Given its rapid nature, the Review could not draw conclusions across every area of policy or service delivery. While it was charged with identifying prevention opportunities across the full spectrum of Australia’s DFSV response, the Review’s scope needed to be sharp and inject momentum where obvious needs presented and where there were clear actions available to governments. It also needed to identify ways to leverage existing processes for future and more sustained reform.
A national emergency – and an ongoing national priority
The significance of gender-based violence as a standalone issue for National Cabinet should not be underestimated. Since being established in 2020, National Cabinet has taken on an unprecedented level of authority and has encouraged swift, decisive action across areas of government policy and investment. This makes it an appropriate body to continue to monitor what the Review suggests is more than a national crisis, but a national emergency. The Review therefore recommends that gender-based violence becomes an ongoing priority for National Cabinet to ensure that government accountability, as well as sustained investment and attention, is maintained.
Crucially, the Review acknowledges with sorrow the missing, presumed murdered Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children, as well as the courage of their families in their quest for accountability. For this reason and, more broadly, the Review recognises that the experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children must be a national priority, urging the strengthening of culturally-informed and place-based DFSV responses for First Nations communities, noting the significant work under way to develop a First Nations National Plan. This should include urgent consideration of the evidence presented by families and communities to the Senate Inquiry into Missing and Murdered First Nations women and children, as well as the commitments under Target 13 of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.4
To guide implementation of this report’s recommendations, the Review also calls for communities that experience marginalisation to be prioritised. In addition to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, prioritised communities should include: refugee, as well as long term and recently arrived migrant communities; women and children with disabilities; people from LGBTIQA+ communities; older women, and women in regional and remote communities. Addressing gender-based violence for communities that experience intersecting forms of marginalisation lays the foundation for population-wide success. Where applicable, implementation of these recommendations should involve a genuine and sustained co-design in partnership with affected communities to ensure that they can identify the priorities of greatest value and urgency to them.
The prevention potential
A focus on the challenge, however, is not enough when the task ahead of us as a nation is so immense – and when our efforts thus far have not yielded the results for which we had hoped. As a result, the Review also recommends that the Commonwealth, states and territories expand their approach to prevention and leverage all prevention touchpoints more effectively. This includes by commissioning an independent review of our current national prevention framework, Change the story, so that it continues to evolve and keep pace with global evidence; brings in valuable insights from a diversity of sectors; and considers the experiences of all communities.5
To supercharge Australia’s prevention response, the Review also recommends the establishment of a five year Prevention Innovation Fund. This would resource and evaluate innovative prevention efforts to understand, assess and share what works in an Australian context and at a community-based level.
Prevention through people
The Review has chosen to place particular focus on supporting children and young people – and to do so by enabling young people’s voices to drive change and hold government to account. By placing safety and recovery for children at the centre of our prevention efforts, we not only prevent further trauma in the present, but also stem future trajectories of harm. As a result, the Review recommends a strategic and coordinated approach to recognising children and young people as victim-survivors in their own right. As a starting point, a Youth Taskforce should be established under the National Plan, supported by the DFSV Commission, to ensure that a strong focus on action and implementation accelerates this priority.
In addition, the Review recommends that these strategic efforts be complemented by an immediate emphasis on support and recovery for young children, with a particular focus on supporting children’s relationships with a protective parent. Further, the Review recommends development of youth-specific and informed responses for young people who have experienced harm and may also go on to use harm in different contexts, including by drawing on available practice frameworks published by ANROWS. The Review also recommends the development and delivery of a tailored response to assist young people escaping DFSV, in recognition that certain cohorts of young people will not be in the care of statutory child protection systems or a protective parent.
Separately, the Review highlights the potential that lies in working more effectively and meaningfully with men and boys on preventing DFSV. This includes the promotion of healthy masculinities to counter the growing influence of online misogyny. The Review notes that this requires a national and coordinated approach and should include intersectional, DFSV-informed mechanisms, including those which support engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men. It also involves adopting a national definition and measurement methodology for healthy masculinities, as well as the development or expansion of DFSV-informed responses focusing on men’s life transitions, including leaving school, new fatherhood, relationship breakdown, recent migration and becoming unemployed.
In addition to unlocking the prevention potential through supporting children and young people and engaging more effectively with men and boys, the Review recognises that efforts to support women must remain central. In particular, the Review recognises the prevention potential that lies in structural levers – systemic and policy mechanisms which lay the social and economic conditions for support and improved safety. Improving women’s economic security is recognised internationally as a best practice prevention strategy. As a result, the Review recommends priority actions in this area, including the implementation of particular Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce (WEET) recommendations, as well as other structural reforms that will contribute to the financial freedom of women and their children and improve safety.
