she made her submission to the committee.”
On Monday, Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro doubled down on the government’s claims that safety was not paramount in the current child protection legislation.
“We are unapologetic in our approach,” she said at a rare press conference on Monday.
“I cannot understand how anyone can argue with making the safety of a child the number one priority, and to those people who think that that’s what the old act did, they’re just absolutely wrong.
“We know that Territory kids deserve the very best chance in life, and at their most vulnerable is when we need to be protecting them the most, and that’s what our reform does.”
Ms Gearin declined to comment when contacted Tuesday.
National Aboriginal organisations and other critics of the CLP’s reforms have condemned the government for the changes to the legislation, which were drafted without any consultation and which they say ignore proper evidence-based systemic reforms while resorting to race-based attempts to blame Aboriginal families for government structural failures.
Ms Gearin qualifies her late-night contribution with: “My daughter in law is Maori and I have lived and practiced as a lawyer in Darwin for 40 years.”
and proceeds to make two legal points:
first an argument for separating families based of claimed legal liability of the Department choosing not to.
This relies on a deliberate misrepresentation of ‘in loco parentis’, a status which arises during specific acts and mechanisms, as being persistently relevant in remote NT. By way of example, Ms Gearin chooses to draw conclusions about the death of Kumanjayi Walker that run counter to the coroner’s recommendations prioritising improved service delivery.
and secondly her opinion that the Bill reinforces and implements international conventions (UNDRIP, the Rights of the Child)
– which in any other jurisdiction would be the subject of a statutory evaluation.
Both Ms Gearin and Ms Finnochiaro argue strongly in favour of deprioritising the Placement Principle, but there’s a lot more to this Bill. The new laws can see parents who have committed no criminal offence nor parental neglect become separated from children who have also committed no crime. It sets a new strict timeline for family separation to be made permanent, just after a budget which has cut funding to the services families would need to address concerns. It puts the CEO in the difficult bind as both the adversary prosecuting protection orders and the primary source of support responsible for proactive efforts toward reunification. Yet none of this detail is acknowledged, let alone justified, by the Chief, the Minister nor their employee.
In no way am I defending the nepotism racked , mini Labour party club, champions of incompetence at Childrens & Families (you have the meet the staff to fully comprehend the Monty Python sketch of a Department).
But your damned if you do and damned if you dont!
What has been tried before has never worked! Trying something else is not bad!
Taking submissions from Grant dependent NGO’s is not always a good idea! Do not kid yourself! The priority of a narrative which guarantees government money to flow to NGO’s , supersedes the quality of care for their clients!
And speaking of the imaginary concept of “quality of care” from tax payer funded NGO’s, who independently determines if the NGO’s are actually doing what they say they are doing? Nobody, right?