WORKING TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN WITH RAPID REVIEW INTO PREVENTION APPROACHES

28 May 2024

ANTHONY ALBANESE MP
PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA

SENATOR KATY GALLAGHER
MINISTER FOR FINANCE
MINISTER FOR WOMEN
MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE

AMANDA RISHWORTH MP
MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES

The Albanese Labor Government is working to end violence against women and children in one generation and has appointed an Expert Panel to conduct a rapid review into best-practice prevention approaches.

The Panel will meet for the first time today and deliver a report to Government later this year.

The Panel will:

Provide practical advice to Government on further action to prevent gender-based violence.
Look at opportunities to strengthen prevention efforts and approaches across all forms of violence against women and children, with a focus on homicide.
Consider targeted approaches to preventing violence, with a focus on identifying what works across the life cycle and for different groups of people.
Engaging with determinants, risk factors, pathways and intersecting factors for gender-based violence, including different and emerging forms of violence, and the role of key industries.
Whole of system opportunities for prevention and intervention, including stronger accountability and consequences for people who choose to use violence.
Opportunities to effect attitudinal change and accelerate progress to prevent violence against women and children, including at a local level.

The Panel will be co-convened by Australia’s Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner, Ms Micaela Cronin, the Executive Director of the Commonwealth Office for Women, Ms Padma Raman PSM, and the Secretary of the Department of Social Services, Mr Ray Griggs AO CSC.

The Panel includes:

Jess Hill – journalist, author and educator globally renown for ground-breaking work on gendered-violence;
Dr Zac Seidler – Global Director of Men’s Health Research at Movember and Senior Research Fellow with Orygen at the University of Melbourne;
Dr Todd Fernando – diversity and inclusion consultant with extensive experience working with First Nations and LGBTIQ+ communities;
Dr Anne Summers AO – author and journalist who had a formative role in the Women’s Liberation Movement in Australia, including the establishment of Australia’s first refuge for women and child victims of domestic violence;
Elena Campbell – Associate Director of Research, Advocacy and Policy at RMIT’s Centre for Innovative Justice; and
Dr Leigh Gassner APM - Assistant Commissioner at Victoria Police who has managed significant cultural and organisational change processes, including undertaking a previous review of policing responses into violence against women.

It will consult with Our Watch, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS), the National Women’s Alliances, states and territories, and other stakeholders.

Targeted stakeholder consultations via a series of roundtables will also be conducted by the Panel including with members of the National Plan Advisory Group, the First Nations National Plan Steering Committee, people with lived experience of violence, frontline services, and academics and data experts.

The Panel’s recommendations will be considered by the Government as it looks to build on the $3.4 billion in investments to women’s safety over three successive Budgets.

In Australia, one in four women and one in eight men have experienced violence by an intimate partner or family member. One in five women and one in 16 men have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. This is unacceptable, and it must end.

In addition to the Expert Panel the Government will also task ANROWS to extract insights from existing research to assess the breadth of risk factors for pathways into and out of family, domestic and sexual violence perpetration, intervention points and program effectiveness.

These insights will deliver practical recommendations on where government investment should be targeted for maximum impact, including where additional targeted research is needed.

Part one of this research will be completed by the end of June to feed into the Expert Panel’s final report.

Both the Expert Panel and the research by ANROWS were outcomes from this month’s National Cabinet and funded in the 2024-25 Budget.

Quotes attributable to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese:

“Violence against women is a national crisis and it needs to end.

“We recognise that governments need to act, but we also recognise that this is an issue for the whole of society. Women should not be responsible for ending violence against women.

“This rapid review will bring together experts and provide practical advice to Government to help us end the scourge of domestic violence.”

Quotes attributable to Minister for Women Katy Gallagher:

“This review will provide important advice to the Commonwealth, and all governments through National Cabinet, on more effective, targeted ways to prevent violence, including to stop women being killed.

“We know this is a crisis and this violence must stop. The advice from this review will inform the Government’s approach to enable us to adopt further evidence-based, targeted ways to stop violence, both before it starts and from escalating.”

Quotes attributable to Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth:

“Violence against women and children is a national shame. One life lost to intimate partner homicide is one too many.

“In order to reach our shared goal of ending violence against women and children in one generation we must have a considered focus on perpetrator intervention and prevention activities.

“It’s vital we get this right and the work of the Expert Panel and ANROWS will help build on the significant investments and work we have done since coming to government.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, domestic, family or sexual violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732 or visit www.1800RESPECT.org.au.

If you are concerned about your behaviour or use of violence, you can contact the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491 or visit www.ntv.org.au.

TUESDAY 28 MAY 2024