IT was marvellous to see the various children’s commissioners from Australia and New Zealand take an interest this week in the welfare of Northern Territory kids.

Few would argue that many Territory kids are among the most vulnerable in the country and need people fighting for their protection.

What was odd was the issue that had piqued the interest of these 14 commissioners.

They’d been alarmed by the NT government’s legislation, which passed the parliament this week, tightening rules around bail for young offenders accused of serious crimes.

National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds said: “All the evidence tells us the best way to prevent youth offending is to divert young people away from the justice system and into alternative programs that offer the support they need.

“Children who come to the attention of our justice systems are some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of our communities, often with backgrounds of abuse or neglect.”

She’s absolutely right.

Which makes you wonder why it’s been a minor tweak at the pointy end of the child protection spectrum that has suddenly captured their attention, rather than other atrocities we’ve seen here in the NT, often involving children too young to be charged with any criminal offence.

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In 2016, News Corp journalist Paul Toohey published a story in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph about the dozens of at-risk young children wandering the streets of Tennant Creek alone well after midnight.

He was contacted by Megan Mitchell, who was then the National Children’s Commissioner, saying she would visit the town.

Two years later, a two-year-old girl was raped in Tennant Creek.

When Toohey contacted Mitchell she said she’d never made it to Tennant Creek because of a “lack of resources”.

Nor, as far as we can tell, did the National Children’s Commissioner or any of her state counterparts make a group statement.

They were surely aware of the horror faced by that little girl, and the woeful failure of everyone from members of her own family to various government departments in the years leading up to the incident to protect her.

Those atrocities were outlined in gruesome, honest detail by the Northern Territory Children’s Commissioner Colleen Gwynne (sadly on leave at the moment as she fights criminal charges) in her damning report into that tragedy.

The issue was surely top of the agenda at the biannual meetings of the Australian and New Zealand Children’s Commissioners and Guardians.

But they didn’t even send out a press release.

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We didn’t hear from them last year after the Coroner’s damning report into the deaths of three teenage girls who had all suffered sexual abuse before their suspected suicides.

Nor after an equally damning coronial inquest into three children who had died from volatile substance abuse.

These issues, and their associated government failures, could have used some national attention.

It would seem the commissioners are more involved in the detention of children than issues involving their preventable deaths.

Even then, it’s hard to find evidence of them taking a similar united stand when the Victorian government started locking kids up in the maximum-security Barwon Prison in 2016.

People tend to leave complicated issues to be dealt with by their own jurisdiction, except when it comes to the Northern Territory, where everyone becomes an expert.

This is not to suggest the Northern Territory government doesn’t deserve scrutiny over the legislation it passed this week.

Labor gladly promoted the problems that led to the NT Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children.

Once elected, it committed to the reforms recommended by that Royal Commission. Now, it’s backed down at the first sign of backlash.

The legislation passed this week was more political window-dressing than a genuine attempt to fix a complicated problem.

The laws that eventually passed will make little change.

They will ensure children sent to youth diversion programs complete those programs (something that would seem uncontroversial) and judges will retain the discretion over bail in “exceptional circumstances”, as they should.

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The idea that the Northern Territory judicial system enjoys throwing the book at Aboriginal people is a fallacy, usually promoted by people who live a long way from Darwin or Alice Springs.

We saw evidence of that this week in the Darwin Local Court, when judge Michael Carey sensibly declined to give West Coast Eagles footballer Willie Rioli a fine or a conviction after he was caught with 25g of cannabis at Darwin airport.

During his hearing the court was told the Tiwi Islander had attended more funerals in the past four years than he had played games of AFL football.

When you consider Rioli has played 38 games, that points to a crisis far greater than the NT government’s tinkering with youth bail laws.

Many of these deaths will have been preventable.

Most will have died far younger than they should have.

Some will be children.

This crisis deserves a national spotlight.

Perhaps our nation’s children’s commissioners could help provide it.