The central aim of any child protection system is in the name: protect children. But over the years, inquiries and media reports have shown fulfilling this goal has too often proved tragically elusive.
In response, governments across the country have poured more and more money into their child protection systems in the hope of getting better outcomes.
Our newly-published research shows total national spending has almost doubled over the decade, climbing from $5.4 billion in 2014–15 to $10.2 billion in 2023–24 (adjusted for inflation).
But we found this hasn’t been matched by changes in activity across systems, like increases in the rate of investigations for alleged maltreatment, or the number of children entering out-of-home care. Nor has it improved outcomes for children.
So if money alone isn’t the answer, what is? Here’s what the evidence shows would help.
A maze of moving parts
Protecting Australia’s children is not the job of a single system. It involves many overlapping systems – health, childcare, education, justice and policing, disability services, and other parts of the social welfare system – working together to prevent and respond to child abuse, neglect and exploitation.
In Australia, there is no national child protection system to bring these parts together. Each state and territory runs its own. They share the same guiding principles, such as acting in the best interests of the child. But how they operate in practice differs across the country.
The result is several systems made up of many moving parts that do not always work as a coordinated whole. And too often, prevention is left to the side, in favour of reacting to harm once it has already happened.
Recent inquiries in Queensland and Victoria show this fragmentation is not just inefficient, but may be causing more harm than good.
The concerns raised in the recent Queensland and Victorian inquiries about how we protect children are not new. They have been raised many times in recent history.
Queensland alone has had four inquiries in the past 30 years (1999, 2004, 2012–13 and 2025–26), while Victoria has had three (2012, 2024, and 2026).
But as the presiding commissioner for the 2025–26 Queensland inquiry, Paul Anastassiou put it:
[…] the child protection system continues to fail children and the community in serious respects.
So, what are the problems?
1. Child protection systems don’t work as a whole
Statutory child protection services hold decision-making authority over when and how to intervene in a child’s life, and ultimately, whether a child needs to be removed from their parent(s) to keep them safe.
But it doesn’t control the conditions that create harm in the first place. Those sit across other systems.
For example, poverty and housing instability are linked to harm, yet responsibility for addressing these conditions lies within housing and income support systems, not child protection.
Similarly, other causes of harm such as family violence, mental illness, and substance use are addressed through justice, health, and alcohol and other drug systems.
This means responsibility for child safety is distributed across many systems. Accountability, however, is not.
Each system remains accountable for its own functions, rather than for whether children are kept safe, stable and supported. No single system is accountable for whether the child’s best interests are upheld across their life course.
This has real consequences for statutory child protection decision-making. Information about children and families sits across multiple systems, and those systems do not always communicate. So, child safety decisions are often made with incomplete, fragmented or selectively available information.
At the same time, decisions are made under pressure and often rely on adult’s views without meaningful consultation of children and young people about their own safety, or what would help.
Together, this creates child protection systems where high-stakes decisions are made on shaky foundations.
Read more:
Risky business: how protection workers decide to remove children from their parents
2. Child protection systems act too late and can cause harm
Systems remain overwhelmingly reactive, responding only after harm has happened, rather than preventing it in the first place.
In more than 50% of cases, children and families in contact with systems have already been subject to a child protection investigation.
The Victorian inquiry revealed that once in contact with statutory child protection, children aged 15–17 years old can expect to be re-reported almost seven times.
While this is not a new problem, it is one that must be solved.
Worse still, child protection systems themselves can cause harm. Children might experience multiple placements, uprooting relational and environmental stability, as well as significant delays in receiving health and medical care.
The most recent Queensland inquiry also highlighted children placed in residential care in particular experience higher rates of trauma, unmet mental health needs, self-harm and suicide attempts.
The commission rightly recognised the state’s heavy reliance on residential care as one of its biggest failures.
3. Over-prioritising crisis responses
Both the Queensland and Victorian inquiries found most resources are spent on responding to crises rather than on early intervention.
Our research found while overall spending was increasing, out-of-home care saw most of the funding boost. Between 2014–15 and 2023–24, the proportion of all spending that was on activities associated with out-of-home care increased from 58.4% to 63.6%.
Meanwhile, investment in intensive family support reduced from 8.2% to 6.2% of the overall spend.
What needs to be done?
Together, findings from recent inquiries and our own research show child protection systems across Australia are not consistently delivering on their core aim: acting in the best interests of the child.
While state-level statutory child protection reform is welcome, addressing this will require federal leadership.
Australia needs a national child maltreatment prevention agenda with sustained investment in prevention and early support. It could be overseen by the Department of Social Services, whose role is to improve the economic and social wellbeing of individuals, families and vulnerable members of Australian communities.
Alternatively, because child maltreatment is a significant public health issue, it could also be assigned to the Australian Centre for Disease Control: a national agency established to strengthen Australia’s prevention, preparedness and response to public health threats.
There also needs to be shared accountability across all systems that should be involved in supporting children’s safety.
Finally, genuine partnership with First Nations organisations is needed to help Indigenous children, who are over-represented in child protection systems.
Until these systems are designed to work together, they will continue to fail to deliver what children need most: safety, stability and support.
