Safety and recovery for children and young people
Approximately one child is killed as a result of family violence every fortnight in Australia.45
Australia’s first National Child Maltreatment Study found that two thirds of Australians have been abused, neglected or exposed to domestic and family violence as children.46 Children with disability are particularly at risk, as are children and young people from First Nations communities.47
Child maltreatment disproportionately affects girls. As found in the Australian Child Maltreatment Study, compared with young men, young women reported substantially higher rates of emotional abuse, child sexual abuse and neglect. However, no gender differences were found on rates of physical abuse and exposure to domestic violence. Compared to the full sample, young people (aged 16-24 years) reported higher levels of exposure to domestic violence and emotional abuse. The Australian Child Maltreatment Study also found similar levels of sexual abuse and neglect and lower levels of physical abuse in young people compared to the full sample.48
The first urgent area of prevention potential prioritised by the Review – but one that has largely remained untapped – is adequate recognition and support for children and young people as victim-survivors in their own right.49 This is because, while children’s experiences are acknowledged in the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 (National Plan), this recognition is rarely being translated into services, safety and support.
Evidence indicates that the rate at which children and young people are experiencing violence is its own national emergency, with recent studies on the rates of child sexual abuse, child maltreatment and filicide, as well as suicides by young people following histories of trauma, demonstrating a shocking prevalence of harm from adult-perpetration – itself a highly gendered phenomenon.50
The Review recognises that evidence further demonstrates a clear link between experiences of different types of adult-perpetrated abuse in childhood with future victimisation, as well as the use of violence by young people at home and in intimate relationships.51 Preventing harm against children, and providing safety, support and recovery if it does occur, therefore becomes a powerful way of preventing violence in the future, including lethal violence, as well as in the immediate term.
The Victorian Crime Statistics Agency indicates that over 14,000 affected family members in a family violence police report from March 2023 to March 2024 were aged 15 – 24.52 Similarly, data from the Australian Institute of Family Studies showed that almost a third of 18- and 19-year-olds had experienced intimate partner violence.53 Given that violence is under-reported by young people, and systems are still developing the capacity to identify young people as victim-survivors, this means that the actual figure is likely to be considerably higher.
From 2010-11 to 2020-21, 5,024 young people had at least one FDV-related hospital stay while aged under 18. This equates to one child per day having an FDV hospital stay.54
Among the 5,024 who had an FDV-related hospital stay:
- Just over half (54 per cent) were female
- Around one third (33 per cent) were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
- Over one-third (37 per cent) had their first FDV hospital stay before the age of 5.55
Opportunities to intervene, however, are often missed by child protection responses that are poorly resourced, ill-equipped to respond to adults using harm, disconnected from communities and invariably under strain.56 Despite evidence clearly demonstrating that young people need to be involved in designing youth-focused solutions and in a way that holds authority and is sustained, the possibilities enabled by a youth-specific service system have also not been developed in a consistent way.57 In fact, the Review heard that more young people were being consulted across Australia than were receiving appropriate, youth-specific services that addressed their needs.
As a result, the Review sees an urgent need for a mechanism that can hold government at all levels accountable for the way that services and systems respond to children and young people and can help to realise the stated intent of the National Plan. The Review recommends the establishment of a Youth Taskforce, supported by the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission (DFSV Commission) that leads a national, strategic and coordinated approach to recognising and responding to children and young people’s experience of domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) and preventing it from occurring, both now and in the future.
This Taskforce should be appropriately resourced, with a remit to examine all aspects of the National Plan relating to children and young people – including to define what recognising them as ‘victim-survivors in their own right’ should mean to children and young people in reality.58 The Taskforce should also consider systems which directly affect children and young people, such as the family law, child support, child protection systems, as well service requirements for consent to access services.59
The Review also recommends that all governments take immediate actions to support children and young people who have experienced violence and abuse. First, the Review recommends an uplift in investment and focus on support and recovery for children who have experienced DFSV. This includes investment in services which enable early identification of abuse – including in pre-natal, peri-natal, early childhood health and education settings as well as community-led services and out-of-home care – and which support the recovery of infants and small children and facilitate and repair relationships with a protective parent in the wake of violence and system intervention.
