Recommendation 163

Women and children in Australia have the right to feel safe and live without fear of violence.

The National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-22 (National Plan) is a 12 year plan that aims to reduce violence against women and their children. The National Plan was released in February 2011 and is being delivered through four three-year action Plans. The National Plan provides a mechanism to drive effort and make investment in reducing domestic, family and sexual violence.

In October 2016, the Australian Government launched the Third Action Plan of the National Plan. The Third Action Plan is supported by a $100 million investment that builds on the $100 million Women's Safety Package (WSP) announced in September 2015. This investment is in addition to funding of $25 million a year that underpins the 12 year National Plan.

The WSP provided funding for the Australian Government to collaborate with states and territories to trial innovative technology that could keep women safe and hold perpetrators to account. For more information about these trials, visit the Council on Federal Financial Relations website.

The Third Action Plan 2016-2019 of the National Plan sets out 36 practical actions, across six National Priority areas. The sixth priority of the Third Action Plan is keeping perpetrators accountable across all systems, by improving targeted perpetrator interventions, including police, courts, corrections, child protection, legal services and support, behaviour change programs, offender programs and clinical services. Key national actions include:

• Implementing the National Outcome Standards for Perpetrator Interventions.
• Strengthening the evidence base to improve outcomes from perpetrator interventions.
• Improving mechanisms to refer perpetrators to appropriate interventions early, based on individual risk factors.
• Progressively designing, trialling and evaluating innovative models of perpetrator interventions across community and correctional settings to understand what works for different groups.

The Australian Government is working alongside state and territory governments and the community sector on the National Framework for Protecting Australia's Children 2009‑2020. The framework is a long term national approach to ensuring the safety and well-being of Australia's children and aims to deliver a substantial and sustained reduction in levels of child abuse and neglect over time.
States and territories are responsible for investigating incidents of violence against women and children and bringing perpetrators to justice. All states and territories regularly review their systems in an attempt to improve allocation of resources and appropriate responses to violence against women and children. For example, all states and territories have enacted legislation under the National Domestic Violence Order Scheme, to ensure that domestic violence orders issued in any state or territory will be enforceable and applicable in any other state or territory.

The Australian Government will continue to implement measures to support women and girls with disabilities, those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and Indigenous women.

For information about state and territory policies and programmes related to domestic and family violence, visit:

• Australian Capital Territory – Community Services Directorate
• New South Wales – Domestic Violence
• Northern Territory – Territory Families
• Queensland – Queensland Government
• South Australia – Office for Women
• Tasmania – Department of Premier and Cabinet – Safe Homes, Safe Families
• Victoria – Department of Human Services
• Western Australia – Department for Child Protection and Family Support

For information about state and territory policies and programmes related to children, visit:

• Australian Capital Territory – Community Services Directorate
• New South Wales – Department of Health and Office of the Children's Guardian
• Northern Territory – Territory Families
• Queensland – Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services
• South Australia – Department for Communities and Social Inclusion
• Tasmania – Department for Child Protection
• Victoria – Department of Human Services
• Western Australia – Department for Child Protection and Family Support