‘Lemon and Milk’: Liberal Political Tensions in Child Governance

Child protection is reported to be in a state of crisis. Regular media commentary on escalating rates of child abuse, continual reports of deaths of clients in child protection services, and the use of the army and police in Northern Territory Indigenous communities, all seem to point to an upsurge in the harming of children in Australia. This article reviews some Australian and international research that has been important in shaping the problem of regulating children and families, and considers this work against recent policy directions. The article suggests that the crisis may refer to tensions produced by failed attempts to govern through risk management techniques, to the strains within liberal political reason over problems of intervention in the private sphere of the family, and to the constitution of parents and children as equal legal subjects while simultaneously as subjects of pastoral power.