According to Australian Femicide Watch, 54 Australian women and 21 children have lost their lives to violence so far this year. Experts have called for greater investment in prevention of domestic and family violence, and for implementation of longstanding recommendations by Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) and Indigenous women and communities.
Hold governments to account
Self-determination, Indigenous data sovereignty, decolonisation, and culturally safe social services are essential for addressing family violence, according to Aboriginal community controlled organisations.
These findings come from an analysis of 354 recommendations from 32 submissions made by ACCOs to three federal parliamentary inquiries into family violence between 2020 and 2025.
The analysis, published in the journal Violence Against Women and also reported in The Conversation, underscores the importance of adequate, sustained funding and resourcing for ACCOs.
“Insecure and fragmented funding, provided for short time frames, has been consistently identified as a major issue for ACCOs who are responding to violence against women,” say the researchers.
“The effect of this approach is that planning and maintaining services, covering recurrent costs and attracting and retaining skilled staff all become challenging.”
Writing about their findings in The Conversation, Professor Kyllie Cripps, a Palawa woman and Director of Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, and Professor Heather Douglas and Dr Samantha O’Donnell, both from the University of Melbourne, say “the problem is no longer simply a lack of evidence about what needs to change”.
“It is getting governments to act on what Indigenous women and communities have recommended for decades.,” they write.
“Indigenous-led organisations want to see action against violence against women and children. They don’t want the endless cycle of inquiries led by non-Indigenous people that endlessly repeat recommendations that are not acted on.
“Governments have spent decades asking Indigenous communities for answers. It’s time to act on them.”
Invest more in prevention
Governments should be investing far more in preventing men’s violence, as “federal and state governments are too often simply responding to men’s violence after the fact”, according to Dr Vincent Hurley, Lecturer in Criminology at Macquarie University.
“While significant money has been spent Australia-wide on worthy initiatives such as women’s shelters, crisis lines and safe at home packages, it appears our governments are focusing on responding to men’s violence after the event – not preventing it in the first place,” he says.
Writing at The Conversation, Hurley says the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported an eight percent rise in domestic violence cases in the 2024–25 financial year – the highest rate recorded since national reporting began.
“Overwhelmingly, men are the main drivers of domestic and family violence,” he said. “Yet governments invest little in preventing men’s violence.”
Hurley also traces the history of government spending in the area, including recent cuts in Queensland, and notes that Commonwealth expenditure on domestic and family violence did not begin until 2010-11, starting with a paltry $1.8 million.
In another article at The Conversation, Professor Anastasia Powell, Professor of Family and Sexual Violence at RMIT University, calls for persistent action to tackle violence against women, including sustained investment in prevention.
“We have yet to see the scaling up and embedding of prevention education, organisational change and the important skills-building work across our schools, workplaces, communities and online spaces to promote safety, respect and equality,” she says.
Powell also calls for properly funded specialist family, domestic and sexual violence services, safe, affordable and accessible housing, and earlier and effective interventions with people who choose to use violence.
“These are not mysterious solutions,” she says. “The evidence base is well established. But it will take persistent political will, as well as scaled-up implementation and resourcing to keep driving change.”
Read her article in full here.
• The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on prevention
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