The federal government’s “rapid review” of how to best prevent violence against women will begin today in Sydney before its advice is delivered later this year.
The review signals a potential shift in direction for the government, with its panel including strong critics of current prevention strategies.
The Albanese government has been heavily criticised by the domestic, sexual and family violence response sector following the federal budget, which was described by frontline workers as “trickery and deception”.
The “rapid review” will cost $1.3 million over two years and will be led by Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin, director of the Commonwealth Office for Women Padma Raman, and secretary of the Department of Social Services Ray Griggs.
The panel’s report is due between July and September, though a specific date has not yet been set.
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Why is the government establishing another review?
Advocates, frontline workers and peak bodies have said they have reached saturation point on consultation on what governments must do to prevent and respond to violence against women and children.
They have called for urgent, ongoing funding for services, and for recommendations from previous reviews to be followed through.
Earlier this month, Minister for Women and Finance Katy Gallagher told the ABC the government wanted to bring together experts in prevention to ensure the government response was as effective as possible.
“There are a range of views, there are new papers that come out all the time on this,” she said.
“That’s why we want to, as [the] commonwealth, pull together all the work and all the people involved in this space and get agreement on what are the things that are going to work in shifting the dial.
“And also making it not a women’s issue but an issue where we focus on the perpetrators of that violence.”
Who will be involved?
An expert panel, which will include journalist and critic of current prevention strategies Jess Hill, will conduct the review alongside Ms Cronin, Ms Raman and Mr Griggs.
In a recent paper in collaboration with Michael Salter, Hill highlighted that across multiple metrics the current approach to prevention — focusing very heavily on increasing gender equality — had failed to reduce or prevent violence.
“It has achieved only marginal improvements to community attitudes over the past decade,” they said.
“We may be world leaders in funding and developing primary prevention – and that is certainly laudable — but we are not world leaders in actually preventing violence.
“We are not suggesting that the gendered violence sector abandon the project of gender equality as an important goal, but we do dispute a disproportionate focus on ‘gendered drivers’ of violence, both in analysis of the problem and the parameters of the prevention response.”
Also on the panel are:
- Todd Fernando, former Victorian LGBTQIA+ communities commissioner, co-founder of Koorie Pride Victoria and academic
- Leigh Gassner, assistant commissioner of Victoria Police
- Anne Summers, journalist and key figure in establishing early women’s and children’s refuges
- Elena Campbell, academic
- Zac Seidler, academic and global director of men’s health research at Movember
The group will consult with the states and territories, the national violence prevention organisation Our Watch, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) and the National Women’s Safety Alliance.
A series of roundtables will also be part of the process. They will include members of the steering committee for the First Nations National Plan (to end violence against Indigenous women and children), those with lived experience of violence and frontline service workers.
ANROWS has also been asked by the federal government to assess existing research to look at the most effective ways to prevent violence against women and children.
The review follows recent crisis talks convened by the commissioner which examined how to stop men killing women, as well as a national cabinet meeting on the issue.
It is unclear how many times the panel will meet before it delivers its report later this year.
Government spending met with criticism
The review comes amid criticism of the federal government’s response to violence against women.
Earlier this month, the federal government announced the escaping violence payment would become permanent, which violence response organisations said was a good start but an “utter disappointment” if not expanded.
The federal government has defended not expanding the conditions of the payment, which only applies to those fleeing a violent partner but not a family member or carer.
Women with disabilities have warned that despite being particularly vulnerable to violence, they will be left behind by the government’s plan, with ministers saying they should approach the NDIS or Centrelink.
But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth have defended the government’s record on the issue, pointing to $3.4 billion in funding to combat the problem since Labor came to government in 2022.