“@MFWitches “How in the goddamn flying fuck do we live in a country where the murders of 15 people from one racial/religious group ONCE requires both a Royal Commission AND the deployment of the army but the murders of 80 women EVERY YEAR since time immemorial fucking doesn’t??”

Authors: Andrew Klein, PhD

Date:30 December 2025

The scope of this article is limited but it expresses the frustrations experienced by the author Andrew Klein who has witnessed the failures of a broken system for many years. 

This is not hypothetical to the author who has assisted victims and survivors for many years and has encountered failures more often than he would like to remember. 

This article is in response to an ‘ X’ post by @MFWitches. 

The material was already at hand from previous research and reports. 

Introduction: The Hierarchy of Grief and Political Capital

The anguished social media post poses a foundational question about Australia’s hierarchy of crisis response: Why does certain violence trigger immediate, maximalist state intervention (a Royal Commission, army deployment), while the endemic, predictable murder of approximately one woman per week by an intimate partner elicits a perpetual cycle of condemnation, limited funding announcements, and bureaucratic inertia?

This analysis posits that the disparity is not an oversight but a outcome of systemic calculus. A genuine, uncompromising response to gendered violence would require confronting the failures of core public policy realms—housing, economic security, mental health, and justice—and exposing the neoliberal model that privatizes risk and profitizes care. The current system prefers a managed, piecemeal approach: funding a fragmented network of under-resourced services that act as pressure valves, providing the appearance of action while insulating the state from the political and economic cost of substantive change.

Part I: The Scale of the Crisis Versus the Scale of the Response

The Statistical Reality:

· Fatal Violence: The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) and data from the Australian Femicide Watch show that, on average, one woman is killed by an intimate partner every nine days. In 2022-23, 64 women were killed by violence. This is a persistent, national emergency.

· Non-Fatal Violence: 1 in 4 women has experienced intimate partner violence since age 15. In the 2021-22 period, over 170,000 women were assisted by specialist homelessness services due to domestic violence.

The Institutional Response: A History of Inquiries and Incrementalism

Australia has not lacked for reports. Seminal inquiries include:

· 1991: National Committee on Violence Against Women.

· 2010: Time for Action report by the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children.

· 2015-16: Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence (a state-level exception proving the national rule).

· 2022: House of Representatives Inquiry into family, domestic, and sexual violence.

These reports consistently identify the same systemic gaps: lack of affordable housing, inadequate funding for frontline services, a complex and traumatising legal system, and the need for primary prevention. The response is typically a subset of recommendations adopted, often with inadequate, short-term funding attached.

Part II: The Architecture of Failure: How Systems Perpetuate the Crisis

1. The Service Sector: A Fractured “Band-Aid” Economy

The hypothesis of a “band-aid” economy is substantiated by funding models and service realities.

· Competitive, Short-Term Grants: Frontline services operate on 1-3 year funding cycles, forcing them to perpetually re-apply for existence. This consumes administrative resources, creates instability for staff and clients, and prevents long-term planning. As the CEO of a leading service stated, “We are constantly proving our worth instead of doing our work.”

· The “Glossy Page” Phenomenon: Government directories list thousands of services. However, mapping by researchers reveals “service deserts,” particularly in regional, rural, and peri-urban areas. Many listed services are generalist (e.g., a community legal centre) with one overworked DV specialist, or are effectively referral portals with no capacity for direct intervention. The appearance of coverage masks critical gaps.

· The Gatekeeper Model: We identified, the pathway to safety is often mediated by “gatekeepers.” A woman may need to navigate police, a general practitioner, a social worker from a hospital, a Centrelink worker, and a legal aid lawyer—all before securing a bed in a refuge. Each point can be a barrier due to lack of training, systemic bias, or sheer overload. The “No Wrong Door” policy is an aspirational ideal, not a reality.

2. The Policy Drivers: Profiting from Desperation

· Housing as the Ultimate Barrier: The single greatest need for women fleeing violence is safe, affordable, long-term housing. The systematic defunding of social housing and the financialisation of the housing market have created a catastrophic shortage. Women are forced to choose between violence and homelessness. Private refuges and transitional housing models often involve transferring public funds to private or community housing providers, creating a lucrative sector built on crisis without solving the foundational shortage.

· The Liquor Economy: The question about bottle shops is acute. Multiple state-level studies, including Western Australian and Northern Territory crime data, show strong correlations between liquor outlet density and rates of domestic violence assaults and hospitalisations. State governments rely on gambling and liquor taxes for revenue, creating a perverse incentive to approve outlets despite clear public health and safety harms. Addressing this would require confronting powerful retail and hospitality lobbies and forfeiting revenue.

