A recent report titled “Raising Queensland,” prepared by the University of Queensland for the Queensland Council of Social Services, has highlighted alarming statistics concerning housing, health, and education throughout the state.

In response, a coalition of community service organizations is urging the government to devise a new strategy to alleviate the pressure on Queensland families.

“While 92 percent of young children at birth are assessed as being within the normal developmental range, this figure plummets to 76 percent by the time they reach five years old,” explained Professor Karen Healy AM, the report’s author.

“This means nearly 77,000 children are starting school without being developmentally ready,” she added.

Professor Healy further pointed out that these developmental risks are not evenly distributed across the population.

She noted that a significant number of low-income families in Queensland are experiencing severe housing stress, spending over 30 percent of their income on housing costs.

“This is not just a housing crisis, this is a child and family crisis for our state, and it’s not inevitable,” she said.

”The problems for Queensland are not about potential, they’re about equality of opportunity, and there’s lots of things that can be done.

“And we know that risk is not spread evenly.”

She said kids in regional, rural and remote areas, as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids were disproportionately represented.

The report found there’s more than 10,000 families with kids on the social housing waitlist in Queensland and the number of kids in residential care has risen 85 per cent in five years.

It also revealed 14 per cent of Queensland families have run out of food at some point in the last 12 months.

And it found kids are finishing Year 12 at a far lower rate in the regions compared to metro areas.

“More and more children are struggling to access a basic standard of living,” QCOSS CEO Aimee McVee said.

”For years now, our services across Queensland have been telling us that it is getting harder and harder to raise children in Queensland.”

She called on the government, and specifically the Minister for Families Amanda Camm, to create a “coordinated whole-of-government families strategy”.

“We’re calling on the Queensland government to commit to a multi-year family strategy to make sure that kids across Queensland have access to the things they deserve, living in the context of their family and their community, having access to health, education and housing.”

In a statement, a government spokesperson accused the former Labor government of throwing Queenslanders’ money at “short-term sugar hits prior to an election” and said it was “delivering long-term housing, health, transport and cost of living assistance” referencing affordable public transport, investment in community housing and school and sports vouchers.

“We are pulling every lever to help Queensland families deal with Labor’s cost-of-living crisis, including through the LNP’s Permanent 50 Cent Fares, driving down power prices with affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy, the multi-billion dollar Queensland Community Housing Investment Pipeline, Play On! Sports Vouchers, Back to School Boost, and delivering generational infrastructure.”

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