The early years is a significant time of growth and development. Healthy early environments and experiences promote children’s physical, social, emotional, language and cognitive development. This holistic early development is strongly related to later health, wellbeing and economic outcomes. Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) data shows that children across the socio-economic spectrum start school with developmental vulnerabilities and that there are inequalities in children’s development at the start of school linked to their socio-economic environments. In Australia, there has been a push for improving the early year’s system for well over a decade, with eminent early childhood researchers contributing to reviews and recommendations, and inquiries highlighting the deficiencies within our systems. Nevertheless, challenges remain for shifting the early years system to promote the healthy development of all children in Australia. Improving outcomes for children will require an evidence driven early year’s system that builds parenting capacity while creating enabling conditions that support parents to engage in effective parenting. The literature is clear that this requires a mix of minimum services, supports, policies and environments for all, with additional supports, programs and services to address adversities that present barriers to effective parenting.