An early-childhood development policy overhaul aims to make Australia the best place to raise a child.
Following the success of the jobs and skills summit last year, the government welcomed 100 childhood development experts for its national early-years summit at Parliament House.
Summit outcomes will inform a national strategy, due to be released later this year, to improve early-years development in Australia for newborn babies up to five-year-olds.
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth will host the summit alongside Youth Minister Anne Aly.
Parents, advocates, health experts and educators will meet the ministers to help make policy improvements aimed at making Australia the best place to raise a child.
Former Yellow Wiggle Emma Watkins and children's author Mem Fox are among attendees, along with Thrive by Five director Jay Weatherill and The Parenthood chief executive Georgie Dent.
Ms Rishworth said the government wanted to combine the knowledge of experts along with parents into policies that made a difference.
"We've got a lot of siloed information and what we need to do is bring that all together to make sure the systems, the policies, the programs are better integrated, but importantly have the voice of families and children at the centre," she told ABC Radio.
"This isn't going to be easy to turn around overnight ... we need to identify where are the gaps, where are the significant problems, but where are the programs that may be duplicating and not delivering the outcomes we want."
Ms Dent called for the government to be ambitious to ensure the best models of early-childhood development, education and care were adopted.
"Universally accessible, quality early-childhood education and care ought to form the cornerstone of an early-years strategy that seeks to set every child in Australia up to realise their full potential," she said.
Ms Dent said one in five Australian children arrived at school developmentally vulnerable.
In rural areas, that number rises to two in five and is higher still for Indigenous children.
Mr Weatherill said the summit could not "tinker around the edges" but must lay the foundation for a new approach to the early years.
He called for federal and state legislation to ensure every Australian child had guaranteed access to affordable, high-quality early childhood education and care.
