ABS Data Exposes Domestic Violence Crisis: Women Unsafe at Home
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released shocking new data that lays bare a brutal gendered divide in violence across the nation. While men predominantly face threats from strangers in public spaces, women are being broken by those they love behind their own front doors, turning the great Australian dream of a safe home into a recurring nightmare.
Gendered Patterns of Violence Revealed
The findings show that 48 per cent of women who were physically assaulted in the past 12 months were targeted in a residential setting. In 44 per cent of those cases, the perpetrator was a family member or an intimate partner. For men, violence is largely an external threat, with 56 per cent of their most recent incidents involving strangers, and 72 per cent of assaults occurring outside the home.
Women who experienced physical assault were far more likely than men to suffer multiple incidents in a single year—56 per cent compared with 44 per cent for men. This suggests that for more than half of female victims, violence is not a one-off trauma but a recurring cycle of abuse in the very place they should feel most protected.
West Australia Records Alarming Surge
The latest ABS figures found West Australia recorded 11,908 family and domestic violence offenders in 2024-25, marking a 20 per cent increase from 2023-24, 51 per cent from 2022-23, and 71 per cent from 2021-22. Of those offenders, nearly 80 per cent (9,371) were men.
WA recorded the biggest surge in offenders of any state, significantly outpacing South Australia (10.6 per cent), New South Wales (7 per cent), Victoria (4.62 per cent), and Tasmania (0.19 per cent), while Queensland saw a slight decrease of 2.33 per cent. The Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory also recorded rises of 58.4 per cent and 14.3 per cent, respectively.
National Crisis and Workplace Violence
Nationally, police recorded a total of 97,800 family and domestic violence offenders in 2024-25, an eight per cent jump from the previous year and the largest increase since national reporting began in 2019-20. In total, nearly 400,000 Australians reported being victims of physical assault in the last year, comprising roughly 210,000 men and 180,000 women, with 90,300 reports from West Australians alone.
The workplace has also emerged as a common site of violence for both genders. More than one in four physical assaults reported in the last 12 months occurred on the job, involving 57,000 men and 51,000 women.
Advocates Call for Urgent Action
Centre for Women’s Safety and Wellbeing chief executive Dr Alison Evans warned that the current level of support is failing to keep pace with the scale of the problem. She emphasised the uniquely corrosive impact of home-based violence, stating that it leads to ongoing fear, depression, and anxiety, affecting women's safety both at home and in public.
Dr Evans highlighted the need for more investment across primary prevention, early intervention, crisis response, recovery, and healing. She stressed that while progress is being made, the crisis demands much more to address the chronic day-to-day fear experienced by women and children.
The warning follows news that the rate of family and domestic violence has hit an all-time high across WA, with cases soaring by 20 per cent in the past year, underscoring the urgent need for comprehensive solutions to combat this national scourge.
