Australia has again reached a moment where the safety of women is dominating the national conversation. A horrific period of violence and sexual assault allegations has prompted governments to promise accelerated action, but new forms of harm are emerging faster than laws and systems can respond, according to the latest assessment.
This week, national cabinet acknowledged that rates of intimate-partner homicide and sexual violence remain "unacceptably high" and agreed on priorities for the next five-year plan under the 10-year National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children. States and territories will provide progress reports later this year on reforms including sexual violence and judicial responses, respectful relationships education, men's behaviour-change standards, emergency accommodation and alcohol reforms.
They also signed off on a new national family and domestic violence risk-assessment framework. The aim is that whether a person presents to police, a GP or a hospital, warning signs will be recognised consistently across jurisdictions. However, states will have two years to align their systems — a timeline that some critics argue conflicts with the ambition to accelerate action.
More than a dozen crossbench MPs — including Allegra Spender, Dai Le, Helen Haines and Andrew Wilkie — wrote to the Prime Minister this week, arguing that the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission should be made a statutory body with the power to compel information and track implementation of recommendations. They contend that despite hundreds of recommendations and billions of dollars spent, governments cannot properly demonstrate the impact of their efforts.
The national plan, launched with the explicit ambition to end gender-based violence "in one generation", is now at its halfway point. The crossbenchers' push represents growing pressure for stronger accountability mechanisms as the country enters the second half of the decade-long strategy.