TW: family and domestic violence, suicide
A series of recent domestic violence deaths put the devastating impact on young people back in the spotlight, with almost one in five domestic homicide victims in Australia being children.
These deaths come as the Federal Government prepares its Second Action Plan under its 10-year strategy to end violence against women and children.
Lived experience advocate Conor Pall and Australian Childhood Foundation CEO Janise Mitchell are among those helping shape the Plan.
Here’s what they want policymakers to hear.
Background
On Saturday 19 September, three NSW women were killed, all allegedly by men known to them.
The following day, two children were killed, and another is in a critical condition after an alleged stabbing in NSW.
The children’s mother has been charged with murder and attempted murder.
Advocate Sherele Moody documents femicide and filicide – the killing of a child by a parent or guardian – in real time through the RED HEART Movement’s Memorial to Women and Children Lost to Violence.
The memorial also documents women and children who are murdered, or die as a result of neglect or manslaughter.
In 2025, 106 women and children were killed, including 27 children.
So far this year, Moody has tracked 75 deaths, including 21 children.
Expert
Janise Mitchell is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Southern Cross University and the CEO of Australian Childhood Foundation (ACF).
She told TDA that the current definition of family violence “sees children and young people too often fall off the end of sentences.”
Children, she said, “aren’t a benign cohort in the community,” but are “experiencing violence too, just as women are.”
While Australia’s understanding of family and domestic violence often centres on women as the largest group of adult victim-survivors, Mitchell said the issue needs to be understood differently around children.
“Family violence, it doesn’t run along gendered lines,” she said, pointing to the example of a teenage boy escaping violence with his mother, only to be told by a refuge: “No, that adolescent boy can’t come in, he’s too old’”.
Mitchell said there is still “work to do” to build a genuinely child-centred approach to family violence policy.
Lived experience
Conor Pall, now 23, became an advocate as a teenager.
“I experienced violence from someone who should have loved and cared for me unconditionally, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case,” he told TDA.
As a 16-year-old, he reached out for help, but was told he couldn’t access it because he was under 18.
He called it a “system that wasn’t built with a young person like me in mind.”
Pall spent three years on the Victorian Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council before joining the Federal Domestic Violence Advisory Commission council.
National plan
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In 2022, the Federal Government launched its 10-year National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children.
But Pall said the first five-year action plan failed to adequately hear from children and young people.
“My understanding is that only one young person was consulted as part of the First Action Plan,” he said.
He described the gaps in Australia’s family violence system, including the response he received as a teenager, as a “national shame.”
The Second Action Plan is being developed.
This will set the direction for the next five years.
Pall called it “an opportunity for the government to not only recognise children and young people as victims in their own right”, but to also ensure any young victim-survivor can “access a service if they reach out for help.”
He said hundreds of children and young people have now been consulted for the Second Action Plan, including himself.
ACF has also been involved in consultations for the plan.
Mitchell said she wants talks to “translate through to policy” and “investment in services.”
Govt
At last month’s National Cabinet meeting, ending gender-based violence was again put on the agenda, with the nation’s leaders agreeing to the priorities for the Second Action Plan.
Those priorities include “enhancing supports for children and young people who have experienced violence”.
The Government conducted submissions and consultations for the Second Action Plan this year.
The draft is set to be considered in the coming months.
Addressing the recent NSW domestic and family violence deaths in an interview with ABC last week, Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek said the Government also needed to engage more with “big points of contact”, in children’s lives.
She pointed to schools, universities, TAFE, and medical systems as places “where we can identify there is a risk that there’s family, domestic or sexual violence,” so services can “intervene earlier.”
Looking ahead
Looking ahead, Mitchell wants to see holistic support for all young Australians, regardless of their location, age, or gender.
She flagged the particular impact of family violence on “a lot of boys and young men” who have witnessed their fathers or father figures being abusive and are “really fearful that they’ll turn into their father.”
That group, Mitchell said, needs access to experienced counselling “that understand[s] the impact of violence.”
More broadly, Mitchell said: “We need more services, but then we’ve got to clarify young people’s rights to access services in their own right.”
That includes specialist counselling, housing, income and social support, and long-term initiatives to keep them engaged at school and employment.
Lifeline 13 11 14
1800 RESPECT 1800 737 732
Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800
