Today in Parliament, Abigail contributed to a debate stressing that without proper funding, training and prevention measures, law-and-order responses alone cannot end the escalating domestic violence crisis.

Abigail said:

On behalf of The Greens I contribute to debate on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences) Bill 2025 as The Greens spokesperson for gendered violence and abuse. I recognise the families and loved ones of victims of intimate partner homicide who have been advocating for change to end violence against women and children and hold perpetrators to account. It is largely thanks to their passionate advocacy that we have seen such a major swell of public momentum in the past few years, with more and more people calling for urgent government action and investment to prevent gendered violence before it begins. I also acknowledge and thank Domestic Violence NSW and the rest of the expert domestic and family violence sector for their relentless advocacy and work in driving that momentum and pushing for change.

I acknowledge that, for the families and friends whose loved ones have been killed by a former or current intimate partner, the bill is deeply significant in recognising the devastating nature and widespread impact of that crime. I also note that many in the domestic violence sector have welcomed this reform. It is so important that we honour the lives lost and use our voices and power to recommit to fighting to eliminate violence in all its forms. Finally, I acknowledge the grave reality that we have an incredibly long way to go in preventing and eliminating intimate partner violence, not to mention domestic and family violence more broadly.

I turn to the contents of the bill. The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences) Bill 2025 seeks to lift the standard non-parole period for the murder of a current or former intimate partner to 25 years, which would make New South Wales the first jurisdiction in Australia to legislate a specific non-parole period for intimate partner homicide. Currently, 25 years is the highest standard non-parole period available in New South Wales, in place for two offences: the murder of a child under 18 years of age and the murder of public officials in the course of their duties.

Intimate partner homicide is currently subject to a standard non-parole period of 20 years, which applies for murder in other cases. Schedule 3 [1] amends the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 to make that change. I note those provisions do not extend to domestic violence homicides where the offender had another form of domestic relationship with the victim. Intimate partner homicide is the most common form of domestic and family violence homicide, with women being the victims in the overwhelming majority of murders. Intimate partner homicide rarely occurs without warning and is almost always accompanied by identifiable risk factors and ongoing abuse. By properly understanding those risk factors and the complex realities of the systems underpinning intimate partner abuse, we can begin to prevent this crime from happening and keep women safe.

The Greens firmly believe in safeguarding judicial discretion and the independence of the judiciary. In the context of sentencing and bail, judicial discretion in each case is fundamental to our criminal justice system. Balancing that with holding perpetrators of violence to account is nuanced, especially in cases involving the murder of a victim by their former or current intimate partner, which is almost always categorised by ongoing and patterned abuse and control by the perpetrator. That is why we urgently need far greater training across all levels of the judiciary to recognise the complex realities of domestic and family abuse and the gendered drivers behind violence. I call on the Government to properly invest in such training and education and ensure the implementation of the increased standard non-parole period is thoroughly and closely monitored on the ground within the judicial process.

Turning to the other provisions in the bill, schedule 1 [1] amends the Crimes Act 1900 to clarify that prosecutions for sexual offences under that section involving victims with a cognitive impairment may be commenced with the approval of either the Attorney General or the DPP. That power is already currently delegated to the DPP, and the provision seeks to streamline the prosecution approval process by legislating those arrangements. Schedule 1 [2] amends the Crimes Act 1900 to makes the same change in respect of approvals of prosecutions for incest and attempted incest offences, for the same reasons. Schedule 2 amends the definition of personal violence offence in the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 to include the additional offences from the Crimes Act 1900, including assault causing death, injuries to child at time of birth, offence of causing loss of a foetus and offence of causing loss of a foetus (death of pregnant woman), sexual offences involving a person with a cognitive impairment, and incest attempts.

Legislating to ensure those offences are treated as personal violence offences means they may be taken into account when considering an application for an apprehended violence order or apprehended domestic violence order. It also creates consistency with other similar offences that are already included in the definition of personal violence offence. When considering those minor amendments, which make small procedural and administrative changes to the criminal justice process for domestic, family and sexual violence, it is impossible to ignore the broader context. We are facing a domestic and family violence crisis. Last year marked 50 years of the domestic and family violence sector's existence in Australia, which was a grave reminder of just how far we have to go in ending violence against women and children.

For decades, the number of women and children affected by domestic and family violence has grown at alarming rates, with more women and children tragically killed every year. For decades victim-survivors, communities and experts have pleaded with successive governments to step up and act to prevent those entirely preventable deaths. Violence against women and children is not inevitable and it is preventable. The pleas from victim-survivors and experts have been crystal clear for decades. If we are to begin to turn this crisis around, we must finally address the drivers of gendered violence and properly invest in the evidence-based services and programs that we know keep women and children safe, and prevent violence before it happens.

The Minister began her second reading speech by hailing the bill as "another step our Government is taking to support victim-survivors and their families, and to combat domestic and family violence". The Minister went on to canvass the suite of law and justice reforms that the Minns Labor Government has passed in the past year, and the "significant investments of over $272.7 million over four years in the 2025-26 budget". As I said in this place back in June, looking at the announceables in the 2025-26 budget, one might think that the Minns Labor Government was actually doing something to tackle domestic and family violence in our State. But as we peeled back the spin, the budget had no new investment in existing frontline domestic and family violence services—despite those services being pivotal and irreplaceable in preventing and responding to violence—and mere crumbs for initiatives and programs that have gone underfunded for years.