In particular, state and territory governments should invest in and be guided by community-led responses that: seek to preserve family and kinship arrangements; facilitate access to early childhood health and education for First Nations children, particularly in remote communities; address the harm of family law systems; and seek to respond to associated National Agreement on Closing the Gap targets.
The Review highlights the importance of specific supports for children of homicide victims, noting recent research that highlights the acute lack in this area as well as calls from the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered First Nations Women and Children for broader supports across families and kinship networks.60
The Review also encourages greater use of DFSV-informed, non-adversarial approaches, including through consideration of findings from the pending Review of the Family Relationships Services Program as well as intensive training for Independent Children’s Lawyers and independent report writers on the impacts of trauma on children and the way in which trauma can impact behaviours in children and protective parents. Vulnerable families should be supported to resolve family law matters outside harmful adversarial processes. Evidence has long shown how the adversarial family law system can cause acute ongoing trauma for children and young people, with repercussions including severe mental ill-health, homelessness and escalation of risk-taking behaviours.
Impact of trauma
Research has pointed to the impact of trauma on children’s neurological and behavioural development, as well as to the significant overrepresentation of disability and neurodivergence in young people using violence at home.61 One study of legal system responses found that 24 per cent of young people across a sample of court and legal files specifically featured young people who were identified as having a cognitive impairment or, most specifically, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).62 This study did not suggest that neurodivergence or disability were a causal or contributing factor to adolescent violence in the home (AVITH). Rather, it highlighted that significant behaviours of concern resulting from young people’s unmet support needs were being identified by the social service and legal systems as family violence instead.
Second, the Review recommends a significant investment and focus on development of services and responses that are age appropriate, youth-specific, trauma-informed, culturally appropriate and place based. These responses should be able to respond to experiences of DFSV in young people, including immediate safety, immediate and longer-term support, feelings of responsibility for siblings and even family pets; engagement in education and unmet legal needs, including so that intervention can prevent escalation of trauma and potential self-harm and suicidal ideation.63 The Review recognises growing evidence that contact with service systems too often entrenches harm, disconnect from vital support environments such as education, and discourages future help-seeking, including by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds, young people with disability and young people identifying as LGBTIQA+.64
Intersecting considerations and intergenerational transmission
Research on intergenerational transmission of violence in Australia finds that:
- children had higher odds of emotional/behavioural difficulties at age four associated with maternal violence exposures (maternal childhood abuse or intimate partner violence) and poor maternal physical or mental health;65 and
- about 9 in 10 young people aged 16 to 20 who had used violence against a family member in their lifetime had witnessed FDV or been targeted by child abuse.66
Young people from particular cohorts are at greater risk of violence. For example:
- Young people with diverse gender and sexual identities experience disproportionate rates of harm and additional barriers to support. This may include threats to ‘out’ them, while evidence suggests inadequate Child Protection responses to young people with diverse gender and sexual identities experiencing violence from their families of origin.67
- Young people disengaged from school may often be experiencing family violence, with disengagement or exclusion from school removing opportunities for disclosure and support – a factor which increased over COVID-19 and has not subsequently recovered.68
- Young people who have experienced trauma but are not in the care of a protective parent are also more vulnerable to additional violence,69 including where they have ‘aged out’ of Child Protection systems.70 This is despite lack of access to supports to live outside home, such as the Escaping Violence Payment, and despite Australian jurisdictions not being required to provide accommodation to those who have aged out of state care, as is the case in some international jurisdictions.71
- This lack of support or accommodation increases vulnerability to intimate partner violence, particularly where young people have no stable housing and are vulnerable to subsequent exploitation or the use of “survival sex” to put a roof over their heads.72
The Review further highlights evidence indicating the significant prevalence of current and ongoing experiences of adult-perpetrated harm in the lives of young people who use violence.73 It is vital to leverage available frameworks that can guide the development of a Model of Care for appropriate responses to the use of violence at home by young people, as well as emerging evidence about responses to young people’s use of violence in intimate relationships.74 This includes evidence about the types of responses which are appropriate and work with young people on their own terms, as well as the types of interventions which are likely to make young people disengage or, worse, to escalate harm, such as service responses or approaches primarily designed for adults.75
