‘System is failing’: call for publicly-funded domestic violence services
5 May 2026Newcastle Herald 04 May 2026 By Sage Swinton
The Public Service Association of NSW has launched a campaign calling for a publicly-funded domestic and family violence service structured alongside policing, housing, health and child protection.
The union says Australia’s domestic violence response is “failing women” despite record spending commitments, because services were fragmented, inconsistent and often outsourced.
A woman is killed every week in Australia by a current or former partner.
“Women are still being killed in their own homes,” PSA general secretary Stewart Little said.
“That is the most basic test of whether a system works, and right now the system is failing.”
Last year federal and state governments committed $4.7 billion across five years. But the PSA argues the problem is not just funding, it is how services are structured and delivered.
Domestic violence support in NSW largely relies on community-run refuges, and faith-based organisations.
While vital, the PSA says they are under-resourced and rely on short-term grants and fundraising, which takes up time and energy.
The union is calling for integrated domestic and family violence services to be rolled out across NSW, creating government-run “one-stop” centres bringing together police, child protection, housing, health and specialist support workers.
The PSA pointed to another multi-agency model, the Joint Child Protection Response Program, which coordinates police, child protection and NSW Health as a “blueprint”.
“We know integrated public services save lives in child protection,” Mr Little said.
“Domestic violence victims deserve the same level of coordinated protection.”
The PSA says the government-run Mount Druitt Family Violence Centre demonstrates what works.
The centre is staffed by child-protection professionals who liaise directly with police.
“Domestic violence is not a niche welfare issue. It is a public safety issue,” Mr Little said.
“You would never outsource policing, and you would never crowd-fund a fire brigade. Domestic violence protection is just as fundamental. It must be core government business.”
‘Real acute crisis’
University of Newcastle Professor Penny Jane Burke said there was a “real acute crisis” in underfunding of domestic and family violence services.
Professor Burke is director of the university’s Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education, which engaged in research into gender-based violence in the region and the current level of resourcing.
The research found most service-provider organisations supported many more victim-survivors than they were funded to support.
The Domestic Violence NSW Unmet Demand report found two in three new referrals in need of case management or case coordination could not be assigned to a case worker immediately.
Professor Burke said service-providers in the region were “incredible”, but were working on goodwill because they were so under-resourced.
For this reason, Professor Burke said she would “advocate strongly” for more publicly-funded and more integrated services.
Publicly-funded and integrated services would allow case managers to work more directly with victim-survivors and their families, and grasp the complexity of domestic and family violence “that no service could do on its own”.
“The sector seems to be quite fragmented at times,” Professor Burke said.
Professor Burke said she believed any additional resourcing should utilise the “incredible knowledge and expertise” in existing services.
“Also looking at building on that, drawing on that work to be able to properly fund and resource the work they do,” she said.
“But also connect across different services and such a complex set of issues.”
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