We all deserve to live without the threat of harm. However, South Australia is in a crisis of domestic, family and sexual violence. The toll it is taking is too high – one woman is killed each week as a result of domestic and family violence.
Violence is preventable but it requires us to take a structural and systemic approach, with appropriate funding, sector collaboration and cultural reform.
Family and domestic violence is gendered – 1 in 3 South Australian women have experienced violence, emotional abuse or economic abuse by a partner since the age of 151. However women aren’t the only ones who face daily abuse. People with disability, people from CALD communities, people in the LGBTQIA+ community and First Nations people are also overrepresented as people who experience violence in their homes, families and partnerships.
South Australia is the only state without a dedicated strategy to prevent and respond to domestic, family and sexual violence2. Funding shortfalls and overwhelmed services mean that people have nowhere to turn.
In August 2025, the Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence handed down its report with 136 recommendations that look into every part of the system that is failing people who are subjected to domestic and family violence. The report contained a call to action,
‘This is a defining moment. The time for half-measures and fragmented responses has passed. South Australia must seize this opportunity to build a system that is coordinated, accountable and equipped to prevent violence before it begins – and to respond with strength and compassion when it does.’3
The Greens will:
- Work collaboratively with the Government to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence
- Ensure victim-survivor voices are at the centre of any implementation
- Scrutinise the implementation of recommendations to prevent gaps, shortages in services and failures of the system
- Ensure regional and remote communities are provided with equitable service levels to their metropolitan counterparts
2. Ibid
3. Ibid p.97-98