According to Domestic Violence NSW, in the 12 months following the Minns Labor Government's so‑called emergency funding package, 94 per cent of New South Wales frontline services reported an increase in demand. Some services are operating at over 600 per cent of their funded capacity, and victim-survivors are waiting on average two months to receive support, with some waitlists stretching for months on end. Let us think about victim-survivors finally taking that step to leave an abusive relationship and find help, only to find that they have to wait another two months before a service is available to help them. Then we wonder why women and children are still being murdered. Those services daily make the difference between life and death, impacting whether someone who has made the decision to leave their partner will reach safety and stay safe in the following months and years, which we know is the riskiest time for domestic homicides.

Every day, we hear from more frontline services that are collapsing under the weight of demand, struggling to stay afloat because the alternative is turning away women and children who have escaped violence and are seeking safety and support. Yet every day the New South Wales Government continues to starve those services of the funding they desperately need. The Greens have consistently backed calls from countless experts, victim‑survivors and dedicated specialist frontline workers who have categorically called for a significant and permanent increase in baseline funding for existing frontline services. Yet the Minns Labor Government provides everything that it was not asked for as its number one priority. It does my head in as to why it will not take the very simple measure of funding the services and programs that we know will keep women and children safe.

We would not need to have a discussion about mandatory sentencing and bail provisions in relation to domestic violence perpetrators if they had not committed the crime in the first place. The way we stop them committing the crime in the first place is to give victim-survivors access to services. Eliminating and preventing violence against women and children will not be achieved through empty words and platitudes by governments, nor will it be achieved through strategies and programs starved of the funding needed to deliver them. Again, I urge the Government to look beyond the current agenda of primarily law and order measures—which I am sure cost a lot less than the required preventative work—and to properly invest in the evidence-based whole-of-system reforms that we know will turn the crisis around.

I note some of the media today in relation to the latest round of Operation Amarok arrests, commonly known as the domestic violence offender blitzes that the police carry out. I do not think anyone is opposed to domestic violence perpetrators being rounded up and arrested. However, domestic violence services point out what that means for them. In today's ABC article, Domestic Violence NSW senior policy and advocacy officer Livia Stanton says that while police operations are important, they trigger "additional demand that underfunded services struggle to absorb". She says:

Don't get me wrong, it's really important that we have this response because it signals not only to victim-survivors but also to perpetrators the seriousness of this and how serious law enforcement takes domestic and family violence.

But she goes on to say that when police enforcement ramps up, specialist domestic violence services have to brace for the influx of referrals. She says:

After police intervene, it's the domestic and family violence workers who manage the ongoing risk, safety, planning and support.

She goes on to talk about how, in the past few pre-budget submissions, the sector called for a 50 per cent core funding increase. She said that frontline services were operating at above 150 per cent of their funded capacity, particularly regional services. She says:

A stronger police response must be matched with a properly funded specialist, domestic and family violence sector.

That call was echoed by Full Stop Australia chief executive Karen Bevan, who talks about seeing an increase on the Full Stop national helpline, saying that it can only manage so much because it does not receive any government funding. She says:

What we need is to make sure that every time someone reaches out, the system is there to catch them to say, "We believe you, we support you and you're not alone".

I have had the pleasure of visiting many domestic violence services, particularly in regional towns, where I spoke with some incredible workers who are exhausted. COVID was bad enough, and then they have spent so many years of underfunding that they find themselves in what is an inherently traumatic job. For example, I visited a team in Tamworth, which has a massive area that they need to cover. A lot of that area does not have very good phone connections, and they need to drive to regional towns an hour and a half or more away to check on the women and families they are looking after. It is incredibly difficult for them to get here, there and everywhere.

We were talking about the impact on workers' mental health when dealing with traumatic incidents over and over. Because services are so underfunded by Government, those workers cannot even take a respite day. They might have seen many beaten and abused women and children, or someone that they were looking after might even have been killed by their partner, and they were not able to save them. Then they feel that they cannot take a respite day. They are so concerned that their other clients will fall through the cracks because there is nobody else to support them.

We now have an excellent raft of reforms put in place by SafeWork that try to make sure there are psychologically safe workplaces across the State, which is fantastic. But in places where there is under-resourcing, understaffing and staff who really care about their job and what happens if they are not there, it is incredibly hard, in the case of staff who run a domestic violence service, for instance, to say, "Best practice is that, because you've had a terrible time, you now need to have a day off." They know that if they have even a single day off, that will lead to other clients not receiving the support they need. It is unacceptable to put workers in that situation of moral injury. We have seen it in hospitals and lots of different places. It all comes down to a lack of funding from government.

Those services say how crunched they are. I hear them loud and clear when they say that an increase in their workers compensation premiums by even the tiniest amount is too much. They are already so squeezed that they are not even meeting demand or able to take the time to look after themselves. Even a few hundred or thousand dollars extra could make a difference in them getting somebody extra in. The answer is for the Government to take responsibility. All of those services are quasi‑government services in that they are wholly reliant on government funding. That means the Government is responsible for creating a safe workplace in those places. The Government should be responsible for ensuring that those services are funded well enough so that workers are not under stress and do not develop the psychological injuries that will occur pretty quickly if left in those circumstances.

To return to the bill, it is all well and good for the Government to have a strict law and order response when people have done the most heinous and hideous things. The Greens do not object to that, and we do not oppose the bill. However, the Labor Government is not doing the work of actually preventing homicides and domestic homicides in the first place. It needs to listen to the sector. For goodness sake, the Government needs to finally fund a sector that is so deserving and in such need. When that happens, we will finally turn the domestic and family violence crisis around.

Read the debate in Hansard here.

18 November 2025