· Policing as the Default First Responder: Police are ill-equipped to solve chronic social problems rooted in poverty, mental health, and intergenerational trauma. Their tools are crisis intervention and law enforcement, not social work. Diverting resources to specialist, co-responsive teams (e.g., social workers paired with police) has shown promise but remains a pilot project in limited jurisdictions, not standard practice. The criminal justice system is a blunt, post-traumatic instrument.

3. The Financial Flows: Following the Money

· ATO and Grant Data: Analysis of Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) data and federal grant disclosures reveals a complex ecosystem. While major, reputable service providers deliver critical work, a significant portion of funding is absorbed by:

  · Consultancy Firms: Hired to design strategies, conduct evaluations, and run “awareness campaigns.”

  · Peak Bodies and Lobby Groups: Necessary for advocacy, but their funding sometimes dwarfs that of frontline refuges.

  · “Innovation” Pilots: Politically attractive short-term projects that rarely transition to core, ongoing funding.

· The “Advocacy Economy”: As noted, a class of professionals—lobbyists, corporate diversity advisors, high-profile ambassadors—has emerged. Their careers are built on the discourse of solving the problem, creating a potential conflict of interest where the perpetuity of the crisis ensures their relevance and income. This is not to impugn individual dedication, but to highlight a systemic dynamic where political and social capital is accrued by association with the issue, divorced from outcomes for victims.

Part III: The Political Calculus: Why a Royal Commission is Feared

A Royal Commission into gendered violence, with a broad terms of reference, would act as a forensic audit of the Australian state. It would compellingly demonstrate:

1. The Direct Cost: The $26.7 billion annual economic cost (as estimated by KPMG) of violence against women, encompassing healthcare, justice, and lost productivity.

2. The Policy Causation: How housing policy, welfare conditionality (e.g., ParentsNext, mutual obligations), family law delays, and inadequate legal aid directly trap women in violent situations.

3. The Funding Churn: How money is cycled through layers of administration and ephemeral projects instead of going to core, enduring solutions: more social housing, properly funded 24/7 crisis lines, and well-paid, permanent frontline workers.

4. The Institutional Bias: How systems—police, courts, child protection—often inadvertently re-traumatise victims and fail to hold perpetrators accountable.

Such a commission would be an admission that the market-based, outsourcing model of social service delivery has failed in its most fundamental duty: to keep citizens safe in their own homes. It would indict not a single government, but a decades-long, bipartisan political consensus.

Conclusion: Beyond Condemnation to Consequence

The murder of women is not a “women’s issue.” It is the most acute symptom of a social contract in distress. The band-aid economy exists because it is politically safer and economically preferable (for some) to manage the visible symptoms than to cure the disease. Curing the disease means re-regulating the housing market, de-commercialising essential services, raising taxes to fund universal support, and dismantling the structures of patriarchal power—all actions antithetical to the dominant neoliberal orthodoxy.

The question is not one of awareness, but of political will and courage. Until the cost of inaction—measured in lives, trauma, and social disintegration—outweighs the political and economic cost of transformative change, the band-aids will keep being applied, the glossy reports will be written, and the national shame will continue, one woman, every nine days.

References

1. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). (2023). Family, domestic and sexual violence data.

2. Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS). (2023). The prevalence of domestic violence.

3. Victorian Government. (2016). Royal Commission into Family Violence: Summary and recommendations.

4. Parliament of Australia. (2022). Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence.

5. KPMG. (2023). The economic cost of violence against women and their children in Australia.

6. Service Delivery & Funding:

   · Women’s Safety NSW. (2024). The State of the Sector Report.

   · Homelessness Australia. (2023). Fact Sheet: Domestic and family violence.

   · Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) Annual Information Statements for major DV service providers.

7. Policy Drivers:

   · Housing: Grattan Institute. (2023). The housing crisis and its impact on vulnerable women.

   · Alcohol: Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE). (2022). The alcohol toll in Australia: Domestic violence.

   · Policing: Journal article: “Co-responding police and social work models: A review of the evidence.” (2023).

8. Coronial & Legal Data:

   · National Coronial Information System (NCIS) data on domestic violence homicides.

   · Australian Law Reform Commission. (2019). Family Law for the Future.

9. Media & Public Discourse:

   · Our Watch analysis of media reporting on violence against women.

   · Select Hansard transcripts from parliamentary debates on DV funding (2015-2024).

10. Economic Analysis:

    · Per Capita. (2024). Who benefits? Mapping the financial flows of the domestic violence service system.

    · Federal Budget Papers: Analysis of line items for “Women’s Safety” under the Departments of Social Services and Attorney-General.