Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called a national cabinet meeting to address state, territory and federal responses to violence against women and children.
The announcement comes after an estimated 100,000 people across the country participated in the No More national rallies over the weekend, organised by Sarah Williams, the founder of advocacy group What Were You Wearing.
The Prime Minister made the announcement in an impromptu speech he gave at the rally in Canberra on Sunday.
After being heckled by members in the crowd, Albanese said he was proud to be there “saying we want violence against women and children to stop”.
“We are here today to demand that governments of all levels must do better, including my own, including every state and territory government,” Albanese said.
“We’re here as well to say that society and Australia must do better.”
The Prime Minister said the national cabinet, which will gather all state premiers and territory chief ministers to Canberra, will discuss “what we can do” to address the “national crisis” of violence against women.
According to Destroy the Joint’s Counting Dead Women, 27 women have been killed by male-perpetrated violence in 2024.
What’s the solution?
Katherine Berney is the director of the National Women’s Safety Alliance (NWSA). Her organisation has been working with the government and several ministerial offices to come up with a solution to the growing national crisis.
“It is a multifaceted approach—it has to be,” Berney said.
“There are definitive actions that can be taken to start a nationally consistent response to the crisis.”
The NWSA have five key outcomes they are advocating for to be addressed in the government’s response to violence against women in the national cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Firstly, the NWSA is calling for a national review of all domestic, family and sexual violence deaths while the accused is on bail or a domestic violence order (DVO). The NWSA said this review should be conducted by the Death Review Network “to understand the extent of the issue”.
The demand comes off the back of Molly Ticehurst’s murder last week, allegedly by her former partner Daniel Billings. He was released on bail at the time.
On top of that, the NWSA demand for “nationally consistent bail reform”, including the involvement of DFSV specialist services to provide risk assessment in the legal system “when assessing risk to victims”.
The NWSA also proposes for “nationally consistent high-risk perpetrator interventions” as well as “consistent information sharing” between police and organisations that provide DFV-related services.
Investigations of sexual assault complaints should also be conducted following “nationally consistent standards”, the NWSA said.
Finally, the NWSA are calling for legislated media standards in how the media reports on domestic, family and sexual violence. The NWSA said regulation on the media should fall in line with standards of mental health legislation.
What Were You Wearing’s five key demands
Sarah Williams is the founder of What Were You Wearing and the woman behind the dozen rallies that took place across the country over the weekend.
There were five demands that the organisation were calling to be addressed by the Albanese government, including media regulation, mandatory victim blaming prevention training and others.
In a statement on Instagram, Williams said she asked the government to commit to “any or all demands”, but received “no response”.
Williams also called out Albanese for “lying” to the protestors in Canberra: Albanese said he was denied the opportunity to speak at the event when he asked, but Williams said he “never asked to speak”.
“You walked to that stage and listed your achievements to try to save yourself,” Williams wrote on Instagram.
“The rallies were created because you aren’t doing enough.”