Our founding CEO, Dr Tessa Boyd-Caine is in attendance at the National Summit on Women’s Safety, which lays the path for the next national plan to reduce violence against women.
The National Plan must identify the structures that can keep women and children safe from violence and what we as a nation will do to ensure those structures are strong and effective in preventing violence against women.


I have the privilege of being an invited delegate to the National Summit on Women’s Safety, running yesterday and today. I use ‘privilege’ in recognition that many people, including victims and survivors and the services who have long been supporting them, have not been invited to participate. In practice, the difference between being an invited participant and joining the live stream that is publicly available seems to be a function to submit questions of panellists which are then moderated by the organisers. As an invited participant, I have no way of seeing what other questions have been asked or who else is in the Summit; nor of connecting and communicating with other participants. So then the value of the Summit lies in the path it lays for the next National Plan to reduce violence against women.
Day 1 grappled with key issues relevant to the National Plan. The impact of violence on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. The critical need for emergency accommodation – and I would add sustained, secure accommodation options in addition to emergency accommodation – for people fleeing violence. The importance of income support, economic security and financial wellbeing. The opportunities for early intervention and working with perpetrators. Paid leave for people experiencing family violence. And each of these within the broader context of inequality which underpins violence against women.
The ability to access adequate income, secure housing, the services that can help prevent violence in the first place and respond when it occurs: these are all structural measures that can support women and children to live free from violence. So too their absence, or barriers to accessing them, create the conditions in which women and children are vulnerable to violence.
The problems have been named and many solutions identified. It is the structural supports that can make a difference to women and children everywhere living save from violence and the fear of it. The National Plan must identify the structures that can keep women and children safe from violence and what we as a nation will do to ensure those structures are strong and effective in preventing violence against women.