The Review heard about several initiatives and programs to address AVITH and the effects of violence in young people’s lives:
- The AVITH Collaborative Practice Framework was developed through iterative engagement with practitioners as part of the larger “WRAP around families experiencing adolescent violence in the home (AVITH): Towards a collaborative service response” research project. The Framework aims to: support shared knowledge and consistency of practice; improve recognition of AVITH at the organisational and system levels; ensure role clarity across the system; and bridge knowledge gaps between systems. The Framework explains what the pillars of collaborative practice mean for practitioners, organisations and governments; provides practice examples of each of the collaborative practice principles; and identifies the enablers of collaborative practice. It will be useful to practitioners, organisations and government agencies working in the AVITH space.76
- The K.I.N.D. program at Brisbane Youth Service stands for Kinship, Improving relationships, No violence and Developing skills. It works with young people, partners and family members to deal with the effects of violence in their lives. The Program aims to build wellbeing through enabling young people to better understand and manage their close relationships. Young people are supported through an individualised, one-on-one program aimed at understanding their behaviours and developing skills to respond in safe, non-violent, and healthy ways. The program aims to help young people develop emotional intelligence and emotional regulation, as well as develop insight into the impact of their behaviour on those around them, enhancing accountability. It recognises that domestic violence and homelessness intersect in young people’s lives and aims to offer effective support at a critical development stage of early adulthood, and in a way that respects their experiences of trauma.77
Finally, the Review notes the relationship between experiences of DFSV and youth homelessness.78 Young people who have experienced violence are too often left homeless or seek security through other means. This can result in couch surfing or ‘survival sex’, simply because this option is safer than what they face at home, or other forms of risk-taking behaviour, including contact with the criminal justice system.79 The Review heard that young people are often disbelieved about their experiences and presumed to be mispresenting their circumstances or ‘misbehaving’ when seeking shelter away from their family of origin. Additionally, the Review heard that systems expect evidence of parental consent in circumstances where this is neither appropriate nor safe, such as the requirement for parental signature on Centrelink applications for an ‘unreasonable to live at home payment’. The Review also recognises that young people exiting youth detention or in out-of-home care are often placed in motels, caravan parks or other types of unstable and unsafe accommodation, which is likely to escalate harm.
Programs working to support the safety and recovery of children and young people
The Review heard about a range of different programs working to support the safety and recovery of children and young people:
- Nabu is Waminda’s family preservation and restoration program in the Illawarra & Shoalhaven region. Nabu is community-led and offers intensive support, walking alongside Aboriginal families where statutory authorities are involved or might be in the future. Nabu is a team of Elders, cultural mentors, family and program support workers, caseworkers and counsellors, and works with families for up to 12 – 18 months. The aim of the program is to keep families together and out of the system or to support them to reunite.80
- The Safe and Together Model is a well-recognised approach to working with families which notes that “systems that touch on domestic violence and coercive control are often blind to the choices of perpetrators as parents. …The Safe & Together Model fills the gaps in knowledge and practice and assists all systems touching on domestic violence and child wellbeing to become domestic abuse-informed, supporting child well-being and safety across all partners in the domestic violence community.”81
- Melbourne City Mission’s Amplify Project seeks to understand the systemic gaps in providing care and support to young people experiencing family violence. By understanding what improvements can be made to family violence policies, laws, services, and practice, it works to ensure that young people are recognised as victim-survivors in their own right and are provided the services and support they need to live a safe, independent and fulfilling life outside of the homelessness system.82
The Review notes with concern the conclusion of an evaluation of the Escaping Violence Payment pilot that this payment should not be extended to people below the age of 18 on the assumption that young people will be in the care of child protection systems.83 As young people aged 15 or over have generally ‘aged out’ of child protection systems and may also be escaping violence without the care of a protective parent, the Review recommends urgent uptake of the evaluation’s separate conclusion that a tailored response be developed for this cohort of young people. This includes to provide financial assistance and other support to enable them to remain engaged in education and other supports, particularly where there are few services available in regional and remote areas.
