Despite decades of reform, gendered violence remains pervasive in Australia. It continues to claim lives, devastate families and harm communities. Every woman murdered is a reminder that primary prevention cannot remain an aspiration – it must become a national priority. Australia has a strong and growing evidence base on what works to prevent gendered violence. The challenge is no longer understanding what drives gendered violence or what prevents it, but ensuring this evidence is translated into coordinated, sustained action at the scale required to achieve population-level change.
Throughout this submission, Respect Victoria has identified practical opportunities to ensure the Second Action Plan is robust, impactful and aligned to the primary prevention evidence base. We underscore that the next phase of national leadership to end violence against women and children must remain firmly grounded in the evidence base and orient action toward addressing the gendered drivers of violence. Primary prevention must remain a distinct and dedicated pillar of the Second Action Plan, and our submission identifies a number of recommendations to strengthen the systems, leadership, partnerships and long-term investment that will enable it to be implemented consistently and effectively across the family violence continuum. At the same time, the Second Action Plan presents an opportunity to better harness the full breadth of the Commonwealth Government’s role in ending gendered violence by embedding primary prevention across broader policy, legislative, regulatory and funding reforms, ensuring it becomes a shared responsibility across all portfolios.
As we approach the final five years under the current National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032, the decisions we make now will determine whether Australia has the foundations, coordination and sustained commitment needed to achieve its vision of ending violence against women and children. We cannot afford to lose momentum or overlook the significant opportunity to build on the evidence, infrastructure, partnerships and reform already established.
Realising this ambition will requires Commonwealth, state and territory, and local government to work in genuine partnership with researchers, specialist prevention organisations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations, practitioners, victim-survivors, people with lived and living experiences, philanthropy, the private sector and communities across Australia. It will require a shared commitment to learning from the evidence, investing for the long term and continuously strengthening our collective efforts.
The opportunity before us is significant. By acting now to strengthen Australia’s primary prevention system, embed primary prevention across every setting and maintain a clear focus on the evidence, the Second Action Plan can help deliver the lasting social change needed to stop violence before it starts and move Australia closer to its shared ambition of ending violence against women and children within a generation.