The bulk of the funding – $3.9bn in federal funds – will be invested in frontline services and will be rolled out over five years from July 1, 2025.
As part of Friday’s announcement, the federal government also committed $351m, to be matched by the states and territories, to renew a five-year agreement on family, domestic and sexual violence responses.
Anthony Albanese said a “nationally co-ordinated approach is required to address this national crisis”. “We must act to ensure women are safe,” the Prime Minister said. “These horrific and disturbing deaths and vile violence must be prevented.
“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.”
Mr Albanese and the state and territory leaders announced four key focus areas for the funding: supporting frontline services; identifying high-risk perpetrators to stop violence from escalating; increasing support for children and youths who have experienced violence; and tackling the impact of alcohol on violence.
The opposition highlighted that the start date was 10 months away. “Sadly, on the current trajectory of women losing their lives being killed by a man, we would see 40 more women lose their lives before one dollar of this money is spent,” opposition deputy leader and spokeswoman for women Sussan Ley said.
“Waiting 10 months before a single dollar goes to a single service to help women who are desperately in need of that help. I don’t think that’s good enough.”
The national cabinet meeting was marked by discord before it started. Queensland Premier Stephen Miles criticised Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth’s “pretty unhelpful” comments calling on states and territories to step up the hiring of frontline workers. States and territories are lagging behind hiring targets agreed with the commonwealth.
This national cabinet meeting followed one in May that commissioned a rapid review into the escalating prevalence of domestic violence.
It found that as of August this year, 54 women had been killed in domestic homicides, compared to 58 in the whole of 2023 and 35 the year prior.
“There are too many stories, tragically. Almost no week goes past without there being a tragedy, which is something that then flows on to intergenerational issues,” Mr Albanese said in his opening remarks to the national cabinet meeting.
Embedded in the $4.7bn package is an $800m increase in funding for the legal assistance sector with a “focus on uplifting legal services responding to gender-based violence”.
The states and territories pledged to review laws surrounding alcohol and its impact on domestic violence victims. The federal government pledged to provide funding to establish national standards for “men’s behaviour change” and an audit of government systems to identify where they were being “weaponised” by domestic violence perpetrators.
National cabinet resolved that all government commitments on domestic violence must “explicitly consider the needs and experiences of First Nations people, and be delivered in genuine partnership with First Nations communities”.
Mr Albanese said the government would insert the commitments into the budget.
