Purpose for our visit
Adult women in Tasmania report some of the highest rates of domestic, family, and sexual violence (DFSV) in Australia, surpassing the national average.1
In May 2025, Commissioner Micaela Cronin visited Launceston and Hobart, followed by Assistant Commissioner Jenna Roberts’ visit to Burnie in July 2025. Both visits aimed to meet with stakeholders to gain insight into local efforts to tackle DFSV. Additional meetings were held online following the visit due to calendar clashes that meant face to face meetings were not possible.
Who we engaged with
- Tasmanian Family and Sexual
- Violence Alliance
- Laurel House
- Women’s Legal Service Tasmania
- Yemaya
- Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation
- Six Rivers Aboriginal Corporation (online)
- The Hon. Jo Palmer MLC, Tasmanian Minister for Women and the Prevention of Family Violence
- Tasmanian Commissioner of Police, Donna Adams APM
- Engender Equality
- Sexual Assault Support Service and Latrobe University
What we heard
The Tasmanian context
Stakeholders raised several challenges facing Tasmanian organisations’ responses to DFSV:
- As noted above, Tasmania has rates of DFSV higher than the national average.
- Tasmania’s low population in comparison to other states can impact on federal funding when this is allocated on a per capita basis.
- Much of the state is regional and rural, with stakeholders noting that community may be unwilling or unable to travel long distances, necessitating outreach support.
- Tasmania’s rurality impacts on service availability, with stakeholders noting that areas of the state do not have access to forensic medical examination following a sexual assault.
- The Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings released its final report in 2023, resulting in an increase in historical abuse disclosures and agencies responding to recommendations.
Service providers advised that they face growing waitlists and that clients are experiencing violence of increased severity and complexity, compounded by the above points. Frontline providers advised that they have been reviewing their service models to better meet increased demand within their current funding envelopes.
Funding challenges
Multiple stakeholders noted the challenges around funding for frontline services, such as:
- Short-term contracts mean organisations cannot provide certainty for their contracted staff, even when they are employed to a permanent program.
- While outreach is essential in Tasmania, service providers must absorb travel costs as this is not included in funding contracts.
- Funding contracts do not always factor in the need for, and therefore the cost of, clinical supervision and reflective practice.
- Competitive tenders are seen to pit organisations against each other, limiting opportunities for collaboration.
- The Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award limits organisations’ ability to offer competitive salaries, particularly for well-paid industries such as the legal profession.
- Organisations may receive funding from multiple different streams, resulting in significant compliance and reporting burdens.
Embedding lived experience
The Commissioner heard of several lived experience engagement mechanisms in place, including (but not limited to):
Stakeholders spoke of a lack of mechanisms for embedding the voices of children and young people, particularly in the Family Court. It was raised that there is no service in Tasmania that represents children and young people from a legal standpoint. Stakeholders raised concerns about the safety of children who remain in contact with abusive parents in supervised contact centres. Stakeholders also noted that children and young people’s consent and views are not consistently considered in Family Court determinations.
Innovative work underway
The Commissioner met with the Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS) and Latrobe University to hear about their Sexual Violence Prevention Project.
Latrobe University has been funded by the Federal Department of Social Services to deliver nine projects assessing the effectiveness of prevention of sexual violence. The Partners in Prevention project partners with community organisations to develop their sexual violence prevention programs and design rigorous evaluations.
For the Sexual Violence Prevention Project, Latrobe University has partnered with SASS, which has been delivering consent and relationship education for nine years. This project will allow SASS to work with the University of Tasmania to deliver appropriate programming to all residential college students in Tasmania.
The program takes a whole of environment approach and will work with residential leaders as well as the student cohort. The program will also take a gender transformative approach and include increased information regarding alcohol and acquaintance rape. The project has taken an intersectional lens to ensure that all priority cohorts are considered in the development and delivery of the program.
The project is being delivered as a randomised control trial, ensuring that Latrobe University’s evaluators can determine whether the intervention has had a causal effect. Unlike many other programs, this project will not only evaluate changed attitudes but also reductions in harmful behaviours, perpetration and victimisation.
Aboriginal-led responses
The Commission heard there is limited funding provided to Aboriginal community-controlled organisations (ACCOs) to deliver DFSV services. Furthermore, many DFSV supports that are provided are managed through other funding streams and delivered by staff with limited training in responding to DFSV. Consequently, there are very limited DFSV responses available that are led by Aboriginal people or by ACCOs, and these limitations are even more severe in regional parts of Tasmania, which is where a significant proportion of Aboriginal people live.
Furthermore, in regional areas, there is very limited crisis support or accommodation outside of business hours and limited public transport options for people seeking safety in a crisis.
Finally, given the limited funding, there are significant challenges to develop and maintain the necessary workforce, including a workforce who can work with men on healing programs or men’s behaviour change programs.
We sincerely thank everyone who generously shared their time and insights with us.
1 Australian Bureau of Statics (ABS) (2022) Personal Safety, Australia 2021-2022.
May and July 2025
