Clear, consistent data needed to measure impact of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children

Australia’s National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children has been unveiled today, aiming to end gender-based violence within one generation. All states and territories have now signed on to the 10-year plan, which focuses on four indicators: prevention, early intervention, response and recovery. 

It’s the first time a government has made a specific commitment to recovery, addressing the lifelong impacts of gender-based violence, and the impact that exposure to violence has on children. It also examines how lack of housing, low literacy levels and language barriers inhibit victims from accessing help. 

A standalone plan for Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander women and children will also be developed. 

Men’s relationships are also a focus of the plan, calling for men to develop “healthy masculinities” and healthy relationships with peers, build skills to be good fathers, and encourage them to challenge sexism and harassment as bystanders.

The plan has been called “world-leading” for its focus on recovery, along with its spotlight on addressing attitudes that impact men’s behaviour. But clear targets and measurements are still missing, which was a key criticism of the previous plan. 

As stated in the plan, Australia’s data on gender-based violence is muddy, with differences in definitions across jurisdictions and poor statistics on how the LGBTIQA+ and First Nations communities are impacted.

“Currently, data and data-sharing mechanisms are inadequate to provide quality measurements in relation to outcomes for victim-survivors and holding people who choose to use violence to account,” the report states. 

The plan seeks to implement new data collections and development projects to track changes over the life of the plan. 

Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth has said the plan will be accompanied by an “outcomes framework”, with different indicators embedded and measured with available data, but stopped short of calling them targets. 

“We could say we’re going to measure things, but if we don’t actually have access to the data, whether it’s from the Commonwealth level, states and territories, then we won’t know if we’re making progress,” she said on ABC News this morning. 

The cost of violence against women and children is estimated to be $26 billion a year (though this only includes gender-based violence: the report states if all violence against children were included the cost would be significantly higher).

Last year’s budget promised $1.3 billion across six years for the plan’s first phase to address family, domestic and sexual violence, and Labor has committed to ensuring this money is properly targeted. However, it has not announced an increase in funding ahead of this month’s budget.