Queensland Solves Over‑Representation Crisis by Losing All the Numbers

A state child safety department has made a major breakthrough in Indigenous child protection: it has successfully disappeared the data.

For the first time in years, national reports couldn’t say how many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids had been removed, because the state’s new IT system was “not quite ready”.

“Look, if we can’t see the statistics, the statistics can’t hurt us” explained one senior official, gently pushing a graph under a stack of unread reviews.

Frontline workers claim the system crashes whenever someone tries to record that a child has family, culture or a community willing to help. “But it handles ‘remove to foster care’ just fine” one worker sighed. “That button’s lightning fast.”

Community advocates pointed out that you can’t fix over‑representation if you can’t even count it.

“On the contrary” replied a government spokesperson. “Once the numbers disappear, the problem becomes ‘complex’ and we need more inquiries instead of action. That’s efficiencies right there.”

The state has promised the data will definitely be ready after the next election, once the software vendor finishes installing the “spin‑to‑win” dashboard that turns red warning lights into soothing beige.

In the meantime, officials have unveiled a new slogan: “Every Child Counts (Unless the System Crashes)”.

When asked how many Indigenous children are currently in out‑of‑home care, the department apologised and said the answer had “timed out due to an unexpected error”.