Establishment of a Federal Minister for Children

Overview
Australia is facing a national crisis in child wellbeing. Systems designed to support and protect children, such as child protection, health, education, and justice, are fragmented, under-resourced, and failing to meet the complex needs of our most vulnerable. In the past year alone, over half a million reports of child abuse, neglect, and family violence were recorded, equating to one report almost every minute. These alarming figures are just the tip of the iceberg.

Children are falling through the cracks of siloed departments that lack coordination, transparency, and accountability. Health systems are overwhelmed, struggling to meet both the mental and physical needs of children in crisis. Child protection services remain reactive, intervening only after irreversible harm has occurred. Meanwhile, the justice system, particularly youth justice, continues to criminalise trauma instead of addressing its root cause through therapeutic and supportive responses. The children most at risk are the least heard, and the most invisible.

At the federal level, there is no central leadership or accountability for children’s rights and wellbeing. The absence of a dedicated Federal Minister means decisions impacting children are scattered across portfolios, lacking cohesion, urgency, and clear responsibility. The wellbeing of children is too critical to remain a peripheral concern.

I propose the urgent establishment of a Federal Minister for Children, a leadership role responsible for championing the safety, development, and rights of all Australian children. This portfolio would drive coordinated national policy, ensure cross-sector collaboration, and provide strong oversight to improve outcomes for children across health, education, justice, and child protection systems. With focused leadership, we can begin to break down systemic barriers and put children at the centre of national decision-making where they rightfully belong.

Policy Objectives

• National Leadership: Provide dedicated, centralised leadership on all issues impacting children across Australia, through a Federal Minister for Children.
• System Reform: Drive coordinated, cross-sector reform to address child abuse, neglect, family violence, youth justice, out-of-home care, mental health, disability, education, breaking down silos between state, territory, and federal responses.
• Consultation & Collaboration: Embed genuine consultation with children and young people, families, carers, service providers, First Nations communities, and sector experts to ensure policy is informed by lived experience and frontline expertise.
• Prevention First: Shift the national focus toward early intervention and prevention of harm, rather than crisis-driven responses, ensuring children and families receive support before trauma escalates.
• Child Rights Focus: Embed children’s rights into legislation, policy, and practice, ensuring their right to safety, connection, development, and participation in decisions that affect them.
• Support for Families: Strengthen services that keep families safely together, including parenting support, housing, health, and income stability, to address root causes of child harm and reduce removals into care.
• Independent Oversight & Accountability: Ensure transparency and accountability across all systems impacting children through nationally consistent standards, data reporting, and independent monitoring mechanisms.
• Equity in Childhood: Ensure every child in Australia has the right to a safe, happy, and healthy childhood, free from violence, abuse, neglect, and disadvantage, and equal in opportunity to all others, no matter their background or circumstances.

Why a Federal Minister for Children is Needed

• Children are falling through the cracks of fragmented and inconsistent systems across states and territories — particularly in child protection, health, education, justice, and housing.
• Current responses are crisis-driven, often too late to prevent harm, and delivered through siloed departments that fail to share responsibility or collaborate effectively.
• Children are underrepresented in policy and decision-making, despite being one of the most vulnerable groups in society. Their voices are rarely heard, and their needs are too often overlooked.
• There is no single point of federal leadership or accountability for children’s wellbeing, resulting in disjointed policies, inconsistent standards, and a lack of long-term national direction.
• The consequences are severe and long-lasting — cycles of trauma, abuse, and disadvantage are continuing across generations. This is not just a social issue but a national emergency requiring urgent, coordinated action.
  

Key Responsibilities of the Federal Minister for Children

1. Lead a National Child Wellbeing Strategy that drives coordinated, long-term improvements across child protection, health, education, justice, and housing.
2. Facilitate federal, state, and territory collaboration to align services and ensure all children receive consistent, high-quality support regardless of where they live.
3. Establish a National Children’s Cabinet that includes the voices of carers, families, and those with lived experience, ensuring policies are informed by real-world needs and challenges.
4. Embed the voices of children and young people in policymaking through structured, ongoing consultation and child-informed design.
5. Prioritise early intervention and prevention, investing in evidence-based programs that address abuse, neglect, family violence, and mental health.
6. Strengthen national data and reporting to track outcomes, identify gaps, and ensure continuous improvement in child wellbeing.
7. Support and empower families, recognising that strong families are critical to child safety and development.
8. Ensure the Independent Children’s Commissioner provides genuine oversight and advocates for the rights and wellbeing of children, holding systems accountable and ensuring their voices are heard in the policymaking process.

Conclusion

Children deserve far more than symbolic recognition in policy, they deserve meaningful action, robust protection, and a powerful voice in the decisions that shape their lives. For too long, their needs have been sidelined, their safety compromised, and their futures jeopardised by systemic failures and political inaction.

Establishing a Federal Minister for Children is not just a policy decision, it is a moral imperative. It would represent a bold, long-overdue commitment to prioritising children at the national level, ensuring coordinated leadership, accountability, and genuine investment in their wellbeing.

This is our opportunity to draw a line in the sand and say, as a nation: we will no longer allow children to be invisible. We will protect them, we will listen to them, and we will act, decisively and urgently, to build a safer, fairer future for every Australian child and young person.