Further, the Review recognises the immense prevention potential embedded within the Australian community. Good practice exists in pockets around the country, including resources that help friends and family respond to disclosures and connect victim-survivors with support and people using violence with services that can address risk. Since friends and family are most often the first (and sometimes the only) support for people impacted by DFSV, the Review recognises that governments should prioritise investment in more targeted education and skills-building for this relational cohort. Embedding DFSV knowledge within the community will not only unlock a significant area of prevention, but also contribute to the improvement of community attitudes more generally.
Prevention through responses
Urgently, the Review recognises the prevention potential embedded in frontline crisis responses. The Review has aimed to highlight that – when appropriately resourced – DFSV crisis responses not only support immediate safety but lay the groundwork for safety to be sustained. For too long, however, investment in DFSV crisis response has perceived policing as the priority, with the Review hearing from specialist crisis services that they are unable to keep up with demand and escalating risk to such a point that their staff are overwhelmed and that some victim-survivors may not receive a response.
As such, the Review recommends a needs analysis to determine unmet demand in DFSV crisis response, recovery and healing (excluding police) with the view to develop a pathway to fund demand. This needs analysis should take diverse groups into consideration, as well as the demand for targeted and culturally safe responses, such as ethno-specific services and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-led organisations.
More immediately, the Review recommends that there should be a significant funding uplift in certain frontline areas. Here it is vital that the role of public legal assistance be acknowledged as a frontline response, noting the recent Independent Review of the National Legal Assistance Partnership finding about the ‘neglect’ of this sector.6 This is not only because legal assistance is an access to justice issue, but because legal assistance can improve safety for victim-survivors, particularly for women and children involved in protection order matters and family law proceedings. Importantly, it can also reduce risk and facilitate compliance with orders by engaging people using violence in a trauma and DFSV-informed way.
It is also vital to note the dire need for crisis accommodation for victim-survivors, particularly in remote and regional communities, such as the Torres Strait, where the Review heard that there was only one shelter to service the entire region. A crucial further step in unlocking the prevention potential therefore involves recognising the value of specialist crisis accommodation that provides a wraparound service, such as the Sanctuary model in Victoria. It also involves resourcing the DFSV sector for long-term case management, following the needs analysis identified above, as well as increasing linkage between the DFSV and homelessness sectors and aligning these sectors in national frameworks and plans.
In addition to pulling these prevention levers, significant potential lies in activating the health response, including by building capacity and capability to identify DFSV and intervene in appropriate ways. This involves equipping and resourcing practitioners across health settings to identify and support a diverse range of victim-survivors and people who use violence, as well as increasing capacity for doctors to spend appropriate time with people affected by DFSV. Further, the Review identified the potential in enabling an uplift in training of health professionals in primary and mental health settings and accelerating cross-sector collaboration between the alcohol and other drugs (AOD) and DFSV specialist sector. Just as significant is the value in recognising DFSV across relevant health, wellbeing and equity policies across government, so that DSFV and health do not sit in policy isolation.
Reducing risk in people who use violence and keeping them in view is clearly a priority objective. This has not been as well understood or actioned as other areas, however, with opportunities to reduce risk that lie at earlier points along the spectrum often overlooked. This means that efforts should be focused on interventions early in police and legal system interaction. In addition to the value of DFSV-informed legal assistance, particularly at the protection order stage, this includes facilitating men’s access to information and assistance beyond legal needs, as this can help to reduce risk and improve compliance. Access to crisis accommodation, for example, can reduce escalation and prevent perpetrators from returning home when they have been excluded by police.
Along the spectrum, it is just as vital to improve the supply, quality and capability of men's behaviour change programs (MBCPs), which the Review recognises were always intended to function as a coordinated community response. The Review recommends that MBCPs be supported to enable increased engagement and retention, as well as continuous improvement—to ensure that their contribution to our collective efforts to hold men using violence to account can be maximised to the greatest possible extent.
Further, MBCPs should be resourced to facilitate access to service provision which addresses needs related to substance abuse, histories of trauma and mental ill-health, while recognising that this must occur through a DFSV-informed lens. These programs should be community and context specific, meeting cultural and other needs, while also prioritising support for victim-survivors through partner and family safety contact—a central, but often under-resourced, aspect of their work.
