Australian families are navigating an increasingly complex environment, shaped by cost-of-living pressures, workforce shortages, and service systems that too often respond only once families have reached crisis point. Nowhere are these challenges more stark than in child safety, the ongoing over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in statutory systems, family preservation and out-of-home care.
This submission sets out five priority areas for Commonwealth leadership and investment in the 2026/27 Budget:
- Strengthening child safety and safeguarding, informed by emerging evidence that harm is too often occurring “in plain sight” within existing systems.
- Investing in prevention and family preservation, reducing the need for statutory intervention and improving long-term outcomes
- Reforming out-of-home care, including better support for carers, for example creating a new health care access card, improved stability for children, and a more sustainable workforce.
- Supporting Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), recognising that culturally led, community-controlled solutions are essential to closing the gap in child and family outcomes.
- Ending child poverty: addressing a core driver of system pressure Families Australia is a member of the End Child Poverty Campaign and supports its call for Commonwealth leadership to reduce child poverty through legislated measurement, policy alignment and accountability.