Today in Parliament, Abigail gave notice of a motion acknowledging the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Abigail said:

I give notice that on the next sitting day I will move: 

(1) That this House notes that:

• Tuesday 25 November 2025 was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which is the first day of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign that runs until Human Rights Day on Wednesday 10 December 2025; 
• people across the world came together on Tuesday to honour the lives lost and affected by gendered violence, by protesting to demand immediate and ongoing action to prevent these entirely preventable deaths and end violence against women in all forms;
• eliminating violence against women and preventing abuse before it occurs will not be achieved with words alone; doing so requires radical, transformative action to confront and dismantle patriarchal norms and power structures, which begins with government investment in evidence-based prevention and response programs and services; 
• First Nations women, women with disability, LGBTQIA+ women and migrant women experience violence at disproportionate rates, and face different intersecting barriers to accessing support, healing, recovery and justice pathways; 
• according to the latest BOCSAR data: 
  • over 300 domestic and family violence-related assaults are recorded every day across NSW;
  • rates of reported violence have been rising, with increases in reported assaults, murders, stalking, intimidation, technology-facilitated abuse and other forms of domestic and family violence; 
  • recorded rates of domestic and family violence-related assaults are approximately 70 percent higher in regional NSW compared to Greater Sydney (measured per 100,000 population) and are increasing at a faster rate; 
  • in more remote areas of NSW, assault rates can be up to 3.5 times the statewide average; and
  • police data does not fully represent domestic and family violence trends in the community due to low and variable reporting rates; 
• gendered violence response and prevention are not separate stages, but rather part of the same interconnected process of preventing and eliminating violence and abuse;
• a system that responds strongly and effectively to gendered violence is one that prevents future violence. A strong response system, including frontline services providing support such as refuge, legal support, case management, crisis accommodation and healing and justice pathway prevents future harm by disrupting violent patterns and systems of abuse and ensuring victim-survivors are properly supported to leave violence; 
• the services delivering this work on the frontline are outrageously underfunded and drowning under the weight of demand for the genuinely critical, irreplaceable and life-saving support they provide to women and children fleeing violence; 
• for years, successive NSW governments have failed to increase investment in core baseline funding for existing specialist frontline domestic, family and sexual violence services, despite that demand has steadily increased; 
• dedicated workers on the frontline responding to the gendered violence crisis are working under unsafe and unsustainable conditions because of chronic underinvestment from governments, with many working unpaid overtime, fundraising on top of their paid work, paying for food vouchers out of their own pockets, and picking up excessive client loads at risk to their own psychological health and safety and personal wellbeing; 
• when services are forced to operate below full staffing levels and in unsustainable conditions, the direct impact is that wait times increase for victim-survivors needing support, referrals are delayed and waitlists increase, all of which puts the safety of women and children at higher risk; 
• turning a woman or child away from a specialist domestic and family violence service can literally mean life or death; 
• the number of women who were supported by Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Services increased by 17 percent in 2023-24, and referrals increased by 15.4 percent in 2024-25, according to data from Legal Aid NSW; 
• in 2024, more than 8,000 clients in NSW sought help from Specialist Homelessness Services for domestic and family violence, which was a 6 percent increase from the previous year, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW); 
• a 2024 national survey of refuges by Impact Economics found that 39 percent of services were forced to close their doors to people seeking help at least once during the fortnight, and 83 percent of services were unable to answer phone calls for some period during the fortnight, leaving people in crisis without access to immediate assistance; and
• according to data commissioned by Domestic Violence NSW to examine the impact of met and unmet demand in specialist domestic and family violence services, which is published in their 2026-27 NSW Pre-Budget Submission, in just the last year:
  • the picture of unmet need is not shifting on the frontline; 
  • frontline services have seen a large increase in new referrals (up 22 percent); 
  • waitlists have doubled, but the number of clients services can support has barely changed; 
  • the workforce has shrunk by 12 percent; 
  • two in three new referrals cannot be assigned a case worker immediately; 
  • one in four new referrals are being sent elsewhere due to a lack of capacity; 
  • one in four new referrals are being put on waitlists due to a lack of capacity; 
  • 50 percent of services report being unable to take calls for significant periods due to a lack of capacity; and 
  • unmet demand can be described as victim-survivors who need support but are turned away because providers have no capacity, victim-survivors who need support but can’t get through to a specialist domestic and family violence service, and victim-survivors who need support but don’t reach out for help because they don’t know help is available, face stigma or cultural barriers, or are prevented by the perpetrator.

(2) That this House recognises and commends the work of each and every expert worker on the frontline who provides daily specialist support to victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexual violence, as well as the many expert advocates who continue to demand action from governments and advocate on behalf of victim-survivors and frontline workers. 

(3) That this House calls on the NSW government to:

• immediately provide a significant and permanent uplift in core funding for existing specialist domestic and family violence services, so that all frontline services have sufficient resourcing to meet demand and properly deliver life-saving support to victim-survivors who need it;
• deliver targeted investing in services operating in regional, rural and remote areas across NSW, services who provide unique and tailored support to cohorts of victim-survivors who face intersecting and additional barriers including women with disability, First Nations women, LGBTQIA+ women and migrant women; 
• fully fund implementation of the domestic and family violence Quality Standards; 
• increase investment in sexual violence prevention and response, including services and programs that support victim-survivors to access support, healing, recovery and justice pathways, exercise their rights and navigate systems; and 
• fully fund its own frameworks, plans and strategies dedicated to eliminating violence against women.

26 November 2025