There has been much recent media and political focus on gender-based violence, with pressure mounting on the government to adequately address what some have labelled a ‘national emergency’ and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has stated is a ‘national scourge and a national crisis’.

Gender-based violence is used here as a broad term covering different forms of violence against women including family and domestic violence (FDV), intimate partner violence and violence directed at women or that affects women disproportionately. It is difficult to measure the true extent of gender-based violence in Australia – not least because of the lack of a consistent definition (p. 2) and known underreporting. Results from the 2021–22 Personal Safety Survey show that 20% of the adult population – 27% of women and 12% of men – reported experiencing physical and/or sexual family and domestic violence since the age of 15.

The National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032 (National Plan) is the Australian, state and territory governments’ central policy initiative designed to address family and domestic violence. The Australian Government has contributed close to $2.3 billion in funding for women’s safety measures across the October 2022–23 and 2023–24 budgets. The 2024–25 Budget, along with the 2023–24 MYEFO, contributes a further $1.1 billion to the National Plan and women’s safety (p. 6). The National Plan’s activities addendum outlines the specific actions committed to by governments.

The National Plan is framed around a continuum of prevention, early intervention, response, and recovery and healing (p. 78). However, this Budget largely prioritises response rather than prevention and early intervention. Given the scale of the problem, it is unclear whether the combined effect of the Commonwealth’s efforts with that of the states and territories, will succeed in mitigating the harm that victim-survivors continue to face, nor the high costs of this violence.

Leaving violence payments

The centrepiece of the Budget’s response to gender-based violence is the investment of $925.2 million over 5 years (and $263.3 million per year ongoing) to make permanent the Escaping Violence Payment Program (EVP) and the Temporary Visa Holders Experiencing Violence Pilot (TVP), renamed as the Leaving Violence Program (LVP) (Budget measures: budget paper no. 2: 2024–25, p. 176). The measure was announced following the meeting of National Cabinet regarding gender-based violence on 1 May 2024.

The programs are not new; the TVP having begun in April 2021, and the EVP in October of the same year. The TVP, delivered by the Australian Red Cross, provides support to people on temporary visas, or with uncertain visa status, who are experiencing family or domestic violence and experiencing financial hardship. Initially, the program provided payments of up to $3,000, referral to specialist services, and casework support. The maximum payment was increased to $5,000 in the October 2022–23 Budget (Budget measures: budget paper no. 2: October 2022–23, p. 186). The EVP, delivered by Uniting, provides similar support and up to $5,000 in financial assistance to Australian adults experiencing intimate partner violence and financial stress.

The 2024–25 budget measure extends the 2 current trials to June 2025, before rolling them together into the Leaving Violence Program, to begin 1 July 2025. Once established, the scheme will cost $258.2 million per year ongoing. This appears to be a substantial increase in annual funding, with previous appropriations totalling $519.9 million for both trials from 2021–January 2025 (roughly $148.5 million per year across 3.5 years). The Budget provides that the financial support of up to $5,000 will be indexed annually to the Wage Price Index. Indexing the support is a notable change, as the value of the $5,000 provided under the EVP has been decreasing in real terms since the scheme began in 2021. The measure also includes funding for legal assistance and other supports for temporary visa holders experiencing FDV.

While stakeholders have welcomed the continuation of the program, there has been criticism of the government’s focus on crisis payments rather than perpetrator intervention programs and frontline services. In response, the Government has stressed the immediate need to continue the soon-to-expire EVP and TVP trials, and the joint responsibility of the states, territories and Commonwealth in funding gendered-violence response services (discussed below).

Further, some have also commented on the narrow eligibility of the EVP – focusing on people experiencing intimate partner violence, not other forms of family and domestic violence. While the Women’s Budget Statement states that 45,000 have accessed the EVP since it began in 2021 (p. 16), recent reporting suggests that more than 48% of applicants were either declined or did not proceed with their application. This is echoed in a 2023 review of the program (p. 26).

Frontline services

Funding for frontline services is important in supporting victim-survivors to rebuild functional lives, and to prevent the recurrence of violence (National Plan, p. 84). These services are not provided directly by the Australian Government, with the federal government supporting the services through National Partnership funding provided to the states and territories or by directly funding services through grant programs.

There has been criticism from the women’s safety sector – including women’s legal centres, emergency accommodation providers and crisis centre workers – of the Budget’s lack of investment in frontline workers and supports. However, in outlining the responsibilities of the Federal, state and territory governments in responding to gender-based violence, Minister for Women Katy Gallagher stated:

Well, the main funder of those frontline services are the states and territories. So, where we've looked at the areas that we are primarily responsible for – and I should say that we've got a lot of partnerships with states and territories where we fund elements of the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children. The big areas that we have responsibility for are in prevention and early intervention and support and through our income support system.

The Budget does provide some investment in frontline services and supports, which may assist those experiencing gender-based violence:

• $6.0 million over 2 years from 2024–25 to support Primary Health Networks on the Central Coast to provide local outreach trauma-informed healthcare for women and their children experiencing domestic and family violence or homelessness (Budget paper no. 2, p. 132).
• $423.1 million over 5 years from 2024–25 in additional funding to support the provision of social housing and homelessness services by states and territories under a new National Agreement on Social Housing and Homelessness (subject to ratification of a new National Agreement) (Budget paper no. 2, p. 74).
• $1.0 billion for social housing under the National Housing Infrastructure Facility, including towards crisis and transitional accommodation for women and children fleeing domestic violence (Budget paper no. 2, p. 5).
• $44.1 million in 2024–25 to support the National Legal Assistance Partnership (NLAP) and Family Violence Prevention Legal Services, including one-year indexation supplementation to the funding for Legal Aid Commissions, Community Legal Centres and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, and additional funding to reduce community legal sector pay disparity (Budget paper no. 2, p. 51).

