Background
On Friday 10th May 2024 the Domestic Family and Sexual Violence Commission and the New South Wales Women’s Safety Commission co-convened a jurisdictional roundtable to facilitate collaboration and sharing of progress and learnings in support of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 (National Plan) objectives.
Participants included senior State and Territory government representatives responsible for the coordination of jurisdictional efforts under the National Plan and representatives from community services, police, health and other related government portfolios.
This document provides an overview of the key messages delivered at the roundtable.
Key Messages
The Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner opened the roundtable by acknowledging that it had been a difficult time, with the number of domestic and family violence deaths and media focus on the issue. The Crisis Talks into Missing and Murdered Women held by the Commission earlier in the week had generated several key priority areas for action, which strongly align with what the Commission has heard across its engagements.
The Commissioner and Executive Director of the Office for Women within Prime Minister and Cabinet spoke about the outcomes of the National Cabinet meeting dedicated to gender-based violence, and the opportunities for states and territories to increase their collaboration on key areas of importance.
The NSW Commissioner emphasised the importance of jurisdictions making connections and fostering collaboration to learn from one another on key areas of shared priority.
Subsequent panel and table discussions focussed on sharing practice and learnings on:
- Engaging with lived experience
- Effective governance mechanisms
- Building collaboration, coordination and sharing of evidence.
The Commissioner spoke to the intent of the Commission’s current request for information as an input to the first yearly report to Parliament, noting that it provided jurisdictions with the opportunity to highlight achievements, learnings and current challenges that may not be reflected in reporting on activities under the First Action Plan. The yearly report will have a focus on providing strategic policy advice in support of the National Plan objectives and the Commissioner emphasised the importance of jurisdictional contributions to this.
The Commissioner is also cognisant of the variety of reporting being sought in relation to the National Plan. We are committed to coordinating and streamlining future requests for information to support the Commission’s yearly reports to Parliament with other reporting mechanisms to reduce the burden on jurisdictions.
Across the day there was reflection on the role that both the Commissioner and the NSW Commissioner can play in fostering collaboration and sharing of evidence and good practice under the National Plan. The Commissioner committed to a further programme of roundtables to bring together the Commonwealth, States and Territories, sector, lived experience and other experts on priority topics.
