A newborn baby has been found dead in a tent in regional New South Wales, prompting renewed calls to address homelessness across regional Australia.
Police were called to a homeless encampment near Wagga beach on the Murrumbidgee River on Saturday, where they found a 37-year-old woman with two infants, one of whom was deceased.
The surviving baby and the mother were taken to hospital, where the infant remained in a critical condition on Monday afternoon, authorities said.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailPolice said there were “no suspicious circumstances”.
Local councillor Richard Foley said the death was a tragedy and showed the housing crisis had gotten “out of hand”.
“We’ve now had a death of a young baby, a newborn baby, in a tent,” he said.
“A newborn child is deceased, and another one is in a serious condition. The mother was escorted to hospital on the weekend, which is just unacceptable.”
Foley said the river encampment had grown bigger each year, as the city of Wagga Wagga saw a substantial rise in people sleeping rough. In 2024, a local council paper indicated there were 257 homeless people in the area, a 71% increase from eight years earlier.
“Let’s face it, we’ve seen this type of thing across all cities,” Foley said.
“But it’s growing in number out here. And the rental availability in this city is beyond a crisis. This is an emergency.”
The rental vacancy rate in the Riverina was at a record low of 0.6% in January 2025, according to PRD Real Estate.
Foley was working on a fresh report into how many rough sleepers there were in the region and called on the state government to “step up and start doing something”.
There was a lack of public housing in the area, he said. While the state government had promised to build more social housing, those dwellings would only replace the existing stock, Foley said.
“A line in the sand has got to be drawn. People are sick and tired of the political class, which is just totally disconnected.”
The NSW homelessness minister, Rose Jackson, said the family had been engaged with Homes NSW for several years. She said she’d asked the department to investigate.
“This is truly heartbreaking news,” Jackson said on Monday.
“The death of any member of our homelessness community is tragic, but the death of a newborn baby is beyond comprehension.
“I extend my deepest condolences to the baby’s parents and family. I understand mum and her other infant child are currently in hospital, I’m hoping that they make a full recovery soon.”
The minister said she would meet with the local MP, Joe McGirr, and the mayor of Wagga, Dallas Tout, to discuss the baby’s death.
The state government had invested $6.6bn to build thousands of new homes through the Building Homes for NSW program, Jackson said. It promised 8,400 new public homes.
“We cannot solve the housing crisis overnight, but devastating incidents like this make me even more determined to keep building the homes our state desperately needs,” the minister said.
Homes NSW had provided 123 new social homes for Wagga since April 2023, the government said.
There were 52 homes in the pipeline, with 16 due for completion this year. There were 674 people on the social housing waiting list in Wagga.