“There has been strong, ongoing and necessary advocacy around women being believed, but not much has changed for children and young people. We are often blamed and stigmatised for our own abuse and deemed ‘troublemakers’ if we act out in response to being abused or neglected. Women are often praised for leaving family violence situations, as they should be — but when children and young people leave in response to toxic family dynamics, we are labelled as ‘absconding, ‘rebelling’ or ‘naughty’.”84
– Morgan Cataldo and the Y-Change team of Lived Experience Consultants (2020)
When implementing the above, the Review similarly encourages a broadening of consent requirements in applications for other support, such as Centrelink support or other services, for young people experiencing violence. Consent from a protective parent should be considered sufficient in circumstances where there is a history of violence from the other parent, particularly where there is potential for systems abuse in the context of Family Law proceedings. Alternatively, systems and services should consider accepting consent from a trusted adult in a young person’s life, such as a caseworker or even an extended family member, where it is not safe for a young person to re-engage with either parent.
| Recommendation 5 |
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The Commonwealth and state and territory governments to adopt a strategic and coordinated approach to embedding the distinct experiences of children and young people in their own right. This includes through the establishment of a Youth Taskforce under the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032, supported by the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission, to ensure implementation of the National Plan accelerates a focus on children and young people. This strategic work should be complemented by more immediate efforts to support children and young people who have experienced violence, including:
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Working with men and boys to promote healthy masculinities
The Review heard that a more strategic, evidence-based effort is required to respond to Action 5 in the First Action Plan (2023-2027) under the National Plan that is focused on men and boys.85 Connecting with men and boys as active decision makers and doing so in a meaningful way can engage them in the goal of violence prevention – including preventing the impacts that this violence, as well as its drivers, can have on men and boys themselves.
The Review acknowledges that efforts to do so must be strength-based, intentional, evidence-based and, crucially, DFSV-informed. The first port of call is to recognise the breadth of Australian men and masculinities by creating an advisory mechanism that represents diverse groups of men. This would support the effective tailoring of interventions to First Nations men, men from different cultural and religious backgrounds, and men who identify as gender or sexually diverse. While violence prevention initiatives have typically overlooked the lived experience of men and boys, either as people who use violence, victim-survivors, or both, this approach has shown promise in the development of revised definitions of healthy masculinities.86
Population-wide efforts have not yet managed to galvanise the male population as intended. As such, the Review heard that any engagement with men and boys must mirror the complexity and diversity of their experience, including reaching them through health, education and the tech industry settings. Essential to such work is successful framing and communication of how men’s engagement in preventing and ending DFSV will improve not only the lives of women and children, but also their own. This requires respecting and responding to histories of childhood maltreatment, addiction and mental health issues in men and boys with a focus on compassionate accountability.
To support these efforts, there must also be a focus on definition and measurement, given that national efforts to date have lacked coordination and focused primarily on measuring ‘traditional’ masculine norms.87 These norms are often referred to as the ‘man box’: being ideas that boys and men should rigidly embody strength, self-reliance, and harmful attitudes towards women to meet their socialised gender role.88
The Review heard that continuing to focus on masculinity from this deficit-based lens is unlikely to resonate with boys and men and can trigger substantial backlash or leave men and boys expressing limited awareness of positive ways to interact and behave.89 To leverage healthy masculinities as they emerge, a co-designed tool should be developed and used in evaluations of all intervention activities across the prevention trajectory, including in the health system, sporting clubs, schools and workplaces, to understand what change we are measuring.
Currently, among Australian men, nearly 20 per cent believe that it is legitimate to violently resist feminism, and nearly 10 per cent find it understandable that young men who are rejected by women resort to violent vengeance.90
A young man talking about why he was motivated to join the ‘manosphere’: “I felt as though I finally wasn’t alone. I felt as though my voice did matter, and that I did have a place to fit in. It’s very well known that women have a support network around them, men tend not to have the same support network”.91
Further, the Review has been deeply cognisant of the rising threat of online misogyny and powerful algorithms that threaten to mobilise men against gender equality, including in the so-called ‘manosphere’.92 This has also been recognised as contributing to a rise in broader radicalisation. Online content remains increasingly unchecked and unmoderated, with young men becoming more isolated the longer that they spend time in these environments.93 Health experts are therefore advocating for the attitudes held up by the ‘manosphere’ to be considered criminogenic in nature, given that misogynistic beliefs are a significant predictor of most forms of violent extremism and violence against women.94
With platforms, content themes and modes of communication proliferating at a rapid rate, the Review recognises that we must build and leverage evidence, including lived experience, to inform intervention design.95 The Review heard that Government should seek out and work alongside existing sector efforts to help define an aspirational, flexible view of the future of healthy masculinities and have an associated set of guidelines to inform all campaign and program design and implementation with men and boys.
