Commissioner address
Good morning, and thank you for the invitation to join you today.
I would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners, the Muwinina and Palawa people, and pay my respects to Elders past and present. I acknowledge their continuing connection to land, waters, culture and community, and thank them for their ongoing care and custodianship of Country. I acknowledge the importance of Aboriginal leadership and self-determination, all that we have to learn and the work that still needs to be done to address the ongoing impacts of colonisation and systemic racism.
I also acknowledge people with lived and living experience of domestic, family and sexual violence. Their courage, insight and persistence in sharing their expertise continue to shape and improve Australia's response to violence.
I acknowledge special guests here today, including my fellow speakers this morning:
The Attorney-General, the Honourable Michelle Rowland MP; the Honourable Will Alstergren AO, Chief Justice of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia; The Honourable Justice O'Brien of the Family Court of Western Australia; Nicky Davies, Chief Executive Officer of Legal Aid Queensland.
And I acknowledge all of you for taking the time to be here and contribute to what is an incredibly important national discussion.
My name is Micaela Cronin. I am Australia's first Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner. For those who don’t know, the Commission was established in 2022 as part of efforts to strengthen accountability under the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children, and to provide independent oversight of our national response to domestic, family and sexual violence.
Our work has four key objectives. First, to promote and monitor implementation of the National Plan. Second, to amplify the voices of people with lived and living experiences for meaningful engagement in shaping policy and program development. Third, to foster collaboration and coordination across governments and sectors to improve outcomes. And fourth, to provide strategic advice to government. As a key part of this, once a year the Minister will table our Yearly Report in Parliament.
The Commission was established to ensure effective monitoring of the National Plan’s implementation and to assess whether efforts across governments are delivering the meaningful improvements in safety and outcomes that we desperately need.
Our role includes leading and contributing to national conversations about what needs to change if we are serious about making domestic, family and sexual violence brief, rare and non-recurring.
We also listen, identify emerging issues, and bring together evidence and lived experience to provide strategic advice to Government.
Today, I’m going to focus on three issues critical to the work you all do, particularly as it relates to family law and the Family Courts.
The first is the importance of increased access to data, and accountability.
Without robust, transparent data, we cannot know whether reforms are improving safety, reducing harm or delivering better outcomes for children and families. We must be prepared to publish and examine data, because accountability depends on being able to demonstrate whether change is occurring, and to correct our course if we need to.
Secondly, we need a greater focus on the experiences of children and young people.
We can no longer see children as an extension of their parents. We must ensure children’s experiences, safety concerns and views are recognised and supported. We must listen to them, and act accordingly.
And finally, the importance of meaningful engagement with those who have lived and living experience.
A key objective of the Commission is to amplify the voices of lived and living experience of domestic, family and sexual violence, and ensure that these perspectives are embedded in all policy and program development, including justice and Family Law context. The importance of these issues (data and accountability, children and young people’s experiences and the value of lived experience perspectives) are not unique to family law but rather are consistent across many of the sectors we work with.
We must all improve in all of these areas.
What we are hearing
Over the past four years I have talked with thousands of people across the country. In recent months, the Commission supported consultation on the development of the Second Action Plan under the National Plan and other national plans in support of Minister Plibersek and Attorney General Rowland’s extensive engagement.
We spoke with people with their own lived and living experiences of violence, young people, First Nations communities, LGBTIQA+SB communities, people living with disabilities, service providers, advocates, people with experience of the family law system, and bereaved family members, among many others.
People spoke about their experience of systems that still feel fragmented and hard to navigate, having to retell their traumatic experiences multiple times. About needing to move between legal systems, service systems and government systems that do not always communicate with one another as well as is needed. None of this reflects a lack of dedication from the people working within those systems. Rather, it highlights how difficult it can be to create responses that are coordinated and coherent for the people using them, and how critical it is for us to get this right - for their safety, healing and recovery.
Commission priorities
Over our first years of operation, the Commission has highlighted areas that require sustained national attention.
