South Australia’s domestic and sexual violence royal commission recommendations should be embraced across the country

The South Australian Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence has released its final report. Led by Royal Commissioner Natasha Stott Despoja, the 700-page report presents findings from extensive consultations, including more than 380 written submissions, 800 survey responses, ten days of public hearings and submissions completed over 13 months.

The 136 recommendations provide a transformative roadmap to achieve “a once in generation opportunity” for reform. They cover the full spectrum of prevention, early intervention, response, recovery and healing. They also reflect the partnership between the royal commission and the commission’s Aboriginal Partnership Committee.

The royal commission was announced after four women were killed in South Australia in one week in November 2023. The report lays bare the breadth of violence across the community, finding that one in three women in the state experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.

Meaningful change means listening to people’s experiences

The report acknowledges that domestic, family and sexual violence is an ongoing experience, with cumulative harms and often lifelong impacts.

The report release is accompanied by the Voices report, which presents direct quotes from hundreds of victim-survivors and their family members. It emphasises that meaningful reform can only happen with these voices in mind.

The commission’s report also acknowledges individuals killed, as well as the adults, children and young people who have died by suicide as a result of domestic, family and sexual violence.

In 2024, the Australian government’s rapid review Unlocking the Prevention Potential acknowledged the need to improve understanding of, and responses to, family violence-related suicides.

Improving the response system

The commission found the state’s crisis response system is fragmented, crisis-driven and siloed. South Australian Police respond to approximately 100 domestic violence related call-outs each day. One-third of calls made to the state’s crisis line go unanswered because of under resourcing. This means “significant investment” will be required to build effective responses.

A 24-hour central hub for victim-survivors seeking help is recommended. Drawing from the Western Australian one-stop hub model, this would create an accessible, community-based entry point for domestic, family and sexual violence services across South Australia.

A core focus for reform is the need to invest in building and supporting the domestic, family and sexual violence workforce. Recommendations include setting up a workforce fund to attract and retain the workers needed in what has long been an under-resourced sector. The report also identifies the need to improve frontline responses across the entire system, including specialist training for police and judicial officers.

Other recommendations include:

• reforms to consent laws and intervention orders
• a statewide service for harmful sexual behaviour interventions
• a new offence of facilitating a breach of a domestic violence order on behalf of the respondent
• minimum standards for government-funded behaviour change programs
• “vulnerable witness suites” in courts to ensure victim-survivors do not have to confront their perpetrator.

Preventing violence

The report details opportunities for prevention through education and whole of community approaches. It also recommends regulatory reforms and further attention is paid to alcohol and other drugs, gambling, pornography and online harms.

Aligning with calls made as part of the rapid review, specific recommendations made include liquor licensing reforms to restrict the sale and delivery of alcohol. It also recommends a review of state gambling legislation to give paramount consideration to harm minimisation and encourage reform.

The report recommends a primary prevention saturation model, which is based on whole of community prevention approaches. This would be informed by the Ballarat Community Saturation Model and the Our Town model. It recommends the model be piloted over four years in two community sites in partnership with local government.

Specific needs of children and young people

One of the defining features of the work of this royal commission has been its genuine commitment to fully understand and reflect the experiences of children and young people. As part of this commitment, I interviewed 53 teenage victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexual violence in South Australia. Their voices shaped both the standalone report Silence and Inaction and the commission’s final report, including in the framing of what constitutes coercive control, which recognises that parents and caregivers may use coercive and controlling behaviours against a child.

The recommendations focused on children and young people include to:

• establish a child and young people specific lived experience advisory network
• co-design and implement a government website to provide information targeted specifically for children and young people
• ban the use of corporal punishment by parents and caregivers through repealing the defence of reasonable chastisement
• co-design and develop innovative help seeking pathways for children and young people
• ensure the safety of children is prioritised by police and police prosecutors in their inclusion on intervention orders.

If fully implemented, these reforms – among others included – will position South Australia as the leading jurisdiction in Australia to build whole of system responses to children and young people as victim-survivors in their own right.

Government response

The Malinauskas government has “immediately accepted” seven of the recommendations. These include to:

• establish a standalone ministerial portfolio for domestic, family and sexual violence
• develop a five-year statewide strategy
• establish separate lived experience advisory networks for adults and children.

Premier Peter Malinauskas has committed to responding to all recommendations by year’s end.

The government has not yet announced the scale of investment that will follow. Meaningful reform will require significant funding. With the breadth and depth of the problem laid bare, this is a moment that demands courage, decisive action and substantive investment.

As Australia confronts the ongoing crisis of men’s violence against women and children, this survivor-centred, evidence-driven inquiry provides direction and hope for other jurisdictions. Its recommendations must not only be implemented in South Australia but considered by governments across the country.