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2026-27 Federal Budget Hub

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The 2026-27 Federal Budget provides an opportunity for the Federal Government to build on the strengths of communities and families to deliver a significant shift in the way our country addresses inequality.

A meaningful investment by Government into evidence-based prevention and early intervention can break cycles of entrenched disadvantage, ultimately preventing harm, and reducing social and economic costs.

Prevention and early intervention offer a dual benefit for governments, particularly in a tight fiscal environment. At a time when the federal budget is under significant strain and many Australians are struggling with the cost of living, government expenditure must be targeted to deliver strong outcomes for the Australian people.

Working with boys and young men to prevent violence

Effective prevention and early intervention can disrupt intergenerational cycles of violence and set young people on a path to living safer, more secure lives.

Our landmark Adolescent Man Box research – based on a survey of 1,400 young people aged 14- 18 years – found that around 60% of boys and 60% of girls think most people in Australia expect teenage boys to be manly, confident and strong at all times.

The Adolescent Man Box research shows that adolescent boys who strongly agree with rigid masculine norms (the ‘Adolescent Man Box’ rules) are far more likely than their peers to cause harm to others.

Insights from the Adolescent Man Box research can support the design and delivery of practical strategies that will reduce harm, strengthen respectful relationships, and build safer futures for young Australians.

Our recommendations recognise that children and young people who have experienced violence or abuse need to be engaged as victim-survivors in their own right, and are deserving of services that promote healing and recovery. We also provide recommendations to help strengthen the evidence base underpinning prevention and early intervention programs to reduce men’s violence.

Nearly two in five boys (39%) with the strongest agreement with Adolescent Man Box rules reported that they had used bullying, physical violence or sexual harassment in the past month, compared with 7% of boys with the lowest agreement

Adolescent Man Box report (2025)

Our recommendations

Provide $3m for Monash University and Jesuit Social Services to translate the findings of the Adolescent Man Box research into strategies and practical resources that can be deployed in a range of settings.

Extend funding for Healthy MaTE grants (including Active Respect) for at least an additional 18 months to December 2027, to allow further evaluation outcomes to be provided before making decisions on the long term future of the program.

Provide funding to pilot and evaluate new, innovative approaches to working with boys and young men that are informed by data and evidence on the factors linked to an increased risk of perpetrating violence.

Provide funding to scale the delivery of early intervention initiatives which have been rigorously evaluated and demonstrate positive outcomes, with flexibility to tailor and co-design program elements in response to community and cultural context.

Develop and deliver a dedicated five-year National Action Plan for children and young people who have been victims of violence or abuse, which embeds system accountability to their needs and perspectives and guides investment in services to support healing and recovery.

 

Play a leadership role in designing and fully funding a range of targeted, trauma informed services for children and young people who have experienced violence and abuse.

 

Building on data collected as part of Jesuit Social Services’ Adolescent Man Box research, as well as our work with UNSW to understand child sexual abuse perpetration, invest in the collection of more high quality data on the extent of perpetration of violence against women, children, and trans and gender diverse people, as well as its dynamics and drivers

 

Establish a dedicated evaluation fund to enable community service organisations to increase the standard of their program evaluations, in acknowledgement of the fact that rigorous evaluation is essential to inform sound policy and program decisions and guide the expansion of effective prevention and early intervention programs.

Preventing and addressing child sexual abuse and harmful sexual behaviours

The 2023 Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS) revealed that child sexual abuse is shockingly widespread in Australia, finding that nearly one in four (28.5%) Australians aged 16 and over have experienced child sexual abuse.

While ongoing reforms to strengthen protections in the childcare sector are long overdue, child sexual abuse that occurs in childcare settings represents only a small proportion of offending.

Our submission highlights that Government must have a much stronger focus on preventing offending by addressing harmful sexual behaviours by young people, including related to pornography, and supporting efforts to use technology to disrupt and deter child sexual abuse online.

of children and young people first access, or are exposed to, pornography before the age of 14

Our recommendations

Provide $2 million across 2.5 years to pilot and evaluate What’s ok? Australia, a first-of-its-kind national anonymous and free online early intervention service focused on reducing problematic and harmful sexual behaviours among young people.

 

Provide funding to support the development and implementation of online deterrence initiatives that seek to prevent child sexual abuse such as the CSAM Deterrence Centre, established by Jesuit Social Services and the University of Tasmania. Funding the CSAM Deterrence Centre for three years would cost $1.5 million.

Supporting effective justice responses

Justice policies across multiple Australian jurisdictions are failing, and urgent national leadership is required.

Punitive ‘tough on crime’ policies being adopted in Victoria, Queensland, NSW and the NT ignore evidence of community-based intervention approaches that reduce harmful or offending behaviour in children, and that time spent in custody increases recidivism among children.

The current approach to crime is not only harmful and ineffective – it is expensive. The average cost of keeping an adult in prison for a year is almost $120,000, and for a child in youth detention costs skyrocket to over $1 million a year.

While the costs of administering justice systems lie with states and territories, punitive approaches to crime are also costly for the Federal Government. We call on the Federal Government to invest in approaches with demonstrated ability to prevent offending and reduce recidivism, address the over-incarceration of First Nations people, increase community safety and reduce costs to all levels of government.

of prisoners released during 2021–22 returned to prison within two years (to 2023–24).

