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One Child. Five Systems.
Zero Coordination.
The same communities appear in every government system — child protection, youth justice, disability, education, welfare. CivicGraph connects the data these systems refuse to share. The picture it reveals: money flows to maintain systems, not to help people. Community-controlled organisations have the evidence. They get the crumbs.
The Convergence Map
These LGAs appear in every system at once: high disadvantage, high justice contact, high disability need, minimal community-controlled service delivery. The desert score measures how badly disadvantage outpaces funding.
Source: CivicGraph mv_funding_deserts — cross-referencing SEIFA disadvantage, justice funding, NDIS participation, procurement, and entity registration data.
The Money Split
Community-controlled organisations are designed by and for the communities they serve. They have the relationships, the cultural authority, and increasingly the evidence. Here is what they actually receive.
Community-controlled organisations receive 0% of justice funding and 0% of government contracts — despite representing the communities with the highest need and the strongest evidence base.
The Evidence Gap
The Australian Living Map of Alternatives (ALMA) catalogues 0 interventions with evidence of what works. Here is how that evidence maps to funding.
Source: ALMA intervention database cross-referenced with justice_funding by entity ABN. Evidence score is the ALMA portfolio_score (0-1) averaging methodology rigour, cultural authority, and outcome evidence.
The Pipeline Cost
The justice system spends orders of magnitude more on locking children up than on keeping them out. ROGS 2024-25 data on the cost per young person per day across the pipeline.
Source: Productivity Commission Report on Government Services (ROGS) Table 17A, 2024-25. National averages. State-level variation is significant.
The Pattern
Children are known to child protection years before they enter youth justice.
The same communities appear in NDIS, welfare, education, and justice data.
Money flows to maintain the systems that process people, not to the community organisations that could intervene early. Community-controlled orgs get 0%.
ALMA catalogues what works — prevention, diversion, cultural connection. The funding goes to detention at multiples of the cost.
Go Deeper
State-by-state spending, outcomes, and evidence
Where disadvantage outpaces funding
Who funds whom in the justice system
Notifications, out-of-home care, and the pipeline
Thin supply, who delivers, and who misses out
LGA-level data across all systems
Download: One Child. Five Systems. Zero Coordination.
The complete convergence analysis as a formatted PDF — cross-system data, funding splits, evidence gaps, and pipeline costs. Ready for board papers, submissions, or media.
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