Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is facing a national crisis in domestic and family violence. Intimate partner homicide rates are rising, not falling. In 2023-24, 46 women were killed by a current or former partner. That is one woman every eight days. One in four women and one in 14 men have experienced violence by an intimate partner since the age of 15. These are not just statistics. These are lives cut short, families shattered and communities left grieving. And the most confronting reality is this: the numbers are not improving; they are getting worse. We can see this crisis clearly. We do not need more evidence to tell us it exists. What we need is faster, more coordinated action.

The government has taken some important first steps, including commissioning major reviews and agreeing to a national cabinet response and funding package in 2024. But the pace of progress does not match the urgency of the problem. What we have is a patchwork of recommendations and commitments, spread across multiple plans and portfolios, often without clear timelines, accountability or consistent reporting.

The Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner's 2025 report provides a practical way forward. It recommends that the Commonwealth establish a dedicated implementation and delivery oversight mechanism to drive action and ensure that commitments are actually delivered. It doesn't sound complicated. It sounds like the sort of thing that might already be in place, but it's not. I think that this is really critical to making sure that we deliver on the commitments that have been made to people. This would map and track all Commonwealth plans affecting victims-survivors of domestic and family violence, including the rapid review response, the Closing the Gap agreement and the National Housing and Homelessness Plan. It would require regular dashboard updating to cabinet and ensure that addressing domestic and family violence is treated as a whole-of-government priority, not confined to one portfolio. The report also calls for strengthening the powers of the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission and establishing it as a statutory authority. This would give the commission the ability to compel agencies to provide data and information, improve transparency and ensure that implementation and funding decisions are properly monitored.

Every one of us reads the news and feels the weight of these stories. The number of people in my community who have come into my office and told me stories of their experience—they are people you would look at and never know what they have been through and what their families have been through. We all know people who have lived through this violence. We teach our kids to recognise the warning signs. We talk about prevention and early intervention. Yet still the violence continues. If we are serious about ending this crisis, we must empower the institutions responsible for addressing it. This cannot be solved with silos or through slow, fragmented reform or yet another royal commission. It requires urgency, coordination and accountability. The evidence is in front of us. The recommendations are on the table. What is needed now is the action, the implementation that matches the scale of the crisis and the courage to deliver it.