Shocking domestic violence update shows Albanese Government’s response falls far short
9 September 2026
Today’s update report from the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission is devastating and should shame governments into action.
This is not progress. It is an abject failure to keep women and children safe.
Hospitalisations of First Nations women and children after family violence has increased. Homelessness among women and children fleeing violence has increased. Breaches of domestic violence orders have increased.
Sexual violence reports are now at their highest rate since records began in 1993. Shockingly, around 80 per cent of police call-outs are related to domestic and family violence.
Meanwhile, governments can’t even give Australians a clear picture of what they are spending on addressing this crisis, and data is unavailable for around 68 per cent of the measures in the National Plan's Outcomes Framework.
We can’t manage what we don’t measure - and we can’t hold governments fully accountable when the data is missing.
What’s more, state and federal governments in 2024 committed to a National Risk Assessment Framework to ensure a consistent response to violence across the country. That framework is still not in place.
Amid this policy failure, Australian Femicide Watch records 49 women and 19 children killed by violence this year. Rates of sexual violence among young people are on the rise, and online misogyny and sexual violence has become pervasive, normalised and extremely harmful.
Women and children don’t need more condolences and promises. They need action, accountability and a genuine national commitment to ending this crisis.
I am calling for action in these five areas:
1. Give the Commission real powers
The Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission must be empowered to monitor government performance, compel information, track recommendations and expose failures to deliver services and funding.
2. Launch an urgent national education campaign
Australia needs a national campaign confronting misogyny and teaching respectful relationships, consent and healthy masculinity - through schools, universities, community organisations and sporting clubs.
3. Commit to recommendations of the Rapid Review.
The Government's own department conducted the Rapid Review of Prevention Approaches. National Cabinet must implement every recommendation, with a responsible minister or agency, funding, deadlines and public reporting.
4. Establish a national domestic violence offender register
Police must be able to see across state borders when a perpetrator has a history of domestic and family violence. And with appropriate safeguards, people should be able to know whether a current or former partner has a history of serious or violent offending.
5. Establish a Royal Commission into domestic violence
We must understand why women and children continue to fall through the cracks of policing, courts, family law, child protection, health, housing and other systems. A Royal Commission can expose systemic failures and force the accountability and reform this crisis demands.
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