This prospective population-based study explored whether mothers who maltreat had different risk and protective factors than mothers who don’t including the mother’s age when they had their first child, the number of births, marital status, whether the mothers were maltreated as a child and race. This study used data from the Queensland Cross-sector Research Collaboration (QCRC) repository, which included 18,019 mothers born in Queensland during 1983 or 1984 who were aged between 30 or 31 years at the time of data extraction. Mothers were categorised as maltreating (n = 998) or non-maltreating (n = 17,021) based on whether they had substantiated contact with the child protection system, and differences in risk/protective factors were explored. Results indicated that mothers who maltreat were more likely than mothers who don’t to have their first child at a younger age, significantly more children, less likely to be married, more likely to be Indigenous, and more likely to have experienced childhood maltreatment. Implications for policy and practice are discussed, including the need for culturally appropriate home visitation programmes and parenting programmes to reduce the likelihood of child maltreatment perpetration.