Working in the women’s safety sector can mean carrying a deep grief. It is the grief of watching preventable deaths quietly accepted as the cost of doing nothing. It is the grief of recognising the same patterns in every catastrophic outcome, as if repetition somehow makes it inevitable. It is the grief of knowing that the conditions that killed one woman will kill another, because we still have not changed the systems that produce the harm.
And right now, that grief is edged with fury.
The Guardian’s Broken Trust investigation has shown the rest of the country what the sector has been saying for years: women do not die because systems fail in unpredictable ways. They die because systems fail in predictable, patterned, preventable ways that reflect structural choices.
The text messages Hannah Clarke sent to police officers documenting escalating violence. The risk factors overlooked. The disclosures that never made it into the system. The officers who minimised danger or turned their cameras off. The internal reviews that focused more on reputational risk than accountability.
These are not tragic exceptions. They are symptoms of systems under-designed, under-resourced and under-supervised.
For many in the sector, the Broken Trust series has not been a surprise. Rather a horrific confirmation. That confirmation brings fury not at any one government, police station or minister, but at a deeper, more insidious reality:
Australia knows how to end gender-based violence. What we lack is the political will to make the fiscal decisions that match the scale of the crisis.
We have a federal government that has done something significant: it has named the crisis. That matters. Language matters. Acknowledgement matters. A record amount has been invested. National Cabinet has acted. The National Plan give us a clear blueprint.
But naming a crisis is not the same as funding an end to it.
Ending gender-based violence is not mysterious. It is not abstract. It is not conceptually complex. It is technically demanding, yes. But the evidence is robust, the modelling is done, and the solutions are not hypothetical.
We know what works. To name a few:
- Accountable policing with real oversight, trauma-informed training and consequences for coordinated failures.
- Aboriginal community-controlled services that keep women and children safe.
- Specialist sexual violence responses that don’t force survivors through 15 disconnected doors.
- Housing pathways that allow women to leave.
- Visa settings that don’t tie a woman’s life to the man abusing her.
- Child safety frameworks that are nationally consistent and appropriately enforced.
- Alcohol regulation that reduces known drivers of violence and treats prevention as public health.
These are not aspirational ideas. They are systems. Systems that either get built and funded or don’t.
And here is the uncomfortable truth:
Violence persists because governments across Australia consistently choose not to fund the scale of the solution.
It’s not about blame. It’s about honesty. Budgets are moral documents, and decades of incrementalism have brought us exactly where we are now: rising homicide rates, frontline services stretched to breaking, and families living inside gaps we already know how to close.
When a state government invests millions in policing youth crime but leaves specialist DFV responses underfunded, that is a fiscal choice.
When public housing stock stagnates while rent inflation drives women back to violent partners, that is a fiscal choice.
And when Aboriginal community-controlled organisations continue to receive short-term grants despite being the most effective in preventing violence, that is an ongoing fiscal choice.
We speak about gender-based violence as though it is cultural, amorphous, resistant to intervention. But the deeper truth the truth the sector sees every day is that violence is a policy outcome. It is the predictable result of systems built without the safety of women and children at their centre.
Which means it can be changed. Not by awareness-raising alone. Not by the annual cycle of outrage followed by dismay followed by silence. But by governments across the country making the fiscal decisions that reflect the real cost of safety.
That cost is significant. But the cost of inaction economic, social, generational is staggeringly higher.
The women’s safety sector is not asking for sentiment. We are not asking for symbolic gestures. We are asking for governments to fund the solutions they already know will work the solutions they have commissioned, piloted, evaluated, and endorsed.
We are asking for systems capable of implementing what the evidence already proves.
During the 16 Days of Activism, Australia will once again light buildings orange and recommit itself to ending violence. And those gestures matter but only if they are matched by the budgets and political will required to build the systems women and children need.
The Broken Trust series has shown us the consequences of the choices we’ve made so far. The question now is whether we will keep choosing to fund the crisis or finally choose to fund the solution.
For those of us in the sector, the grief lies in how long the answer has been deferred. The fury lies in knowing it does not have to be.
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 000.
If you need help and advice call 1800 Respect on 1800 737 732, Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.