Election report card: Where do the major parties stand on addressing violence against women?
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This is the story of four major political parties’ commitment to ending violence against women (VAW).
The Australian Labor Party (ALP) has costed its manifesto promises; the Australian Greens (the Greens) and the National Party of Australia (the Nationals) have made promises, but not costed them; and the Liberal Party of Australia (the Liberals) has promised little, and costed even less.
The ‘Teal’ independents are not a political party with a manifesto so we can’t easily evaluate their commitments; though Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Victoria), has asked why the major parties are not talking about VAW in this election campaign: “We have a national plan that needs to be adequately funded.”
Eliminating VAW is a national priority. One in five women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15, and one in three report having experienced physical violence. Last year alone, there were 37 women murdered by their intimate partner. These figures are devastating. But sadly, not unusual in Australia (or other parts of the world, for that matter). Driving down these figures should be a priority for national political parties and leaders.
After the surge of public interest in combating VAW, including the development of a National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children over the next decade, we might expect that VAW would feature in political parties’ promises during the upcoming election.
So, we sought to find out what the commitments of each major party are to end VAW in the lead up to 3 May, 2025 to see if those expectations are born out. We searched for any policies mentioning VAW included in the current election plans for each political party, as well as exploring party websites and media releases.
International Conference on Women, Peace and Security 2024: Forging Collaboration and Convergence for Advancing Women, Peace and Security
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Professor Sara Davies, CEVAW Deputy Director (Indo-Pacific Research), travelled to the Philippines to speak at the International Conference on Women, Peace, and Security.
Organised by the Philippine government in partnership with UN Women, the Philippine Centre for Islam and Democracy, and the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, the event drew over 700 attendees, including high-level government delegates from more than 100 countries.
The conference served as an international stocktaking on the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda ahead of the 25th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325), aiming to build collaborative strategies to enhance women’s participation in peacebuilding and security.
Prof Sara Davies was invited to speak on Day 2 at the Thematic Session: National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security: From Vision to Reality with Miki Jacevic (Inclusive Security), Tess Phippen (UK FCO), Dwi Rubiyanti Kholifah (Asian Muslim Action Network Indonesia) and Jasmin Nario Galace (Global Network of Women Peacebuilders). Sara Davies was also invited to attend and speak at the 2nd Knowledge Exchange between ASEAN Women for Peace Registry and the Australian Coalition for Women Peace and Security on women’s equal and meaningful participation in climate security and disaster response, which was organized by The Asia Foundation, with the support of Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, both partner organisations of CEVAW.
‘A safe place to call home’: The tireless effort to keep domestic violence survivors out of homelessness
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Family and domestic violence (FDV) has reached crisis levels in Australia, with a woman killed every 11 days by an intimate partner on average in 2022–23, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
Can religion help prevent domestic violence?
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Domestic violence is a whole-of-society problem. But how are faith communities dealing with the current crisis?
Nationally, the rate of intimate partner homicide is getting worse, not better. So can religions be an ally in preventing violence and making changes to attitudes on marriage, divorce and gender roles?
Victorian teachers also victims of fake explicit images created by students using AI
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New laws not tough enough, says expert
Asher Flynn, an associate professor of criminology at Monash University, said deepfake pornographic images normalise the sexualisation of women and children without consent and more needed to be done.
“I think it sends a really negative message around women’s worth and particularly young girls’ worth,” she said.
“It essentially means that they are just there for the pleasure and sexual gratification of other men.”
She said the government’s proposal to introduce laws that would make sharing non-consensual deepfake pornography a criminal offence did not go far enough.
“I do feel like the laws could have gone further to also think about how we can place more onus on the people who are creating these types of tools for people to use, for example expanding the powers of the e-Safety commissioner and expanding the recourses available to [them],” she said.
“What we do need to see is much more recognition and onus on tech providers, the tech developers and also the social media platforms and websites.”
These new laws only cover images created of people over the age of 18. Child exploitation material, like in the case of Bacchus Marsh, is dealt with separately.
Ms Martin agreed that more needed to be done but acknowledged it would be difficult given the nature of AI.
“This is a global issue and there is only so much that Australia can do because they are dealing with perpetrators who can reside halfway around the world,” she said.
“The question is how effective will these laws be for Australians?”
She said it would ultimately come down to how law enforcement police the issue and how seriously it is taken in the courts.
What is Australia doing to address violence against women?
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Our CEVAW Chief Investigators have come together to express their views on Australia’s current responses to violence against women, and the importance of incorporating evidence-based research and solutions, including on Indigenous experiences.
20 years on from the ‘Australia says No’ DV campaign, what’s changed?
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It’s been 20 years since the ‘Violence against women, Australia says No’ campaign launched. Yet Australian society is still plagued by domestic violence. Here’s what’s being done.
New laws on non-consensual distribution and creation of sexualised deepfakes
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The Australian government has just announced that it will introduce federal laws to criminalise the non-consensual distribution and creation of sexualised deep fake imagery of adults, which according to CEVAW Chief Investigator, Assoc/Prof Asher Flynn, will address a major legal gap in Australia, where the creation of a sexualised deepfake image is currently only illegal in the State of Victoria.Assoc/Prof Flynn spoke to The Project on the impact of these new laws.
First Nations women at forefront of talks on gendered violence crisis
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The disproportionate number of First Nations women affected by violence is at the forefront of roundtable talks in Canberra, where the country’s gendered violence experts, service directors and survivor advocates have gathered. The Tuesday national roundtable, called by Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin, focused on the rates of Australian women dying as a result of violence, particularly women who are murdered, missing, or have died by suicide following violence.