00:02A glimmer of hope extinguished after years of trying to keep it alight.
00:07It wasn't really about the payout. It was about child safety treated me as a maternal
00:13grandmother. It's like we've got to prove ourselves over and over and over again.
00:18The Queensland woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, says the state's child
00:22safety department removed her grandchildren from her care and blocked her from having
00:27them returned.
00:27I sat out there in the garden. I cried for my kid.
00:31Despite the trauma of revisiting those memories, the family signed up to the class actions in
00:362023. They've now learned they're being discontinued in the Federal Court, blamed on a loss of litigation
00:42funding.
00:44Failed in so many ways. Me and my grandchildren, we told our personal life story and nothing's
00:52been come of it.
00:53The Federal Court heard the class actions also changed law firms, with lawyers now handling
00:58these cases declining to comment. Interstate separate actions being run by different lawyers
01:04continue.
01:05Once the proceedings have closed finally, it's at that stage that we would want to look
01:10at things again and consider whether we could bring a claim for the people in Queensland.
01:14In the meantime, advocates warn the core issue has not gone away.
01:18Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were 9.6 times more likely to be in out of
01:25home care or on permanent orders. Removals of children from their families rarely ever go
01:30well.
01:30Queensland's Child Safety Department says it's committed to reducing the over-representation
01:36of Indigenous families in the child protection system.
