Plans and targets to end violence against women now on the table

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Two new action plans and more than $2 billion in investment offer a pathway to driving down family, domestic and sexual violence rates in Australia.

The documents were released on Thursday under the federal national plan to end violence against women and children 2022-2032.

They include an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander action plan, the first action plan (including a government activities addendum to be updated annually), and an outcomes framework.

Social services minister Amanda Rishworth, minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney, and assistant minister for social services and for the prevention of family violence Justine Elliot issued a joint statement announcing the new plans.

The ministers said one in four Australian women aged 15 and over had experienced intimate partner violence. Official data showed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women experienced disproportionately higher rates of violence than non-Indigenous women, they added.

For Indigenous Australian women, the dedicated plan is the fist of its kind developed in partnership with ATSI leaders.

“[The plan] has been developed by listening and working with First Nations people, because we know that listening is the key to developing better policies and programs and delivering better outcomes,” Burney said.

The first action plan has set a target of a 25% annual reduction in the number of women who are killed by a partner (known as intimate partner homicide).

Elliot noted that the new plans would help deliver tailored resources, services and support to survivors. She said the plans also facilitated effective tracking, monitoring and also reporting of changes to the national plan.

“By working closely with victim-survivors, the sector, community leaders, business, and industry, and the states and territories — we can pave the way to a country free from fear and violence,” Elliot said.

Cumulative federal funding across the 2022-23 and 2023-24 Budgets to address women’s safety and deliver the action plans have totalled more than $2.3 billion.

Of this total funding, $194 million over five years have been allocated to implementing First Nations family safety initiatives aligned with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander action plan priorities.

Rishworth welcomed the commitment of her state and territory minister counterparts to ending violence against women and children in one generation. She thanked her colleagues for demonstrating they could “pulling in the same direction” for women and children’s safety.

“No woman or child should live in fear from violence. No woman or child should have their lives terrorised by someone who professed to love and care for them. No woman or child should have their lives ended prematurely due to that violence,” Rishworth said.

“These action plans, and the important outcomes framework, bring us closer to achieving our goal to end violence against women and children and to creating real, lasting change.”

The federal government will now work with the state and territories to determine how to measure progress across each of the four pillars of the national plan for the duration of the so-called first action plan.

Governments will also work towards:

• Developing a range of supporting resources to help promote and implement the national principles to address coercive control in family and domestic violence;
• Providing services in prisons and places of detention for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are both victims and perpetrators of family, domestic and sexual violence, including children;
• Establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men’s advisory body to provide advice and leadership on issues such as family violence, gender equality, programs and services for men, boys and men’s issues in general;
• Bolstering trauma-informed supports and exploring new innovative models for recovery for victim-survivors of family, domestic and sexual violence;
• Funding education and training on family, domestic and sexual violence for community mainstream workers, health professionals, and the justice sector including training and capacity-building training for judicial and legal practitioners; and
• Implementing measures that provide a connected and coordinated response to address technology-facilitated abuse, including a national support service to assist victim-survivors as well as frontline service staff.

The Department of Social Services website includes more information about the goals of the national plan and how these new action plans will help to achieve them.