Australia's children don't get a say in the budget. They should at least get a statement.

Every year, the Australian Government hands down a Federal Budget. Alongside it comes a Women's Budget Statement, a First Nations chapter, and gender-responsive analysis across portfolios.

There is no Children's Budget Statement.

There never has been.

Children under 18 are one quarter of Australia's population.

They cannot vote. They cannot lobby. They have no dedicated mechanism through which their interests are tracked, reported, or protected in the budget process.
 

This isn't just unfair. It's costing us all.

The evidence is clear: investing in children in the earliest years of life — from conception through to age five — generates the highest return of any public expenditure. Programs that support prenatal bonding, infant mental health, and secure early attachment prevent the mental health crises, child protection interventions, and educational disadvantage that cost governments billions every year.

Yet Australia spends $15.2 billion every year on the consequences of not investing early enough. And budget after budget, we invest most where the return is least — in mental health services for young people and adults — and least where the return is greatest: in the first 2,000 days of life. We are attempting to fix the downstream flood while leaving the tap running upstream.

This isn't an accident. It's what happens when the people most affected by a decision can't vote on it.

What we're asking for

We are calling on the Australian Government to commit to producing an annual Children's Budget Statement — a formal document, released alongside each Federal Budget, that:

•         Tracks how budget decisions affect children aged 0–18 as a distinct group

•         Reports investment across the developmental spectrum, from conception to adolescence

•         Accounts for the ratio of early prevention investment to late crisis response

•         Measures Australia's progress against our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

•         Makes visible what is currently invisible: what this budget did — and didn't do — for our children

Why this matters right now

In the 2026–27 Federal Budget, the Government invested approximately $750 million in teenager and youth mental health services. This is welcome and necessary.

It invested a fraction of that in the prenatal and infant period — the window when the architecture of the brain, the capacity for emotional regulation, and the foundations of secure attachment are being laid.

The word 'play' appeared nowhere in the budget — despite play being the primary language of child development and one of the most evidence-based therapeutic modalities for children's mental health.

A Children's Budget Statement would make these choices visible. Visible choices are accountable choices.

Who is behind this petition

This petition was started by Dr Kate Renshaw — an APPTA Registered Play Therapist–Supervisor (RPT-S™), creator of the Teacher's Optimal Relationship Approach (TORA), and author of Hello Elephant Mumma! The day after budget day 2026, Dr Renshaw published Australia's first shadow Children's Budget Statement — a document modelled on the official Women's Budget Statement — to demonstrate exactly what children's budget accountability could look like.

It is supported by practitioners, researchers, early childhood educators, play therapists, infant mental health specialists, and parents who believe Australia's children deserve to be counted.

"Children cannot vote. They can only grow in the environments we create for them, shaped by the investments we make in them, and constrained by the choices we make without them."

— Dr Kate Renshaw, Children's Budget Statement 2026–27
 

Please sign. Share with every parent, educator, practitioner, and human being who believes that the youngest Australians deserve a seat at the table.

📄 Read the full shadow Children's Budget Statement at playandfilialtherapy.com