Of these measures, the funding to the NLAP has received the strongest criticism from the sector. For example, Women’s Legal Services Australia described it as a ‘very modest investment in community legal centres for indexation and wages’ while stating that the lack of additional funding and the uncertainty of future funding past the end of the NLAP on 30 June 2025 means that ‘many women’s legal services will have to start planning to reduce services to women experiencing gender-based violence’. An independent review of the NLAP released on 28 May 2024 recommends that the NLAP funding model be abandoned, noting the current model lacks estimates of legal need (p. 125). Further, the report lists people experiencing or at risk of FDV as having a high level on unmet legal need (pp. 66–68) and recommends including women as a new priority cohort experiencing unmet legal need as well as creating a new women’s funding stream (pp. 71–72).

While family and domestic violence (FDV) -specific frontline services have received no extra funding in the current Budget, the Government did provide funding for 500 frontline workers in the October 2022–23 Budget (Budget measures: budget paper no. 2: October 2022–23, p. 187). Implementation of this funding is the responsibility of the states and territories. As of May 2024, 30 of 500 workers had been hired.

Prevention programs

While providing supports for women experiencing violence is crucial, there is strong consensus that a focus on reducing perpetrator behaviour is necessary.

The Budget provides:

• $4.3 million in 2024–25 to commission Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety to further build the evidence base on pathways into and out of perpetration of family, domestic and sexual violence.
• $1.3 million over 2 years from 2023–24 for a rapid review of targeted prevention approaches to violence against women, with a panel of experts to provide advice to Government on preventing gender-based violence, including a focus on homicides (Budget paper no. 2, p. 157).

While there is funding for research and reviews, there is no additional funding to implement new perpetrator intervention programs in this Budget although a number of prevention programs are currently funded, having received multi-year funding in the March 2022–23 and October 2022–23 budgets.

Community attitudes and government-wide approach

As outlined in the National Plan:

Prevention means stopping violence against women from occurring in the first place by addressing its underlying drivers. This requires changing the social conditions that give rise to this violence; reforming the institutions and systems that excuse, justify or even promote such violence. Effective prevention requires integrated and cohesive work that builds mutually reinforcing action at all levels, together with clearly defined and well-supported implementation (p. 79).

The results of the 2021 National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey suggest that ‘understanding and attitudes regarding violence against women are improving slowly, but further progress is needed’ (p. 22), with the authors noting that ‘poor understanding and problematic attitudes regarding violence against women at the population level reflect a culture that allows this violence to perpetuate’ (p. 21).

The Budget includes multiple measures which aim to alter the institutions and contexts which perpetuate harmful attitudes towards violence against women and gender inequality.

Office for Women

The Budget provides $3.9 million over 4 years from 2024–25 (and $1.0 million per year ongoing) in additional resourcing for the Office for Women to support whole of government coordination and work with the Department of Social Services to identify further opportunities to respond to gender-based violence and continue to embed a focus on women’s safety across government (Budget paper no. 2, p. 157). Despite the additional resourcing for the Office for Women, the Portfolio Budget Statements for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet show a decrease in funding for the Office over the forward estimates: $20.5 million in 2023–24, reducing to $14.1 million in 2024–25 and down to $9.3 million in 2027–28 (p. 28). The reason for this reduction is not clear.

Higher education code

The Budget allocates $18.7 million over 4 years from 2024–25 (and an additional $28.8 million from 2028–29 to 2034–35) to introduce a National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence from 1 January 2025 (Budget Paper no. 2, p. 63). This Code responds to The Action Plan Addressing Gender-based Violence in Higher Education, and the high rates of gender-based violence reported in the context of tertiary education.

Online age verification pilot

The Budget also includes $6.5 million in 2024–25 to develop a pilot of age assurance technologies to protect children from harmful online content (Budget paper no. 2, p. 150). This measure was announced as part of the package of measures to address gender-based violence following the 1 May meeting of National Cabinet. In this context, an age verification pilot was presented as focusing on limiting access to pornography. This follows a history of parliamentary interest in the subject, including the eSafety Commissioner’s submission of an age verification roadmap to government following a recommendation of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs’ Inquiry into age verification for online wagering and online pornography. A 2017 Australian Institute of Family Studies report, The effects of pornography on children and young people, found that young peoples’ consumption of pornography online reinforces gender stereotypes and positively correlates to an increase in sexual aggression.

Response

Commentators have noted the continuing lack of initiatives to target the role of gambling, alcohol and drug use in fuelling family and domestic violence. While there are existing programs that seek to address these issues external to FDV, reviews such as the National Preventative Health Strategy (p. 67) and the recent You win some, you lose more House of Representatives committee report (recommendation 2) stress that holistic measures which consider the needs of particularly vulnerable communities are required for intervention to be effective.

Gender equality and women’s empowerment

As Michael Salter and Ashlee Gore suggest in their ‘Tree of Prevention’ model, fostering gender equality, women’s empowerment, and ‘equitable stable, and just societies’ more generally is likely to reduce the risk of violence and increase the effectiveness of prevention activities (p. 70).

The Budget makes some efforts in addressing these wider societal conditions, including through the investment in women’s health initiatives and adding superannuation payments to Parental Leave Pay (Budget paper no. 2, pp. 132, 166).

 

All online articles accessed May 2024