Finally, the Review heard that key life transitions are often points of intervention for boys and men, as they are typically accompanied by a greater openness to help-seeking and behaviour change, alongside more likely contact with health and social services.
This applies especially to transitions in employment, intimate relationship breakdown and the transition to fatherhood, as well as to experiences of new arrival following migration. These transitions are also points often linked with the escalation of violence in tandem with an imbalance in men’s resources for healthy distress management and emotional regulation amid transition.96 Evidence suggests that openness to intervention and help-seeking do exist at this point, with new fathers who have used violence indicating support for a dedicated program to assist them in navigating the transition to fatherhood.97 Men navigating relationship breakdown have also shown diverse patterns of help-seeking, spanning solitary and interpersonal work to better themselves.98 The Review therefore recognises a clear need for wrap-around and holistic support, including for men’s mental health and wellbeing, that engages with men in contexts and environments which feel secure, familiar and in which they can explore their values and how men want to perceive themselves, especially in relation to intimate partners and children.99
The Review heard about a range of successful healthy masculinities models:
- She is Not Your Rehab in NZ focuses on ‘compassionate accountability’ in their programs and messaging to men. Their new app ‘Inner Boy’ provides a male-oriented online space for healing and reclamation of healthy identities, and grappling with intergenerational trauma. An evaluation of this program indicated that men reported being more connected, not feeling alone, and wanting to make positive changes in their lives.100
- The Man Cave is a preventative mental health and healthy relationships program, dedicated to supporting young men in Australia navigate the complexities of modern masculinities. The Man Cave delivers a range of evidence-based workshops (implemented in high schools and online) to inspire and encourage emotional intelligence, vulnerability, resilience and openness amongst young men.101
- Dardi Munwurro runs programs to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma in Aboriginal communities and disrupt the patterns of behaviour that can result in domestic violence by addressing the social determinants of First Nations men’s health with an emphasis on family, community and culture.102
- Caring Dads provides an Australia-first example of an evidence-based behaviour change program helping male recidivists of violence improve their relationship with their children. Pilot evaluation of the program showed significant positive impact and reduced exposure to violence.103
- Fathers Rock, an EU-wide project funded by the European Commission, aims to support fathers at the crucial juncture in which they first become fathers, improving their social and emotional capacity and helping them become engaged fathers. Importantly, an umbrella review from more than 23 countries concluded that engaged fatherhood is linked with a reduction in rates of men’s violence against women, in addition to a range of benefits for children, partners and the fathers themselves.104
- The Glen is an example of an alcohol and other drugs (AOD) rehabilitation service providing culturally safe services for men focussed on holistic men’s health and wellbeing with a trauma-informed lens. Managed by an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation (ACCO), it provides a culturally appropriate program of rehabilitation services alongside a program to maintain and strengthen connection to Aboriginal culture, traditional practices and ongoing involvement with Aboriginal Elders.105
- The New Zealand based Love Better campaign aims to help teenagers navigate a relationship breakup healthily, amid a cultural context where 68 per cent of NZ 16- to 24-year-olds have experienced harm that went beyond the normal hurt of breaking up.106
- Beyond Equality has worked with nearly 100,000 young men in the UK to date, engaging them through workshops in schools, workplaces, sports, and universities. These workshops help participants re-think what it means to be a man, creating healthier cultures that promote respectful relationships, help-seeking, and personal growth and resilience.107
| Recommendation 6 |
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The Commonwealth Government, with states and territories, to develop a national, coordinated and co-designed approach to engaging with men and boys, and on healthy masculinities and violence prevention. This should include:
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Strengthen women’s economic security and combat financial abuse
“Equality cannot be achieved when so many women are experiencing violence at the hands of men – often from men they know. This violence can be deadly. The threat of violence alone affects women's lives and the choices they make. [Women’s] experiences of violence are often a driver of economic inequality and can be a consequence of it. The impact of violence can be immediate, enduring and intergenerational, with long-term health, wellbeing and economic consequences.”108
Women’s economic equality and security is a powerful prevention lever and a protective factor against DFSV. This can be a means of preventing violence in the first place, or escaping and recovering from violence if and when it occurs. Conversely, experience of DFSV can discourage, or even force, women from the workforce, thereby eroding their financial security and making them even more vulnerable to continuing abuse, including homicide.
