{"id":648700,"date":"2026-05-04T09:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/648700\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T09:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:14:09","slug":"baby-found-dead-at-wagga-beach-homeless-encampment-as-mother-and-another-infant-taken-to-hospital-new-south-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/648700\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby found dead at Wagga beach homeless encampment as mother and another infant taken to hospital | New South Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

A newborn baby has been found dead in a tent in regional New South Wales<\/a>, prompting renewed calls to address homelessness across regional Australia.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The surviving baby and the mother were taken to hospital, where the infant remained in a critical condition on Monday afternoon, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Police said there were \u201cno suspicious circumstances\u201d.<\/p>\n

Local councillor Richard Foley said the death was a tragedy and showed the housing crisis had gotten \u201cout of hand\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve now had a death of a young baby, a newborn baby, in a tent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The encampment at Wagga beach. Photograph: Richard Foley<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s face it, we\u2019ve seen this type of thing across all cities,\u201d Foley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s growing in number out here. And the rental availability in this city is beyond a crisis. This is an emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rental vacancy rate in the Riverina was at a record low of 0.6% in January 2025, according to PRD Real Estate.<\/p>\n

Foley was working on a fresh report into how many rough sleepers there were in the region and called on the state government to \u201cstep up and start doing something\u201d.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cA line in the sand has got to be drawn. People are sick and tired of the political class, which is just totally disconnected.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NSW homelessness minister, Rose Jackson, said the family had been engaged with Homes NSW for several years. She said she\u2019d asked the department to investigate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is truly heartbreaking news,\u201d Jackson said on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe death of any member of our homelessness community is tragic, but the death of a newborn baby is beyond comprehension.<\/p>\n

\u201cI extend my deepest condolences to the baby\u2019s parents and family. I understand mum and her other infant child are currently in hospital, I\u2019m hoping that they make a full recovery soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The minister said she would meet with the local MP, Joe McGirr, and the mayor of Wagga, Dallas Tout, to discuss the baby\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d the minister said.<\/p>\n

Homes NSW had provided 123 new social homes for Wagga since April 2023, the government said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A newborn baby has been found dead in a tent in regional New South Wales, prompting renewed calls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-648700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}