MP ZALI STEGGALL: 'From the street, it looks like an ordinary house. But then you get closer.'

Zali Steggall OAM has been the independent member for Warringah since 2019.

From the street, a women's refuge appears as an ordinary house — but then you get closer. A security camera scans the entrance, and a heavy lock secures the front door. All visitors are questioned via an intercom before they're allowed to enter.

Why the intense security? Because there's a good chance that if domestic violence perpetrators get inside, they will hurt either their partner, their children, others in the refuge or the property itself.

There are five women's shelters across my electorate of Warringah, which spans Sydney's Lower North Shore and Northern Beaches. The buildings are unmarked, and their addresses are not public. Women and children who have fled to these refuges are escaping violence, coercive control or both.

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The Albanese government acknowledges that domestic violence is a national emergency; now we need an emergency response. In particular, too many women and children are being killed by men.

Currently in Australia, one woman every four days is murdered by her current or former partner. Some 2.3 million Australian women have experienced violence from an intimate partner.  As I've said repeatedly, I am angry — and Australian women are angry.

Supporting domestic violence victims in my electorate is one of my highest priorities.

In my maiden speech to federal parliament in 2019, I described domestic violence as a major health crisis.  I asked for an immediate government response to the problem — one informed by what local organisations were already telling us. In the six years since, a lot of money has been spent, but little progress has been made.

Funding for frontline services has increased — but so to have community needs. Between May 2024 and March 2025, for example, 94 per cent of specialist domestic and family violence services in NSW reported an increase in demand.

Recently, my office secured about $9000 for Mary's House, a women's shelter in North Sydney. Unfortunately, it's a small fraction of what the refuge needs. These services need ongoing annual funding, not one-off injections.

In October, my team joined the Mary's House Walk — a powerful show of solidarity with women and children escaping violence and abuse. It was encouraging to see so many boys and young men on that walk. 

But we still have a culture of denial about domestic violence. I'm sharing insights from my own electorate not because it is unique but because it is typical.

No community is immune or protected, evidenced by the fact that every three minutes, NSW Police respond to a domestic or family violence call, which takes up 60 per cent of their resources. Yet when only two in five women report their abuse, we know that these police statistics are only a fraction of the real incidents of domestic violence and abuse.

Funding failure has a very real impact. The Northern Beaches Women's Shelter, for example, turned away about 25 women a month last year. Alarmingly, the number is rising. In June this year, about 48 women were turned away.

These women are not abandoned. Refuges use their resources and networks to find accommodation somewhere else — a time-consuming and costly exercise.

Recently, a worker at a women's shelter in my electorate dug through the facility's archives and found meeting minutes from 50 years ago. Troublingly, the issues discussed at that meeting are the same as those the shelter grapples with today. How can security be improved to protect women and workers from angry partners? How can they make meagre grants stretch to cover pressing needs?

But the modern era brings even more challenges. The advent of simple tracking technology — such as AirTags and spyware downloaded to a partner's phone — means perpetrators can track and locate their partners with relative ease.

In May last year, I brought a motion to Parliament expressing the frustration many Australian women feel about slow progress on tackling domestic violence.

I called for an immediate $1 billion boost in annual funding for frontline services. I also called for an extra $484 million for Legal Aid and $25 million for Women's Legal Services Australia.

Image: Supplied.

Four months later, the National Cabinet announced $4.7 billion over five years for frontline domestic violence services, in partnership with the states. These are welcome commitments — but they are not shifting the dial. On average, women and children are still waiting two months to access these vital services.

The work doesn't stop at frontline support. We need a National Review of sentencing laws, and better use of Apprehended Violence Orders and electronic monitors. And a national register should be established to record domestic violence offenders — one that can easily be shared across states and territories. The register should form the basis of a disclosure scheme for women who can check with police if a new partner has a history of domestic violence — a scheme known as Clare's Law, which has already been rolled out in the United Kingdom.

Victim survivors need more safe and affordable housing, in the form of crisis shelters, transitional housing and long-term social housing. No victim should have to choose between homelessness and returning home to a perpetrator.

Many of these actions can be implemented quickly. But society's attitudes to domestic violence must also change – particularly the attitudes of men . This is a complex shift in attitudes. It will take time and money.

In my electorate, a volunteer action group is dedicated to DV prevention and education. Governments must also help, by funding early and ongoing education in respectful relationships.

This education should be woven into our school curriculums. Evidence shows early intervention can reduce the likelihood of violence later in life. And governments should fund groups such as Mentoring Men, who I met with recently. This program connects men with trained volunteer mentors, to help them through rough patches in their lives.

Courts should ensure perpetrators take part in behaviour change programs, with a focus on perpetrator accountability. And we need large-scale, ongoing campaigns targeting gender inequality, toxic masculinity, victim-blaming and bystander empowerment.

Ultimately, we must create a culture in which violence is never tolerated or excused — and good men are central to this shift.

How strongly do good men stand up to their friends when they are violent, when they coercively control, or even when they simply talk in a way that disrespects women? Until this changes, society won't.

Feature image: Supplied.