Contents Part executive Summary 8

National responses to domestic violence and cooperative federalism

The requirement for States to work together is paramount when issues of community safety are at stake. For example, if Domestic Violence Orders are not recognised across states and territories the safety of vulnerable people is compromised. To this end, the Commonwealth Government has developed a National Plan and a CoAG Advisory Panel with a mandate to work towards a national approach to domestic violence. These high level strategies acknowledge that cooperative federalism is necessary for a coherent system of domestic violence protection and prevention. In April 2016, the CoAG Advisory Panel on Reducing Violence against Women published a Final Report with 28 recommendations for CoAG consideration.¹³

The Panel recommended that all governments adopt a common approach to achieve generational and lasting change. Some of its key recommendations include:

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  Responses must focus on empowering women and their children to make informed choices;
  
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  Children and young people must be recognised as victims of violence against women;
  
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  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities need trauma informed responses; and
  
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  Integrated responses are required to keep women and their children safe.¹⁴
  

In order to ensure these recommendations are underpinned by empirical evidence, all Australian governments will need to commit to domestic and family violence death review.

1. National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022

The Commonwealth Government has made commitments to share information across jurisdictions and act on information from domestic violence death review.

The current agenda of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022 (National Plan) through the Second Action Plan 2013-2016 Moving Ahead (Second Action Plan), include 26 practical actions that ‘are designed to drive national improvements’. Action 19 requires the sharing of information through domestic and family violence-death review.

Domestic homicide reviews identify the sequence of events leading to domestic violence related deaths. The learnings from these reviews can be used to identify possible gaps in system responses to develop more effective interventions.

Under the Second Action Plan, jurisdictions will share information and good practice from domestic homicide and child death reviews, and other review mechanisms. This will enhance review processes and drive improvements to the way Commonwealth, state and territory systems work together to identify and respond to women experiencing violence and, ultimately, prevent domestic violence homicides.¹⁵

The Second Action Plan sets out 5 National Priorities to respond to domestic and family violence.¹⁶ Priority 3 requires the development of ‘integrated’ service systems and Priority 5 requires the building of an ‘evidence base’. Action to expand the death review function to all Australian jurisdictions and to collecting and monitoring death review information nationally will assist in realising Priorities 3 and 5.

The Third Action Plan 2016 – 2019 (Third Action Plan) builds on the work undertaken through the Second Action Plan. It recognises that:

For the National Plan to be successful in achieving its long term target, a solid national evidence base is required.¹⁷

The Third Action Plan records that the:

Work on the National Data Collection and Reporting Framework will be progressed further under the Third Action Plan, along with work begun under the Second Action Plan to improve systems that support reviews of domestic and family violence related deaths and child deaths. This work will be progressed by the Australian Human Rights Commission, which will consult states and territories to scope the development of data collection protocols and a proposed national data collection mechanism.¹⁸

The continuing building of an evidence base will link with, and be informed by, work underway as part of the research agenda of the National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children.¹⁹

(c)The CoAG Advisory Panel on Reducing Violence against Women

Commonwealth, state and territory governments are engaged in high-level activity to address domestic violence through the Council of Australian Governments (CoAG).

At its 39^th meeting in April 2015, CoAG agreed to a national Domestic Violence Order Scheme, where domestic violence orders will be automatically recognised and enforceable in any state or territory of Australia. As part of this agreement, CoAG agreed to consider strategies to tackle the increased use of technology to facilitate abuse against women.

Death review reports and data provide important inputs into the development of prevention strategies, including initiatives related to the use of technology or the functionality of the domestic violence order system.

7. Funding domestic violence death review

Death review in Australian states is funded by state governments. Jurisdictions without the death review function have indicated that they require resources to establish the function.

Newly established Death Review Teams would also require support in developing systems to collect appropriate data based on the Homicide Consensus Statement and the National Data Collection Protocol.²⁰

Members of the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network have agreed to provide training to new Death Review Teams. The Network would need to be resourced to do this work as it will take them away from their jurisdictional responsibilities.

The Commonwealth Government should also consider establishment of a federal mechanism to collect and collate national data, and to monitor recommendations made to federal agencies. It has the responsibility to support and resource this function and to make decisions about how it would be undertaken and by whom.

In the interests of commencing a national approach to domestic and family violence death review, it is recommended that all jurisdictions agree to collect data for a National Minimum Dataset²¹ as soon as possible. It is also recommended that CoAG consider funding options to establish data collections in jurisdictions without the death review function.

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