Noting that a range of risk factors are present in the context of homicides, research indicates that unemployment is a significant risk factor for women killed by an intimate partner.109 At the same time, women who want to leave violent relationships are often discouraged from doing so because of their lack of financial resources, and the justifiable fear that no longer having their partner’s financial support may force them into poverty.110 ABS data showed that, in 2016, almost 50 per cent of women who left violent relationships, and thus became single mothers, were reliant on government benefits for their main source of income and living in poverty.111
Economic security and equality play crucial roles in reducing the risk of gender-based violence. When women have access to education and training, stable, flexible and well-remunerated employment and financial resources, they gain autonomy and the power to make independent decisions about their lives. This economic independence can diminish their vulnerability to abusive and violent relationships by providing the means to leave or avoid situations where they might otherwise feel trapped due to financial dependence.
Policies to encourage women into secure employment, and to be able to stay in their jobs even if they are experiencing violence, are therefore prevention measures in their own right. This is particularly the case when 2021 data from the ABS Personal Safety Survey (PSS) reported that 451,000 women have had a previous partner who has controlled or tried to control them from working or otherwise earning income. Evidence also suggests particular risks when a male partner is not employed, or when a woman earns more than her male partner and is seen by him to be violating gender norms, often leading to increased violence.112
This means that the scale of the issue needs to be urgently addressed as both a safety measure, as well as an economic one. The Review recognises existing efforts by the Commonwealth Government to encourage women experiencing violence to remain in their jobs through legislated provision of 10 days paid domestic violence leave to be required as a minimum standard in all employment awards.113 Similar provisions have existed in both private and public sectors for almost two decades, although the Review notes that the leave was often unpaid and seldom applied to part-time or causal workers. The federal legislation is currently being reviewed and is likely to reveal the extent to which this leave is being taken up by people experiencing domestic violence.
The Review also recognises broader structural efforts by the Commonwealth Government to improve women’s economic security, including through other industrial relations reform, changes to tax cuts, support for parents through investments in early childhood education and care and paid parental leave, and increases to social security payments. This work is set out in the Government’s Working for Women: A Strategy for Gender Equality and related annual reporting tools: the Women’s Budget Statement and the Status of Women Report Card.
It is clear that policies to encourage women to take up and remain in employment are an essential prevention tool, and the Review endorses those efforts, especially those directed at people who may have particular challenges in obtaining or retaining employment.
The Review therefore recommends that the Commonwealth Government prioritise implementation of the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce (WEET) 2023 recommendations in a number of important areas.114 In particular, the Review heard that lack of access to childcare is a particular barrier to women in casual and insecure work, keeping already vulnerable women in poverty.
The Review also heard that, too often, restricted eligibility for childcare resulted in vulnerable children’s exclusion from early education environments that can support their healthy and age-appropriate development, including to identify and mitigate against the effects of early trauma.
Implementation of the WEET’s recommendation in relation to the Child Care Subsidy Activity Test would mean that more vulnerable women and children have access to early childhood education. This in turn can help vulnerable women to increase their financial security through employment, while supporting young children’s development and potential identification of support needs.
Further, the Review recognises that restricted access to child support payments is leaving too many victim-survivors in poverty and limiting their own recovery, as well as that of their children’s. Withholding of child support and/or manipulation of child support systems is also a concerning and widespread form of financial abuse. Implementation of the WEET’s recommendation in this regard would help to address this injustice, while also informed by the Review’s later recommendation (16) that the Commonwealth conduct an audit of systems abuse, including in the child support context.
