We are not even halfway through 2026, and already, twenty-nine women and nine children have been killed as a result of gender-based violence in Australia. By the time you read this, that number will almost certainly be higher.
Every time there is a spate of murders, governments express heartbreak and promise action. But political will and institutional culture remain primary barriers to change—no one knows this better than the survivors who have spent years trying to change the system.
This week, a peer-reviewed article I co-authored was published in the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, drawing on interviews with survivor advocates and activists from First Nations, culturally and racially marginalised, LGBTQI+ and disability communities—the people most marginalised by existing systems and most excluded from decisions that affect them most. I nearly did not finish it. After my PhD, I had to work, lost both of my parents, and began to address the trauma of my own victimisation.
Two things brought me back. First, Commissioner for Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Micaela Cronin wrote in her 2025 report to Parliament: “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, people living with disabilities, LGBTIQA+SB communities and multicultural communities have been developing sophisticated responses to violence for generations. Yet they remain largely excluded from decision-making at critical points.” Second: survivors telling me, with barely contained frustration, that nothing had changed.
I finished the article. The people I interviewed are clear about what needs to change: a fundamental shift in political culture and genuine respect for survivor expertise; immediate, adequate, flexible material support for survivors; a shift from fixing victims to stopping perpetration; more comprehensive and inclusive data; and the transfer of resources and decision-making authority to communities—particularly First Nations communities. This is what they told me, in their own words.
Tarang Chawla, whose sister Nikita was murdered by her husband in 2015, identified a fundamental deficit of respect from the Federal Government at the time of interview as the primary barrier to meaningful change:
“At a federal level, I think that we’re living in a country now where there is just a sheer disregard for the issues of violence against women. There is some political rhetoric as and when it’s required … but … there is a fundamental lack of understanding about the lived experience of survivors … What needs to shift is some semblance of respect for victim survivors.”
Lula Dembele, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and domestic violence, called for a shift away from fixing survivors and toward stopping perpetration:
“Victims are not the problem. Stop trying to fix victims … Help victims recover, but know the victims aren’t the problem we’re trying to fix. Look at perpetration, look at why that happens. Stop perpetrators, stop perpetration from happening and then you don’t have victims to fix.”
Russell Vickery, a gay man with experience of family violence, raised the problem of data invisibility. Had he died due to family violence, he would not have been recorded as a victim because same-sex relationships are not recognised within dominant recording frameworks: “If we don’t have the data, people are sitting there going, ‘Well, it’s not that bad.'”
Nina, a survivor, called for immediate, flexible financial and housing support, from crisis to recovery, that recognises the diversity of survivors’ circumstances:
“A woman needs to be given a lump sum of money and continually paid until that period of recovery has taken place, so she can find housing … we just can’t do a one-size-fits-all, and women need to be given back power and supported to make those decisions.”
Deborah Thomson, a survivor with an acquired brain injury resulting from abuse, pointed to the gap between government announcements and action:
“Over and over and over we’re having inquiries where recommendations are made, but they’re just dismissed … It’s almost as if they’re thinking, ‘Oh, that’ll shut the public up for a while.'”
Fiona Hamilton, a Trawlwulwuy woman from northeast Tasmania, offered the most far-reaching vision of all:
“I would just like to see people leave us alone and give us the resources unfettered, to be able to grow self-paced solutions at the community level … White people do not need to scope that for us, or tell us what that looks like, or put in place performance indicators, or reporting, because the only two measures that you need to hear is, is the Aboriginal community in that area happy with what’s going on? And are the rates of violence reducing? Two indicators. Very simple.”
These are not radical demands. As Commissioner Cronin has said, this is not about giving people a voice. They already have one. It is about those in power choosing to listen and then acting on what they hear.
Last week, after prosecutors dropped a manslaughter charge against the man accused of killing her daughter, Isla Bell, Justine Spokes asked Prime Minister Albanese: “What are you so afraid of? Living in a society that protects and respects its women and children is a baseline standard and expectation of our communities.”
It is well and truly time we meet it.
This is an edited extract from ‘Screaming Underwater: Survivor Activism, Co-production and the Limits of Formal Engagement in Gender-Based Violence Policy’ by Lisa Wheildon, Asher Flynn and Abby Wild, published in the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0). The full article will be available at https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/article/view/233
The survivors quoted in this piece are named with their full informed consent. All participants were given the opportunity to review how their contributions would be represented in publications arising from the research, and all chose to be identified by name.