One has been the role of men and boys, and how we respond to people who use violence, and I’m encouraged to see how far this conversation has progressed over the past few years.
Another has been the importance of recognising children and young people as rights-holders, with their own unique experiences of violence, and I will expand on this shortly.
The third major area we have highlighted has been sexual violence. Despite growing public awareness, rates of sexual violence remain alarmingly high, increasingly so among young people. Women and children continue to face significant barriers in seeking support and justice. Until addressed, this crisis will continue to grow, and our communities will remain unsafe for so many within them.
Family law
In the Commission’s most recent report to Parliament, I flagged that alongside sexual violence, I am going to have a particular focus on the family law system in the year ahead. The family law system – and in particular – the family law courts, help set expectations for how families separate in the context of domestic, family and sexual violence. For someone whose ex-partner will not agree to safe arrangements for their children or a fair division of property, the family courts provide an essential avenue to seek enforceable decisions without requiring that person’s agreement. Access to that avenue can be critical to safety and economic security. That makes investment in accessible courts, timely legal assistance and ongoing safety and navigation support essential to our national response to violence. That support must be culturally safe, gender-responsive and accessible, particularly for First Nations families, people living with a disability, or with language or geographic barriers.
Any discussion about family law must begin by recognising that this is extremely difficult work. The matters that come before courts are often among the most complex and emotionally challenging circumstances families will ever experience. And for many families, the court process occurs at a time of significant conflict, trauma, uncertainty and distress. These are rarely simple circumstances and there are rarely simple solutions.
I want to acknowledge the significant reform work that has been undertaken by the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, led by the Chief Justice, and by courts, legal assistance services and practitioners across the country.
Yet, the conversations the Commission has been having across the country point to the work that remains for us to do.
Our 2026 Yearly Report to Parliament recommends that the Attorney-General’s Department, working across jurisdictions, lead a time-bound body of work that builds on the significant reform undertaken in recent years.
While the Yearly Report contains a number of recommendations, today I would like to focus on the three areas I raised at the outset: children’s experiences, data and accountability, and lived experience.
I acknowledge and am pleased to see that these issues are reflected in the Court's ongoing reform agenda and look forward to continuing this work with the Chief Justice and many of you here today.
Data and accountability
It is important to recognise that there is considerable effort and investment across government and in an expanding range of sectors to deliver the objectives of the National Plan.
We can clearly see the evidence of that effort: domestic, family and sexual violence is now a national cabinet priority, we have seen very significant investment, and there is a clear recognition of systems abuse, and work is well underway to audit and reform government systems and processes.
What we are lacking is sufficient data to fully understand which reforms are improving safety and outcomes, which are not, and where further attention is required. This is also true of the Family Courts and the family law system.
On this, our 2026 Yearly Report makes two key proposals for action:
First, that the Australian Institute of Family Studies be funded to undertake a contemporary longitudinal study of separating families, including longer-term outcomes for children and families where family violence or child sexual abuse is raised. Alongside that work, we support funding AIFS to undertake a new court outcomes study, building on its earlier Court Outcomes Project. Together, these studies would help us understand both how the law is being applied and what happens to children and families after negotiations or proceedings end.
Second, that governments and courts work with specialist services and people with lived experience to establish clear outcome measures and regular public reporting on whether reforms are improving safety, wellbeing, economic security and recovery for women and children, with a focus on ensuring reporting on outcomes for priority cohorts. Robust outcomes measurement and transparent reporting are essential for accountability and provide the evidence needed to assess progress, identify what is working, and guide future reform. Without this, we cannot confidently know what is making an impact. Alongside it, we need to understand whether people could participate effectively, whether safety concerns were addressed, and whether families were safer after orders were made. These measures should guide investment and improvements in practice.
Children and young people
There is now clear recognition that for too long we have not taken the safety concerns of children and young people seriously enough, which has at times led to further harm for those young people. Too often, children's experiences of violence have been viewed primarily through the experiences of the adults around them. We have heard time and again that children and young people have their own fears, their own perspectives and understanding of what is happening within their families, and many have shared their distress about their voices not being heard in family law matters that directly concern them. This must change, and change requires sustained commitment and investment.