In addition, the Review recommends that eligibility is expanded for the Low Income Super Tax Offset (LISTO). The LISTO is a superannuation payment of up to $500 for people who earn $37,000 or less per year. Women make up the majority of LISTO recipients and would benefit most from its expansion, with the potential to improve women’s superannuation balances and economic security in retirement. Further, a recent report by the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia estimates that increasing the upper threshold to $45,000 and increasing the maximum payment to $700 would lead to an additional 1.2 million additional individuals receiving LISTO. The report also notes that nearly 60 per cent of the beneficiaries of this expansion would be women.115
The Review also notes the Women in Super recommendation to align the LISTO with PAYG thresholds and that “realigning the LISTO would hugely benefit women, who, according to data collated by Women in Super from thirteen member super funds, make up 63 per cent of all LISTO recipients. Specifically, aligning the LISTO with PAYG thresholds would benefit the 632,000 Australian women who are earning between $37,000 and $45,000. As a result, a 30 year old woman earning $30,000, could be $56,170 better off in retirement.”116
The Review therefore encourages governments to consider ways to expand eligibility for the LISTO, noting its powerful potential to increase women’s superannuation balances as they age and improve women’s economic security.
In addition to considerations around superannuation and the gendered impact that reduced financial resources can have on women in later life, the Review recognises the wider impacts of financial and other forms of abuse on older Australians. The Review notes that this includes in the context of adult children returning to live with their parents after having used DFSV against an intimate partner. Evidence has also found that financial abuse of older Australians increased during COVID-19, with decreased opportunities for community connection to enable this to be identified.117
As the Commonwealth Government has acknowledged, “[t]o make the most of the opportunities a longer life provides, Australians need to prepare early to be healthy, independent, connected and safe.”118 Accordingly, the Review acknowledges the work under the National Plan to Respond to the Abuse of Older Australians 2019-2023 and urges the Commonwealth to maintain a continued focus in this area, developing a successor plan as soon as possible. This is to ensure that the distinct and intersecting forms of abuse directed towards older Australians – including in diverse populations – remain in view.
Beyond the WEET’s recommendations, the Review acknowledges the vital importance of access to services, entitlements and financial means for migrant and refugee women who may be isolated in their communities; have little means of seeking support; and are fearful of system intervention. The Review notes in particular the limitations of the family violence provisions in the Migration Regulations 1994 (cth) which should enable women and their dependents to apply for permanent residency in the context of DFSV but which involve multiple hurdles, including where women face barriers to proving a ‘genuine relationship’. These provisions also fail to consider particular forms of DFSV, such as financial abuse – including dowry abuse; the deception and coercion that the Review heard is often used to make someone enter a relationship and then sexually exploit them; and the impact of abuse by perpetrators or family members outside Australia, while also not being available to women who have not yet left a relationship.119
More generally the Review notes that financial abuse is fast becoming one of the most frequent forms of abuse, especially within the context of coercive control. In these situations, abusers not only try to control or limit their partners’ incomes, but often engage in practices such as running up debt in their partner’s name via credit cards of which she has no knowledge, or – again without her knowledge or consent – changing mortgage or rental agreements, making her liable for payments that she is unable to make. This can often lead to a situation whereby the partner abandons his family, with his partner and their children left homeless because they are unable to service these payments.120
Positive duty
Under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), organisations and businesses now have a positive duty to prevent, as far as possible, the following behaviour from occurring at work or in connection with work:
- Sex discrimination
- Sexual harassment
- Sex-based harassment
- Conduct that creates a hostile workplace environment on the ground of sex
- Related acts of victimisation.
Businesses must take proactive steps to eliminate unlawful behaviours to meet their obligations under this Act. Responding to reports of unlawful behaviours once they occur is not enough.
- The positive duty was a key recommendation of the Commission’s landmark Respect@Work: Sexual Harassment National Inquiry Report, which was led by former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins AO, published in March 2020.121
Finally, the Review heard from legal and employee organisations that further work is required to ensure that workplaces are psychologically, as well as physically safe environments for women and, as such, support their financial security by enabling them to maintain employment. The Review recognises that improved social and economic conditions are a structural prevention lever, with access to secure and safe employment a crucial one.