Our recommendations

Working through the Standing Council of Attorneys-General, lead the development of a set of national standards for restorative justice, including the use of restorative justice in youth diversion, and make funding available to states and territories through a co-investment model for restorative justice initiatives

Invest in early intervention and diversion initiatives and alternatives to criminal legal system interventions for children and young people, and cohorts who are overrepresented in the justice system

Provide funding to replicate the Maribyrnong Community Residential Facility model in priority locations, or adapt it for different cohorts (e.g. women, First Nations people, young people aged 18–25), to reduce the number of people exiting prison into homelessness

Deliver tied funding to state and territory governments for supported housing programs for people exiting prison, for example through the Housing Australia Future Fund

Establish a series of social impact investing housing projects, for example under the Commonwealth Outcomes Fund, for people with complex needs including justice system contact.

Strengthening First Nations self-determination

Initiatives that seek to break cycles of disadvantage and violence must be place-based and appropriate to the cultural context in which they are being delivered.

For First Nations communities, who continue to experience the ongoing impacts of colonisation, dispossession and failed government policies, self-determination and community control are at the heart of effective approaches.

Many Aboriginal community-controlled organisations (ACCOs) remain underfunded or face challenges as they grow in size, and more investment and action is needed from the Federal Government to ensure First Nations organisations can access support to enable them to deliver high quality services that meet the needs of their communities.

Our experience and relationships in the NT show there is significant demand from small and emerging ACCOs for capacity and capability building support – including in relation to restorative justice approaches.

Our recommendations

Establish a First Nations Self-Determination and Strengthening Fund for Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), to enable smaller or emerging ACCOs to work in partnership with a more established organisation to strengthen their capacity and capability to design, lead, deliver and govern services and programs that meet the needs of communities

Supporting place-based, community-led climate adaptation

Climate change demands urgent, equitable, and sustained action to protect Australian communities and build long-term resilience. Climate risks are not borne equally, with the most severe impacts falling on those already experiencing disadvantage and marginalisation.

Some communities face compounding impacts, such as extreme heat, power outages and limited service availability, on top of existing systemic inequities, poverty and locational disadvantage.

Our recommendations

Create a dedicated ‘Community-led resilience and adaptation’ stream within the Disaster Ready Fund for community service organisations, First Nations organisations and local partnerships to lead or support community-led, place-based adaptation efforts, with reduced co-contribution requirements

Establish a series of place-based climate adaptation and resilience partnerships in 8-12 regions with high levels of vulnerability to climate change.

Tailored support for job seekers experiencing complex disadvantage

Education, training and employment play a critical role in addressing many of the overlapping issues facing disengaged, highly vulnerable people in our community.

Employment can enable access to safe and secure housing and increased standards of living, and acts as a protective factor against contact with the justice system. Yet highly disadvantaged jobseekers are being left behind.

People in contact with the justice system face further, unique challenges gaining employment, including existing difficulties due to lower educational attainment, lower socioeconomic status, higher levels of alcohol and other drug use, and higher levels of mental ill health compared to the general community.

Our submission contains a range of recommendations to support jobseekers experiencing complex disadvantage to genuinely improve people’s employment prospects.

Our recommendations

Proceed with fundamental reform of the Workforce Australia system, guided by recommendations in the Workforce Australia report, with a high level blueprint for reform to be agreed and announced in the 2026-27 Budget.

Work with states and territories to develop, fund and evaluate a series of employment services trials focused on highly disadvantaged jobseekers and their families

Provide $5.1 million over three years for Jesuit Social Services to develop, pilot and evaluate a new approach to employment services with people engaged with the criminal justice system. The trial will target this priority cohort in two Melbourne Employment Service Areas who are being underserviced by mainstream providers under the current system.

Lift the lowest income support payments (including Youth Allowance, JobSeeker Payment and Parenting Payment Single) to a benchmark level of adequacy, taking account of essential living costs, relativities with other income support payments and wages.

Improving mental health, suicide prevention and disability support

The Federal Government invests significant funding in mental health and suicide prevention, but current arrangements are not meeting the needs of the community, especially those most in need of support.

Our participants often encounter barriers to accessing support, even from services intended for people with complex needs. We witness people who have multiple diagnoses being excluded from the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) as well as from state-funded services.

For service providers, funding arrangements to deliver critical mental health and suicide prevention services are often complex, characterised by short term funding arrangements, multiple funding sources, and burdensome reporting requirements.

Research has shown that people bereaved by suicide are 65% more likely to attempt suicide than people bereaved by sudden natural causes

Continue current funding arrangements for suicide prevention and postvention services until the new National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement is in place, including by extending the National Agreement and the Targeted Regional Initiatives for Suicide Prevention program until June 2027

Ensure the next National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement provides secure and increased funding for equitable, comprehensive and responsive suicide postvention support; allows all states and territories to deliver evidence-based, best-practice postvention services and better integrates funding for postvention support from the Commonwealth and state governments.

Urgently work with states and territories to resolve roles and responsibilities for the funding and provision of psychosocial supports, and prioritise commissioning services to address the unmet need for psychosocial supports outside the NDIS

Download our 2026-27 Federal Pre-Budget Submission