Re-imagining a fairer future for Australia’s children: making systems better at addressing complex disadvantage

Following numerous calls for service reform, this report proposes new governance arrangements for improving integration of early childhood wellbeing systems.

Anna Kalamkarian, HLPF Fellow supported by Freya Phillips National Scholarship.

Executive Summary

Despite Australia’s pride in being the land of the “fair go,” many Australian children experience disadvantages in their early life. Australia spends $15.2 billion per year on crisis services for young people, including hospital admissions, intensive family support services and youth justice costs (Teager et al. 2019). Multiple support services are required when families experience combinations of disadvantages such as income poverty, housing stress, domestic violence, mental health, substance misuse, and health concerns. However, the onus of navigating an early childhood support system is on families; and this system is complex, siloed and under strain.

New governance arrangements can help achieve a national commitment to the wellbeing of families. This policy recommends implementing a 10-year National Agreement on addressing child and family disadvantage. The proposed agreement includes establishing an agency that will coordinate responses to child wellbeing concerns across all relevant government portfolios and drive national progress on child and family wellbeing. While new governance arrangements may risk adding further bureaucracy without achieving interdepartmental cooperation, strong Cabinet-level leadership can mitigate these risks by guiding the new agency and fostering shared ownership of early childhood wellbeing across national and state government portfolios.

Problem Identification

Entrenched disadvantage in children and families is a complex problem. A recent Senate inquiry into the extent and nature of poverty in Australia highlighted the multidimensional nature of poverty in that it arises from various aspects of individuals’ lives and is influenced by structural and systemic problems (Senate Community Affairs References Committee 2023). This is reflected in the prevalence of disadvantage in Australia, in which:

• 1 in 4 children are notified to child protection services by age 10 (Pilkington et al. 2019)

• 1 in 7 children aged 4-11 experience mental illness (AIHW 2022a)

• 1 in 5 children are developmentally vulnerable on one or more Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) domains at school entry (AEDC 2022)

• 1 in 6 Australian children live below the poverty line (Davidson et al. 2023)

• More than 1 in 5 children live in households experiencing housing stress (AIHW 2022b)

  
  

Children and families can experience co-occurring disadvantages and thus can require multiple government support systems (Klassman et al. 2024). In South Australia, more than 60% of children with child protection contact had experienced prior contact with the public housing system (Malvaso et al. 2022). Children who experienced both child protection and public housing system contact were also more likely to have experienced emergency department presentations, hospitalisations, developmental vulnerability and youth justice contact (Malvaso et al. 2022). 

There are growing concerns about the number of children and families requiring crisis-support due to problems of poverty, homelessness, neglect, or family violence (Teager et al. 2019; Klassman et al. 2024). It is estimated that Australia spends $15.2 billion every year on crisis services for children and young people, including hospital admissions, intensive family support services or youth justice costs (Teager et al. 2019). The economic and social costs of child poverty are much higher. Child poverty costs the New South Wales economy approximately $60 billion annually; only $4 billion was attributed to the delivery of government services and the remainder was attributed to labour market outcomes and diminished health and life expectancy (Jackson et al. 2024). Early support provided to children and families can prevent crisis-point, but only if the underlying wellbeing systems are set up in a way that can cater to the unique range of issues a child or family experiences (Moore and McDonald 2013).

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The views and opinions expressed by Global Voices Fellows do not necessarily reflect those of the organisation or its staff.