Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission's yearly report to parliament is a sobering reminder that, while Australia has plans and strategies, we are still failing to deliver the safety and protection that women and children deserve. Domestic and family violence remains a national emergency, and we are still not seeing a mobilisation of resources and decision-making by government as it does for other issues. One woman is murdered every week in Australia, and, sadly, children are too, though not quite at the same rate. Some 2.3 million Australian women have experienced violence from an intimate partner. Nearly 60 per cent of women who are now single mothers have experienced partner violence. So, yes, Australian women are angry. I'm one of them.

The commission is clear. We must move beyond fragmented responses and embrace coordinated, accountable delivery. The report sets out priority actions for the seven years remaining in the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children—only seven years for that plan; remember that. We need prevention beginning in childhood and stronger implementation mechanisms, and we must strengthen the commission itself so we can gather the information needed to monitor progress and outcomes. If not, it is only words; that plan will not deliver its stated outcome. It's what I've been saying in this parliament since my maiden speech in 2019. Domestic violence is a major health and safety crisis, and we must treat it with the urgency that it demands.

In Warringah, the electorate has five women's shelters. They are staffed by extraordinary people who show up every day to protect women and children. Last year, I convened a domestic and family violence roundtable with frontline organisations, and we heard from the Northern Beaches Women's Shelter, Mary's House, Women & Children First, the Women's Resilience Centre, Dalwood Spilstead, LocalKind and St Vincent de Paul. Despite different service models, they all described the same problem—women and children are waiting too long for help and in the most dangerous moment, which is when they're trying to leave. They are often having to be waitlisted. Police in our area tell me domestic and family violence is their most frequent call-out. In Warringah alone, more than 450 domestic and family violence assaults were reported last year. The Northern Beaches Women's Shelter has faced demand from more than 70 women per day, most of whom have had to be turned away because they don't have the capacity.

So this yearly report reinforces all of those statistics on a national front. Our systems remain fragmented, too often underresourced, and the result is predictable harm. In Australia, one in four women has experienced intimate partner violence since the age of 15. Almost half of all women hospitalised for assault were injured by someone they knew or trusted. That is the most astounding statistic. And 39 per cent of people accessing homelessness services are there because of domestic and family violence. At the end of 2025, we saw an increase in the number of sexual assaults reported to police and a 14 per cent increase of women experiencing economic abuse. We're now also seeing evolving threats—technology facilitated abuse, nudify apps, stalking tools, deepfakes and the rise of the online 'manosphere', radicalising boys and young men with misogyny. While investments have increased, we cannot confuse expenditure with effectiveness. As I've said before in this place, it's not good enough to say, 'But we've spent record amounts,' or, 'We've spent more than the other side,' if the dial is not shifting in terms of outcomes.

The commission highlights critical insights that must guide our next steps. Firstly, prevention must begin in childhood. We need respectful-relationships education early and emotional literacy. Education at universities matters too. Programs like Consent Labs play a really important role in creating change. Secondly, we must embed lived experience and centre the voices of those who have been most impacted in that decision-making. That includes having things like a youth advisory council. It means co-designing with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, people with disability, multicultural communities and LGBTQIA+ people. Thirdly, the commission highlights how disconnected our social services and institutions are. Family law, child protection, police, health and housing are all systems that intersect in the lives of victims-survivors, yet too often they operate in isolation, in their own silos. The commission calls for coordinated implementation and delivery mechanisms across government, across all those services.

The insights align with reforms that I've been consistently advocating for in this parliament and previously, including increasing and sustaining the funding for frontline services, so the capacity of these services aligns with the community need. We are still so far from the actual need. They include a national domestic violence offender register to support a disclosure scheme similar to Clare's Law; stronger, nationally consistent approaches to sentencing; AVO enforcement; and appropriate electronic monitoring for high-risk offenders. We take a preventive approach when it comes to terrorism. Why are we not taking a preventive approach when it comes to this domestic terrorism of women? It has to be shifted; the dial has to shift in this way.

The reforms also include a major uplift in safe, affordable housing options for women and children fleeing violence. Of course, at the moment, too often they have to choose between safety and poverty, so unfortunately stay in unsafe environments. They include fixing systems that enable economic abuse and coercive control, including the broken child support system and the weaponisation of administrative processes. The government is complicit currently under the child support system with coercive economic control of single parents. They include a focus on prevention, including early intervention programs for men and boys and support for services like the Man Cave and Mentoring Men. Despite many submissions, they're being forced to downscale their operations because they have funding shortfalls, and I don't hold much hope that they are going to be funded in the upcoming budget. I really hope I am wrong. We must address these key drivers.

I've repeatedly backed calls for a ban on gambling advertising and far stronger regulation of alcohol. The evidence is so clear that alcohol and gambling ads fuel violence. We know that incidents of domestic violence spike by 40 per cent during major sporting events. If the government are serious about prevention—and members of government have made great speeches here—then they have to act on the obvious drivers. We cannot continue to have gambling advertising peppered through our system that is leading to this crisis getting worse and impacting young men. We know alcohol is such a massive driver, but it's clear this government is still, I would argue, captured by big business and vested interests because, despite clear guidelines, we are not prioritising the recommendations of the Murphy report and banning gambling advertising, for example.

The commission makes many recommendations, but it lacks the power needed to really hold the government and states and territories to account. Without the power to compel information from consistent public reporting, it's hard to genuinely hold government to account. I've been calling for a royal commission into domestic violence and femicide because we see, for so many other issues, that it elevates the issue to an area of significance. It sends a clear signal that this is a priority for the government. Instead, what we're seeing is a mixed response. I'm told a far-reaching inquiry can compel evidence across agencies and jurisdictions and expose where systems are failing, where funding is not reaching the front line and how perpetrators exploit loopholes in our system. I believe strongly that a royal commission would elevate this crisis to a national priority alongside other issues examined by royal commissions.

The commission itself can also be strengthened as a statutory authority with expanded powers to gather timely information, data and evidence. We also have to fix the issue of data on this issue. It's insane that we still don't have clear data across our country. The commission points to the need for better monitoring, review mechanisms and transparent public reporting. Right now, we don't even have longitudinal data to understand the complexity of intimate partner violence over time. Of the 131 measures tracked under the current national plan, only 32 per cent currently have a data source. So how are we even going to know that the other measures are on track? Without robust, widely available data, we can't accurately measure the promised outcomes of the national plan.

We have to confront systems abuse. Child support, tax, family law processes—too often they are used as tools for coercion and control. Women should not have to enter dangerous conflict situations to receive payments or entitlements to take care of children. So, whilst there is some progress, there is so much more to be done on this issue.

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