A royal commission into the abuse of children in Indigenous communities is an "uninformed response" to the issue, a peak advocacy group says.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who recently visited the Northern Territory to talk to Indigenous leaders and community groups, has asked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to call a royal commission.
Mr Dutton said while most families raised their children with love, he was told of "rampant child abuse" in remote communities.
"The absolute tragedy of the stolen generations is that children were taken from safe and loving homes," he told parliament on Thursday.
"Today, conversely, authorities are not removing children from homes where they are being harmed and abused.
"In modern Australia we respect cultural sensitivities and Indigenous connection to country, but the rights of the child are above culture and sensitivities."
But the head of peak Indigenous child advocacy group SNAICC, Catherine Liddle, said the call for an inquiry was an "uninformed response to an issue raised with successive governments over many years".
Ms Liddle said the evidence did not support claims by Mr Dutton that Aboriginal children were being left in unsafe conditions because of fears of creating another stolen generation.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were 11.5 times more likely to be in out-of-home care than non-Indigenous children in 2021, she said.
Sexual abuse was the reason for a substantiation of harm in only seven per cent of cases for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, compared to 10 per cent for non-Indigenous children.
Neglect is a far greater reason for removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, comprising 31 per cent of substantiations of harm, compared to 21 per cent for non-Indigenous children.
"The reality is our children are being removed from family at ever-higher and unacceptable rates," Ms Liddle said.
"This is not because they are not loved or somehow Aboriginal people don't know how to raise children - we have done that successfully for 60,000 years.
"It is because of poverty, systemic racism and the lack of appropriate supports available to vulnerable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families."
She said the key to making progress was investing in and reforming early childhood, child protection and family support systems, adding her organisation was happy to brief Mr Dutton.
"Our children should not be used as political footballs," she said.
Asked about the royal commission proposal, Mr Albanese told reporters "substantial progress" had been made on addressing sexual abuse of children, but the government would continue to take action.
Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney, who previously worked in child protection, said the issues were best addressed at a local level.
She said significant resources had been put into places such as Alice Springs, which she would visit next week.
"I have had long discussions with the relevant ministers and chief minister of the Northern Territory ... and I have made financial commitments to things like night patrols and additional funding for women's groups which are dealing day to day with these issues."
