KEY POINTS:
Australia has been rocked by the arrest of yet another mother on charges of neglecting her children, as pressure grows for an overhaul of welfare systems across the nation.
The latest arrest, of a woman in Canberra, follows the appalling discovery of as many as 21 children - several of them seriously ill - living in squalor in Adelaide's northern suburbs.
A 28-year-old pregnant mother has been remanded in custody on 10 charges, including criminal neglect, committing an act likely to endanger life, and committing an act likely to cause harm.
Earlier this month a couple in Queensland were charged with the murder and torture of their 18-month-old twins, whose bodies lay undiscovered for a week in their Brisbane home.
Child protection groups are now warning that Australia is only seeing the tip of an iceberg, and are calling for a national education campaign, the recognition of neglect as a criminal rather than welfare issue, and a new nationwide register to record and track at-risk children.
The demands for national action follow confirmation that the Adelaide mother, Karen Louise Cunningham, had been known to Victorian welfare authorities but that her file had not been passed to South Australia, and that reports by concerned neighbours in Adelaide had not brought action.
In Canberra, one girl and three boys aged between 5 and 13 were placed in the care of the Australian Capital Territory Care and Protection Services after police found them alone and in squalor during a hunt for their mother. The woman faces four charges of neglect, and a number of unrelated counts including threatening to kill a person.
In Adelaide, outrage is growing over the failures that allowed Cunningham to move with her seven children from the Victorian city of Geelong, south of Melbourne, to a house occupied by a 35-year-old woman and her 13 children.
The Australian newspaper yesterday reported that Cunningham's state house in Victoria had been as squalid as her new home in Adelaide, and had made life a nightmare for neighbours.
The newspaper printed a photograph taken in 2003 of the Geelong property, littered with old cars, automotive parts, bikes and garbage, and another of the Adelaide property in similar condition.
Cunningham had been the subject of action by the Victorian Department of Human Services - which is now conducting an internal review of the case - but her file had been closed a year ago and was not passed on to South Australia.
Premier John Brumby said that protocols requiring the exchange of active files between states no longer applied when the subject of a closed file moved interstate.
"Since the file was closed when the family moved to South Australia it would be quite inappropriate for the Victorian Government to transfer a closed file to another Government."
South Australian Premier Mike Rann said information sharing between state welfare agencies was inadequate and he intended to raise the issue at the next meeting of federal and state leaders.
The Adelaide case has sparked calls for broader action, including creation of a national register of child neglect.
Child protection has also warned that welfare agencies are being overwhelmed by more than 300,000 notifications a year - 58,000 of them confirmed - at an annual cost to the nation of at least A$5 billion.
STATES OF HORROR
* This month a couple in Queensland were charged with the murder and torture of their 18-month-old twins, whose bodies lay undiscovered for a week in their Brisbane home.
* A pregnant woman appeared in an Adelaide court on Monday after 15 hungry and ill-cared-for children were found in two squalid homes in the city's northern suburbs.
* A woman in Canberra was arrested this week after police found one girl and three boys aged between 5 and 13 alone and in squalor.
