Children failed by the system Inside Australia’s child protection crisis

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]I've been working with my colleague Lea Mendez and between us over the years we've visited many town camps and some remote communities. We've also done a deep dive into some child protection cases and what we found is really worrying. There are kids who are being repeatedly reported to children and families department for neglect, exposure to domestic violence, failure to attend school. Some kids are not having their basic [music] needs met like food or medical care and some are out wandering the streets [music] on their own from a young age. The case workers say they are overburdened and can't investigate every case that's [music] reported to them and so years can go by without anything improving for that child.

[00:00:40]There's one boy who has had about 100 notifications over his lifetime who is now in the youth justice system after [music] allegedly committing very serious crime. That's a pattern that we found.

[00:00:53]>> [music] >> Kids in unsafe or unstable environments who end up in trouble with the law and hurting other people in the way they've seen their mother or their siblings treated. [music] None of this is new but I think everyone agrees something has to change.