In keeping with this focus on a coordinated community response, it is vital to recognise the role of a shared understanding of risk and the capacity to access information which can support good decision-making. As such, the Review recommends that all governments develop a shared understanding and language about risk by developing nationally consistent risk assessment and management principles. These principles should be applied across the full range of roles identified as having decision-making and/or support functions in relation to DFSV, while taking a proactive approach to preventing misidentification, particularly in relation to members of diverse communities. The Review further recommends that this be accompanied by strengthened information sharing, including through the National Criminal Intelligence System (NCIS).
Additionally, the Review recommends the introduction and expansion of multi-agency responses. This includes highlighting the value of fit-for-purpose police co-responder models, as well as evidence-informed focused deterrence models. It also includes highlighting the urgent need for access to collaborative responses which increase access to forensic examination in sexual offence matters. This is a vital prevention measure, as many victim-survivors indicate that they report to police and undergo initial examination primarily in the hope that this may ultimately stop an offender from harming others. Accordingly, leveraging collaborations to increase access to forensic examination which may later support prosecution is important for victim-survivor choice. Access to examination in remote areas and in primary health settings, rather than through police, can expand this choice further, so that victim-survivors can disclose in a familiar or culturally safe environment and then later determine whether they wish to report.
Crucially, the Review recommends a national approach which can strengthen systems responses to high-risk perpetrators, including through trialling and evaluating DFSV threat assessment centres. Finally, the Review recognises that adequate, timely and DFSV-informed police response and investigation is a critical prevention measure. As such, the Review recommends transparency through public reporting of response and investigation data, as well as that all jurisdictions establish mechanisms for independent civilian oversight of police that are DFSV-informed and sit outside of policing authorities.
Associated with the need for more DFSV-informed decision-making, capacity and capability, the Review recognises the urgent need to build the specialist DFSV workforce, as well as to uplift and expand workforce capability of all services that frequently engage with victim-survivors and people who use violence. The Review recommends that this be achieved through analysis of current and future labour supply for the DFSV specialist services sector, which can then inform the embedding of a secure and appropriately resourced sector.
In addition to the above needs analysis, the Review also recommends the establishment of a DFSV National Workforce Development Strategy to expand capacity and capability in the related DFSV specialist sector including sexual violence and MBCP sectors. Further, the Review recommends a broader strategy to improve capability uplift across other frontline responses, such as health, police, courts and legal assistance, child protection, AOD and mental health.
Finally, the Review recognises the need for a specific focus on the prevention of, and service and justice responses to, sexual violence, as well as its co-occurrence with domestic and family violence. The Review therefore recommends that greater priority and focus be given to Action 6 of the First Action Plan (2023-2027) of the National Plan – noting opportunities to consider the needs of particularly vulnerable cohorts.7 This includes women and children vulnerable to sexual exploitation, those working in the sex industry, as well as women and children from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities who are being murdered and disappeared. The Review further notes opportunities for prioritisation of responses to child sexual abuse, including incest and harmful sexual behaviours by children and young people, as well as the potential for expanded reporting options and alternative, community-based responses, such as restorative approaches – informed by the pending recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s inquiry into justice responses to sexual violence.
Prevention through systems and industries
Beyond prevention through people and responses, the Review recognises the influential role of systems and industries in the prevention of DFSV, as well as in its perpetuation and escalation where these systems are abused. As such, the Review recommends immediate audits of the weaponisation of government systems by perpetrators of DFSV, including of systems where significant harm is occurring, such as family law, child support, taxation and immigration systems. The Review notes that the respective audits and responses should be informed by safety by design principles, given their effectiveness in other important areas of recent reform such as in the technology and financial sectors.
The Review also acknowledges that certain industries, such as alcohol, gambling, media and technology, are particularly well positioned to prevent and reduce DFSV. This is in part because these same industries too often function as the foundation for, or means of, the escalation of abuse. As such, the Review recommends that governments review and amend alcohol and gambling regulatory environments to prioritise the prevention of DFSV. This includes through restrictions on alcohol sale, advertising and delivery timeframes; restrictions leading to a total ban on advertising in gambling; and an examination of the density of electronic gaming machines and use of online gambling in relation to DSFV prevalence. Further, the Review recommends that the Commonwealth Government work with the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) and other bodies in an integrated and focused effort to reduce the role of alcohol in DFSV.
Beyond this, the Review recommends that governments establish and embed national standards for media reporting on gender-based violence to prevent the perpetuation of harmful narratives that can escalate risk. The Review also urges governments to ensure that the current age-verification pilot related to online pornography tests not only the relevant technology, but its implementation, including participation of major technology platforms. In addition, the Review recommends the provision of ongoing support to the eSafety Commission to protect victim-survivors from tech-based abuse and to work with the technology industry and government on improving policies, practice, transparency and accountability for an increasingly complex and hazardous online environment.
