Key Points
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a $4.7 billion package to prevent gender-based violence.
- It includes a boost to frontline services, including legal services.
- It follows a second National Cabinet on the issue as both federal and state governments aim to combat the "national crisis".
Australians fleeing domestic violence will soon receive additional support as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a $4.7 billion boost in funding.
Albanese met with premiers and chief ministers on Friday morning to discuss what he's repeatedly labelled a "national crisis", and reassert his government's commitment to end family, domestic and sexual violence "in a generation".
Forty-seven women have been violently killed in Australia since the start of the year, according to the advocacy group Destroy the Joint's project Counting Dead Women.
The prime minister said it was crucial to have an "all hands on deck" approach, with collaboration between states, territories, and the federal government essential.
"We must act to ensure women are safe. These horrific and disturbing deaths and vile violence must be prevented," he told reporters on Friday morning.
"Achieving this demands action and change at every level of government but more than that, it also requires action from every part of our society."
Here's where the extra funding will be going and what other commitments the National Cabinet has made to addressing gender-based violence.
$3.9 billion for legal services
The package includes $3.9 billion over five years for frontline legal services, which is a $800 million boost to a sector that had expressed concern about turning vulnerable women away.
All parts of the legal assistance sector will get funding support, including women's legal services, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services, family violence prevention legal services, legal aid, and community legal centres.
Some of the money will be allocated towards increasing the salaries of community sector legal assistance providers to ensure they can recruit and retain workers, but exact figures are yet to be released.
More than $700 million for improved responses to violence
The federal government will also contribute $351 million towards a new five-year national partnership agreement on family, domestic and sexual violence responses, with states and territories matching the commitment.
The agreement will allow each jurisdiction to direct money to where it's most needed, with a particular focus on prevention.
Funding will be given to frontline agencies to provide specialist services for women, services to support children exposed to family, domestic and sexual violence to heal and recover, and to work with men, including through behaviour change programs for perpetrators.
Other commitments
National Cabinet committed to developing a new national family and domestic violence risk assessment framework, enhancing the sharing of "warning flags" on perpetrators across jurisdictions and strengthening the system to prevent violence from escalating.
The Commonwealth will fund the establishment of national standards for men's behaviour change and audit key government systems to identify areas where they're being weaponised by perpetrators.
It will also work with experts to identify support gaps for children and young people who have experienced or witnessed gender-based violence and provide more than $80 million in funding to enhance and expand child-centric trauma-informed services.
Alcohol laws will be reviewed by premiers and chief ministers, as well as their impact on victim-survivors of violence.
The prime minister said the states and territories remain committed to an additional 500 frontline workers as a result of funding allocated in May.
Criticism about delayed timing of funding
Albanese said the government was providing vulnerable women and organisations "certainty going forward", despite the funding boost not kicking in until July next year.
"We are providing the funding as part of the five-year agreement that will commence next financial year, and what those legal services will benefit from is the certainty of knowing what is coming as they go forward," he said.
Albanese's comments were followed by criticism from deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley, who urged the funding flow through immediately.
"If that is the case, on the trajectory we are on, 40 women will be killed and many more women and children harmed between today's announcement and that funding kicking in," she said.
What else is being done about violence against women and children?
The package is guided by the Rapid Review of Prevention Approaches that followed a National Cabinet meeting in May.
After May's meeting, , which provides up to $5,000 in financial support to those fleeing violent relationships.
It came on top of the $2.3 billion the government has already committed to delivering .
If you or someone you know is impacted by family and domestic violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732, or visit. In an emergency, call 000.
, operated by No to Violence, can be contacted on 1300 766 491.
