Police Ministers Council Meeting

Opening Statement

Good afternoon and welcome to Police Ministers and Police Commissioners from across the Commonwealth.

Today’s meeting of the Police Ministers’ Council comes at a time when the nation is united in demanding that political leaders act to protect women from violence. Violence overwhelmingly committed by men.

Wednesday’s urgent meeting of National Cabinet has given all of us here a critical role in tackling the national crisis of gender-based violence.

The alarming increase in violence against women in recent months, weeks and days is a deeply concerning trend.

The Australian Government is determined to work constructively with state and territory governments on this scourge of violence against women. This is something that we must be addressing across all areas of Government, including law enforcement.

There are no easy answers. It will take efforts across governments of all jurisdictions, and all portfolios within those governments, to work towards eliminating gendered violence.

There is a great deal of work already underway across all states and territories and by the Commonwealth to prevent violence against women and also support women who are victim-survivors of gendered violence to safely leave a violent relationship.

We must continue to build on these efforts.

This Council agreed in November last year to provide data from all jurisdictions to the Australian Institute of Criminology’s National Intimate Partner Homicide Monitoring Program to support the intimate partner homicide dashboard which is due to come online in coming months.

There is more work for all of us to do, and on Wednesday, First Ministers tasked this Police Ministers Council, along with the Standing Council of Attorneys-General to develop options for improving police responses to high risk and serial perpetrators, including considering use of focused deterrence and fixated threat strategies.

We must continue to listen and learn from those with lived experience of violence and the people who advocate for them.

As Police Ministers we look forward to reporting to National Cabinet later this year. 

Thanks very much.