Prevention through learning and data
Efforts to unlock the potential of prevention also require accountability for, and monitoring of, these ongoing prevention efforts. The Review therefore recommends that the Commonwealth Government expand the functions and powers of the DFSV Commission and establish it as a statutory authority. Expanded powers functions should include the DFSV Commission: performing a clearinghouse function; having stronger powers to gather information; and to continue monitoring the implementation and funding associated with the implementation of the National Plan.
Further, it is vital to acknowledge that improvements in our prevention efforts, wherever they fall along the spectrum, must be informed by accurate information. In particular, the Review found that Australia currently struggles with insufficient information and disaggregated data about particular communities, including those in remote areas such as the Torres Strait. Recognising the crucial role of data sovereignty, the Review recommends working in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to embark on a process to determine a community-led, self-determined approach to data collection that accounts for Indigenous data sovereignty principles, in line with the Close the Gap Priority Reforms.
Further, the Review recommends improved and disaggregated data collection around the intersection of gender-based violence with the experiences of older Australians, people with disability, long term and recently arrived migrant and refugee communities, LGBTIQA+ communities and communities in regional areas, well as improved data collection about the impacts on children affected by family law processes.
The Review recommends improved data collection to understand the scale of the challenge that we face, as well as how we are tracking to address it. This includes the establishment of a centralised national data set on the extent and nature of perpetration; as well as enhancements to the measurements framework under the National Plan to include further quantitative targets.
In addition to these efforts, we must also continue to examine and learn from where our prevention efforts have failed and where DFSV-related deaths have tragically occurred. Death review panels provide salient lessons about those prevention points that did not work, or where victim-survivors fell through the gaps. As such, the Review recommends that state and territory governments work to establish and uplift death review panels across all jurisdictions, including with an emphasis on First Nations support units and protocols.
Highlighting the importance of recognising and accounting for suicides related to DFSV-victimisations – numbers not currently accounted for in conventional assessments of the ongoing national crisis – the Review also recommends an urgent inquiry into the relationship between suicide and experiences of DFSV victimisation. These numbers are not currently accounted for and therefore skew our understanding of the impact of DFSV. Capturing this data will enable the true scale of what the Review contends is actually a state of national emergency to finally be understood.
Conclusion
The Review recognises that opportunities for prevention of DFSV exist at an individual, community, systems and societal level. Prevention can happen through people, responses, and systems and industries. This builds on the approach of the National Plan, agreed by the Commonwealth and the states and territories, which acknowledges the need to be agile and responsive to the evolving evidence base. The Review’s recommendations identify where violence and abuse can be prevented before it happens, when it occurs and before it becomes fatal.
Importantly, each of the above recommendations is designed to be as flexible and practical as possible and must be tested and co-designed with the communities that it is likely to impact. This is a task to which governments must commit if it is genuinely to unlock the prevention potential. Implementation of these recommendations also requires dismantling siloed ways of working – overcoming the barriers of federation, where feasible, in the spirit adopted when facing other threats presenting on a national scale. The Review’s advice will be one stepping stone on a road which so many have been building for decades. Its purpose in many ways has been to add urgency to some obvious investment needs and to open doors to which multiple people or sectors have pointed for years. As such, many of the recommendations here have been made elsewhere or are ones for which individuals and sectors have been calling for some time.
That said, it was clear over just 12 weeks of review, consultation and consideration that the path ahead does not just involve tinkering at the edges but instead requires a surge of activity and investment around people, responses and systems. What’s more, it demands examination of the mechanisms and levers that, thus far, have not created the momentum towards increased safety and accountability – and reduced homicides – that we would expect. As a result, many of this Review’s recommendations are about identifying those mechanisms and levers which embed an effective and whole-of-community approach to prevention over the longer-term.
The scale of the challenge and the complex nature of DFSV may seem overwhelming. The fact that the Review could identify so many areas ripe for meaningful reform over such a short period of time, however, is also a sign of promise. Put simply, there is a lot more that can be done if we draw on lessons available across multiple sectors and approach the task in an expansive and collaborative way. That in itself should be a cause for energy and action.
By commissioning this Review and outlining broad Terms of Reference, the Commonwealth has recognised that prevention of violence can be seen as core business for every workforce, community and individual, regardless of whether they saw themselves situated in this task before. Similarly, by commissioning this Review, all governments will have a mandate for bold action – a prevention potential that the Review sincerely hopes they are ready and willing to seize.