While the new positive duty created under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) is a welcome and very substantial step forward, the Review heard that a further opportunity exists to complement reform in the discrimination sphere with associated improvement in workplace safety frameworks. This is particularly the case given the attention that employers pay to these frameworks and the accountability levers that are available within them. As a result, the Review recommends that states and territories explore opportunities for a model approach to workplace safety laws which centres psychological safety and prevention of gender-based violence.
| Recommendation 7 |
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The Commonwealth to undertake further structural reforms to strengthen women’s economic equality, in recognition of the interconnectedness between lack of economic security and vulnerability to DFSV. This should include:
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Equip friends and family to respond and help
Building community confidence around how to identify the red flags of DFSV, especially coercive control, and then intervene safely is a powerful form of prevention. It can help to stop DFSV from escalating; support victim-survivors to make safe choices; and prevent potential homicide and DFSV-related suicide. The Review recognises that friends and family are by far the most common source of support for both victim- survivors and people using violence, with evidence suggesting that two-thirds will disclose first to someone they know, and many will never seek help from police or a specialist DFSV or health service.122 Friends and family are also typically the first to notice the red flags of coercive control.123
While there has been significant investment into changing community attitudes and improving harmful gender norms, far less attention has been given to educating Australians on how best to respond to a disclosure from somebody close to them. This is a largely untapped prevention opportunity.
“I wish that my family believed me … They found it easier to believe that I was lying rather than he was capable of the abusive behaviour.”124
“I wish that my family had helped me earlier and been stronger in telling me things weren’t right and that I deserved better.”125
An ANROWS-funded study found that victim-survivors wanted friends and family to listen to them, believe them and understand their perspective over that of the perpetrator.126 Many also wished that friends and family had tried harder to remain in contact, even when a perpetrator was isolating them, and also wished they had tried harder to intervene earlier.127 The Review heard that assisting a friend or family member who is experiencing or perpetrating violence, however, can be extremely difficult. Many who do want to help feel ill-equipped to provide the right advice.
The Review recognises the immense prevention potential embedded within the Australian community, while acknowledging that unlocking this will require more targeted resourcing. Good practice exists in pockets around the country, such as resources that advise friends and family on how to respond to disclosures; have difficult conversations; help to connect victim-survivors to support; and refer people using violence to services that may help them to address their abuse.128 Governments should prioritise investment in more targeted education and skills building for this relational cohort, including by drawing on the advice of those with lived experience. Embedding DFSV knowledge within the community would not only unlock a significant area of prevention, but also contribute to the improvement of community attitudes more generally.
Good practice examples of natural responder resources
Safe and Equal’s ‘Are You Safe at Home’ initiative focuses on the safety of all people experiencing and recovering from or at risk of family and gender-based violence. This initiative provides people who recognise or are responding to family violence, with educational resources when starting a conversation with people who may not feel safe at home, and advice on accessing support services to assist bystanders.129
MATE Bystander Program’s ‘Be There’, developed by Griffith University, is an education and intervention program teaching us all to be leaders in the prevention of violence and harmful behaviour. The program is designed to teach community members how to recognise abuse and have the confidence to speak out and offer help.130
In the immediate term, the Review also recommends an increase in resourcing for Lifeline’s DV-Alert program, which is already funded through the National Plan to provide virtual and in-person training to communities around Australia, and has reach into regional, rural and remote areas.131 These efforts must be complemented by increased support for ethno-specific programs, which can provide culturally, linguistically and religiously-appropriate advice and resources.
| Recommendation 8 |
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| The Commonwealth and state and territory governments to expand the evidence base on how to build capability of family and friends to identify and respond to DFSV as “natural responders” in their relational contexts with victim-survivors and perpetrators. In the immediate term, the Commonwealth should resource Lifeline’s DV-alert to expand its current community-focussed program offering, prioritising increased reach and frequency of facilitator-led delivery to regional and remote areas, as well as delivery virtually. |