Today the Albanese Labor Government is releasing the report from the independent Rapid Review of Prevention Approaches to help stop gender-based violence.
The Government thanks the Expert Panel for their work and will now consider the recommendations of the Review.
The safety of women and children experiencing family, domestic and sexual violence is a national priority and has been something we have worked on every day in Government. We are committed to working with states and territories through National Cabinet to achieve the shared goal of ending violence against women and children in a generation.
At the meeting of National Cabinet on gender-based violence in May, First Ministers agreed to strengthen prevention efforts through targeted, evidence-based approaches and to be informed by an expert led rapid review of best practices approaches.
The Commonwealth Government established the review and six experts were appointed with a mix of skills to draw together advice and identify opportunities to strengthen prevention efforts and approaches across all forms of violence against women and children, including a particular focus on homicides.
This advice is intended to build on the considerable work already underway including more than $3.4 billion in Commonwealth investment for women’s safety across three budgets and 85 initiatives with funding attached that underpin the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032.
The Expert Panel has delivered its report Unlocking the Prevention Potential: accelerating action to end domestic, family and sexual violence(link is external). The report acknowledges the crucial work underway through the National Plan to end Violence Against Women and Children and highlights the importance of leveraging all prevention opportunities in order to stop the violence.
The Rapid Review highlighted a number of areas of priority including:
- Responding to children and young people’s experiences of domestic, family and sexual violence
- Engaging with men and boys in violence prevention, including meeting them where they are at
- Better understanding pathways into perpetration to improve targeting of early intervention initiatives, with the aim of preventing violence from occurring.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Women Katy Gallagher
“I thank the panel for their thoughtful and considered report.
“We know that preventing violence is complex, and the guidance in this report will help Government build on the National Plan and its existing work and consider how to further prevent violence – to stop it from occurring in the first instance, to prevent it from escalating, and to stop women being killed.
“This report builds on the extensive work underway across the women’s safety sector and provides important insights to guide our prevention efforts to ensure they continue to be effectively targeted, with the highest possible impact.”
Quotes attributable to Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth
“Our Government, from its first day, has taken family and domestic violence incredibly seriously. It has been a significant part of the work we have done each and every day. This is evidenced by the number of initiatives we have invested in under our National Plan and Action Plans.
“We need persistent and consistent attention and focus on these issues to ensure – along with states and territories – we can work towards our shared goal to end violence against women and children in one generation.
“We know there are emerging issues in this space, such as some of the extreme misogynistic content that is fed to young people online and we need to be assessing and having conversations about issues we may not have previously so we can bolster our efforts.
“Australia has seen high levels of domestic and family violence for too long. We all need to work together, governments, businesses and the broader community to make the change we want to see.”