QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Ms ROWLAND (Greenway—Attorney-General) (14:53): I thank the honourable member for her very important question. The Albanese government is committed to ending family, domestic and sexual violence and strengthening the safety of women and children across Australia. Because the tragic reality is that too many women and children continue to lose their lives to violence, most often, at the hands of those whom they should be able to trust.

The violence and these deaths must stop. In respect of the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner's 2026 yearly report to parliament which the member references, a recommendation of that report does go to building on and strengthening existing justice and family law reforms, including working with states and territories through the Standing Council of Attorneys-General.

The honourable member is very right. Every woman and child has the right to be safe, including when they turn to our courts and justice systems for help. The commission's report makes clear that, while important progress has been made, there is much more work to do.

That goes to the question of systems abuse that the member raises, particularly in responding to sexual violence and ensuring our family law and justice systems support safety rather than providing another system for abuse. While it is relevant to note there is more to do, significant reform has been undertaken in this respect under the Albanese government. We have fundamentally reformed Australia's family law system to put the safety and best interests of children at its centre, including removing the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility and making family violence, abuse and neglect central to decisions about what's in a child's best interests.

We have strengthened the courts' capacity to identify and respond to family violence and other safety risks, and we continue to work on how to improve the family law system and how it responds where perpetrators seek to use processes themselves as a form of abuse, including in relation to cross-examination. I can assure the member the commissioner's report is an important input as we build on existing efforts in developing the Second Action Plan under the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children.

That plan will guide our work over the next five years and will strengthen national coordination and ensure governments are focused on practical actions that improve safety and outcomes for victim-survivors. As a practical example within my portfolio, in March this year we announced the establishment of new specialised trauma-informed sexual-violence legal services pilots in New South Wales and Queensland, and they build on the expansion and extension of the pilots already operating in the ACT and in Western Australia and the establishment of new pilots in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania, which we announced in November 2025.

In conclusion, I can inform the House that women and children's safety are standing items on the SCAG agenda, which I chair, and the commission's report is the first agenda item at next month's SCAG.