Our Yearly Report recommends strengthening this through adequately funded Independent Children's Lawyers, access to specialist child and family expertise, meaningful opportunities for children to participate in decisions affecting them, age-appropriate information, and individual safety planning.Every child who is the subject of parenting proceedings should have a developmentally appropriate opportunity for their experiences, safety concerns and views to inform decisions - early in the case, including interim arrangements.
Government investment is needed to make Child Impact Reports available wherever families access the courts, including regional and circuit locations where they are currently unavailable. Access to this early assessment should not depend on where a child lives or their parents’ capacity to pay. Children must be supported to participate safely. They also need access to specialist therapeutic support during and after proceedings. Where child sexual abuse or incest is disclosed or suspected, safety assessments and legal responses need to connect with specialist support for children and their protective carers. I am very aware, as many of you are, that there are serious issues regarding access to these services – again, this has been heard repeatedly throughout the Second Action Plan Consultation process.
As I outlined earlier, the Commission is committed to ensuring that the perspective of those with lived and living experience of domestic, family and sexual violence is embedded across our systems. People who have themselves experienced a system bring a unique expertise about how it operates in their lives and where it needs to improve.
A young person in the Youth Taskforce we have established very accurately described her nearly 18 years in the care system as providing her with deep expertise in that system. She describes herself as a foster care expert – and who could argue with that?
While it is critically important not to jeopardise judicial independence, there are important lessons to learn from those who have been through Family Court proceedings. That expertise should help shape reform alongside practice expertise, court data and independent research. We all know the power of a good case study – alongside the data – to tell a story, and change hearts and minds. Hearing directly from people with lived expertise can be transformational. We need to listen deeply enough that we are changed by what we hear.
While significant progress has been made in recent years, people with lived experience continue to highlight areas where challenges remain. Addressing those challenges will require ongoing leadership, collaboration and investment.
I am committed to working with the Attorney-General and her department, the Chief Justice and other stakeholders across the country to ensure that together we continue learning from the expertise that comes from lived and living experience, and that those insights continue to shape future reform.
The opportunity to be in Hobart this week has been a genuine privilege. Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak at the First Nations Advocates Against Family Violence Members Conference, hear from services here in Tasmania and today it is an honour to be here with all of you. My team and I are committed to building stronger relationships across the legal sector, and to continue hearing from each of you. The Commission's role is to listen deeply, to foster collaboration, to bring people together and then synthesise what we learn in our advice to government. To lead national conversations.To do that well, we need an understanding of what is happening in practice and of the realities facing those working within the system every day. This work has lifelong impacts for those using the court, especially children. It’s critical to get it right. For lawyers, this means making safety central to advice, negotiation and advocacy, bringing relevant evidence of violence and risk before the court, and recognising when proceedings are being used to continue abuse. It also means ensuring that agreements reflect informed participation, with practical access to the legal and specialist support people need.
Everyone in this room has an important role in identifying opportunities for change and championing the translation of reform into safer everyday practice. The importance of the issues I’ve highlighted: data and accountability, children and young people’s experiences and the value of lived experience perspectives, which are not unique to family law, they are consistent across many of the sectors we work with.
There is a great opportunity for the Family Courts and the wider family law system to build on the reforms underway, to continue to make a difference in the lives of families across the country, and my commitment is to work with you on this at every step, in genuine partnership.
I know that people in this room are committed to improving safe outcomes for families across the country, we must hold ourselves accountable to making this real – far too many women, children and young people continue to be harmed.
To the Attorney-General, the Chief Justice and my fellow panellists, thank you for your ongoing leadership and commitment to this work. Australia has made significant progress, but there is still ongoing work needed to make domestic, family and sexual violence rare, brief and non-recurring.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and thank you for the work you do every day in service of families across Australia.
