The systems built to protect children keep failing them. We show the receipts.
Every single figure on screen traces back to a primary source — a parliamentary inquiry, a government annual report, a royal commission, an Auditor-General audit, the ABS, the AIHW, the ALRC, the UN, or peer-reviewed research. Nothing is invented. If a claim can't be sourced, it doesn't air.
This is controlled anger, not outrage. We critique system design — the incentives, the funding, the process — never individual parents, children or the workers holding a broken system together. The target is accountability, and the argument is always for concrete, evidence-based reform.
Every number is adversarially checked before it airs.
A claim has to survive being attacked. If it doesn't trace cleanly to a primary source, it's dropped — never softened, never hedged into something we can't stand behind.
A figure is proposed for the script, with the exact document it's supposed to come from.
We pull the primary source and confirm the number, the year, the scope and the definition.
We try to break it: wrong denominator, cherry-picked year, missing caveat. It has to survive.
Survives, it airs with its source on screen. Fails, it's cut. Nothing gets fudged to keep it.
The balance rule
Contested subjects get held with balance, not a side. We never claim "all allegations are false" — deliberately false claims are a minority and most protection-seekers are genuine. We never claim "the system drove them to it" — on suicide we report risk factors, never causes, and always frame it as preventable, with help forward.
The target is always system design and accountability. Never a parent, a child, a worker, or a tribe.
Six seasons. Two specials.
Family Law
How Australia's family law system is meant to work — and the ways it fails the children it exists to serve.
Season overview +
21 episodes walking through the process end to end. The full episode guide lives in the video descriptions on YouTube. Watch the season →
Weaponised
Restraining orders and AVOs, and how the system gets misused — held with balance: deliberately false claims are a minority, and most protection-seekers are genuine.
Season overview +
10 episodes on how a protective mechanism can be misused — without ever implying that genuine victims aren't the majority. Full guide in the video descriptions. Watch the season →
In Whose Pocket?
Billions moved every year with no accountability for how it's spent — and the case for transparent child trusts.
Season overview +
10 episodes following the money and proposing a transparent, child-directed alternative. Full guide in the video descriptions. Watch the season →
In Whose Care?
45,000+ kids in care, Aboriginal children removed at 10–11× the rate, harm in care, aging out — and what prevention actually looks like.
10 episodes +
- 01The Funnel — report to removal; ~45,000 kids in care.
- 02Ten Times — Aboriginal children removed at 10–11×; Closing the Gap Target 12 going backwards.
- 03The Front Door — the notification flood.
- 04Harm in Care — children abused while in care.
- 05The Money Pit — residential care costing hundreds of thousands per child.
- 06No Way Home — failed reunification and drift in care.
- 07The Cliff — aging out at 18 into homelessness and prison.
- 08The Reviews — children who died "known to the department".
- 09What Actually Works — prevention and Aboriginal-led care.
- 10In Whose Care? — the reform proposal and season finale.
The Notification
The family-court ↔ child-protection seam — and how genuine victims fall through the gap between two systems that don't talk to each other.
The Alienation Wars
Parental alienation held as the genuinely contested subject it is — real alienating behaviours and the misuse of the label to override abuse claims. Both sides, no tribe.
Season overview +
10 episodes on the evidence and the contest: the DSM-5 and WHO reject the "syndrome", and the UN warns on the concept's misuse — while genuine alienating behaviour is real. Full guide in the video descriptions. Watch the season →
The Silence
Around 3 in 4 suicide deaths are men — the leading cause of death for men under middle age — and the unsupported pressure points men pass through: separation, family court, child support, child protection, financial fallout. Reported as risk factors, never causes.
Season overview +
10 episodes told strictly under safe-messaging guidelines — risk factors, not causes; preventable, with help forward. Full guide in the video descriptions. Watch the season →
The Cascade
Each family system is defensible alone but catastrophic combined. Follow the money — legal fees can consume 50–126% of the asset pool — and note that no system ever looks at the whole picture.
Every episode is a story lead with the sourcing already done.
AKLM is a research engine as much as a series. Every claim is traced to a primary document with a link, so a reporter, producer or editor can verify it and run with it fast. We want these stories in front of a wider audience than a 13-minute video reaches.
Fully-sourced research
Every statistic ties to a named primary source with a link — AIHW, the Productivity Commission, royal commissions, SNAICC, the ALRC, ABS, the UN, Services Australia — available per episode on request.
Story leads, not spin
- Aboriginal children removed at 10–11× the rate; Closing the Gap Target 12 going backwards.
- Children harmed while in state care.
- Child support: billions moved with no accountability for how it's spent.
- Male suicide and the unsupported family-transition systems (risk factors, framed safely).
- Legal fees consuming 50–126% of the asset pool.
Briefings & secure tips
Background briefings and the underlying source packs, on the record or on background — plus a secure channel for insiders who are seeing something wrong from inside the system.
David Smith
David writes and narrates every episode of All Kids Lives Matter. The format is deliberately plain: tightly-scripted narration over clean, animated data — so the sourcing, not the presenter, does the work.
AKLM is independent and self-funded. No network, no advocacy client, no undisclosed backer. That independence is the point — it's what lets the series follow the evidence wherever it leads.
The primary sources behind the numbers.
Every episode description carries the full source list with links. A per-episode source pack is available to journalists on request.
New episode, in your inbox.
A short note each week when the episode drops — the headline finding and its sources. No spam.
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