In preparing this report, it became immediately apparent that there is currently no source of information which monitors government funding of domestic, family and sexual violence in Australia. This is notwithstanding the Commonwealth Government's ambitious targets to reduce domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) under the current National plan to end violence against women and children 2022-2032, and the corresponding Outcomes Framework, which aims to eliminate violence against women in one generation, and to reduce female victims of intimate partner homicide by 25% in 10 years.

This case study analyses Commonwealth Government budget documents between 2010-2011 and 2023-2024, including Women’s Budget Statements, to examine the rate and types of investment over time. Gender budget statements are a way to identify the government’s investment priorities for addressing gender inequality and can be an avenue for increased transparency. This study highlights that Women’s Budget Statements allow both government and non-government organisations to monitor and analyse funding for different types of initiatives that are identified as aiming to address domestic, family and sexual violence.

Key recommendations:

• Introduce mandatory discrete budget lines to enable consistent tracking of DFSV financing at both a Commonwealth Government and State and Territory Government level.
• Develop a framework to link tracking of DFSV financing to qualitative DFSV objectives, the latter of which are currently expressed in the Outcomes framework 2023-2032 under the National plan to end violence against women and children 2022–2032.