Following the model of the jobs and skills summit last year, the government welcomed 100 childhood development experts for its national early-years summit at Parliament House.
Summit outcomes will inform a national strategy, due to be released later this year, to improve early-years development in Australia for newborn babies up to five-year-olds.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said it will also have an effect on Australia's economy by aligning social and economic goals.
He said the summit was a big step for early-childhood policy.
"When we invest in people early in life it delivers long-term dividends for them, and for our economy and country, stretching right across the generations," he told the summit.
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth hosted the summit alongside Youth Minister Anne Aly.
Former Yellow Wiggle Emma Watkins and children's author Mem Fox are among attendees, along with Thrive by Five director Jay Weatherill and The Parenthood chief executive Georgie Dent.
Ms Rishworth said the government wanted to combine the knowledge of experts along with parents into policies that made a difference.
"We've got a lot of siloed information and what we need to do is bring that all together to make sure the systems, the policies, the programs are better integrated, but importantly have the voice of families and children at the centre," she told ABC Radio.
"This isn't going to be easy to turn around overnight ... we need to identify where are the gaps, where are the significant problems, but where are the programs that may be duplicating and not delivering the outcomes we want."
Child psychiatrists pushed the government to address gaps in funding, availability and access to professional mental health services for children and their families.
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Professor Valsa Eapen said too many children in need of support were missing out but early intervention was crucial.
"Most adult mental health problems have their origins in childhood and adolescence, with children affected by parental mental illness being at particularly high risk," she said.
Ms Dent called on the government to be ambitious to ensure the best models of early-childhood development, education and care were adopted.
She said one in five Australian children arrived at school developmentally vulnerable.
In rural areas, that number rises to two in five and is higher still for Indigenous children.
Mr Weatherill said the summit could not "tinker around the edges" but must lay the foundation for a new approach to the early years.
He called for federal and state legislation to ensure every Australian child had guaranteed access to affordable, high-quality early childhood education and care.
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