News

The 10-year plan for ending violence against women and children risks missing key targets after advocates rejected a proposed framework overhaul by Nous. By Kristine Ziwica.

Your subscription makes these exclusive articles possible

Subscriptions make these exclusives possible SUBSCRIBE NOW

Exclusive: Labor shelves Nous review on gendered violence

Former minister for social services Amanda Rishworth.

Credit: AAP Image / Joel Carrett

Almost a third of the way into its decade of operation, the prospects for the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children are in doubt as a costly proposal by Nous Consulting Group to overhaul its governance framework has been quietly shelved.

The rejection by key stakeholders has further delayed a centrepiece of the national plan’s governance review that was expected to be implemented five months ago, and has forced the Department of Social Services to return to consultation with women’s and children’s safety advocates.

People close to the process question the choice of Nous – known for its extensive work on cost-cutting in the university sector – to lead the governance review and develop a new framework. They are also concerned by what they see as the sidelining of frontline services and other experts, with the winding up late last year of the National Plan Advisory Group, a key forum for advice to government.

In May 2024, the then minister for social services, Amanda Rishworth, agreed to a strategic review of the governance arrangements under the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032. The move came as an acknowledgement that the plan, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said would end gendered violence “within a generation”, had failed to prevent a sharp increase in the murders of women by abusive partners last year.

According to AusTender, the Department of Social Services paid Nous $119,900 for two months’ work aimed at ensuring the national plan had the oversight needed to meet its ambitious targets. The contract wrapped up in December 2024, with the new framework expected to be approved and deployed in May 2025, according to consultation documents.

In March 2025, the DSS circulated a consultation paper entitled “Proposed revised governance arrangements to support the implementation phase of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032”. Nous’s work, multiple sources say, was not warmly received.

“We are constantly frustrated by the revolving door of consultants who are lining their pockets with taxpayer funds, taking the time and expertise of usually unfunded charities and organisations, and diverting them from their important work, only to repackage it up and present it to government and move on,” says Phillip Ripper, the chief executive of No to Violence, the peak body for organisations and individuals who work with men to end family violence. “And then we rinse and repeat.”

Another senior leader, who asked not to be named so they could speak freely, says, “These consultancies get paid the big bucks by government while family, domestic and sexual violence sectors survive on breadcrumbs and personal commitments.

“They mine the expertise of a chronically underfunded and overworked sector, thank us for the incredible work we do, don’t pay or partner with the sectors for their contribution, and then they get future work by demonstrating their knowledge and experience in the space.”

Frontline service providers also objected to the Nous proposal’s jettisoning of the National Plan Advisory Group (NPAG) from its role of providing “independent oversight”. Nous instead posited a Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Panel that would sit further down the food chain. The panel was to ensure “engagement” with the sector but not necessarily help drive “implementation”.

“We felt that it was putting the expert knowledge of the sector and people who are working in the policy space and on the frontline of family violence … further down, and the proposal would further remove their voice from effective representation and advice to government,” says Ripper.

While the new minister Tanya Plibersek, and assistant minister Ged Kearney, who took over the Social Services portfolio after the May election, “will be working incredibly hard”, says Ripper, the need for the sector to advise them is “more important than ever”.

He says many in the women’s safety sector were disappointed when the NPAG was disbanded at the end of last year without an announcement as to what would replace it. Many now fear there may be nothing.

“The longer we go with uncertainty and the lack of any structure, the greater the anxiety the sector is feeling,” says Ripper.

Several senior leaders in the sector with experience of working with Nous and other consultants hired by the DSS to work on the national plan expressed similar frustrations.

Even the wording in the governance review’s consultation document, describing the purpose of the governance review, concerned experts: “The Department of Social Services is undertaking a strategic review and revision of the current governance arrangements to ensure that they are fit for purpose as the National Plan moves into an implementation phase.”

Given the current plan follows one covering 2010–2022, sector experts wondered how the DSS could suggest they were only just reaching the implementation phase, 15 years into a program of work that has seen a total of $4 billion flow from Commonwealth government coffers into 122 Commonwealth government initiatives.

Since the newly elected Albanese government announced a second National Plan to End Violence Against Women in 2022, its tracking according to set targets has been the subject of intense scrutiny. The first, 12-year national plan, launched in 2011, is largely thought to have failed according to its own single measure for success: to see “a significant and sustained reduction in violence against women and their children”. By 2022, rates of domestic violence had not fallen and rates of sexual violence had increased.

A 2019 auditor-general report identified “a lack of attention to implementation planning and performance measurement”.

A year after the launch of the second plan, the DSS released an outcomes framework that set six high-level targets. In 2024, a performance measurement plan added 34 “sub-outcomes” that would be tracked. Of these, only 16 can be measured. A data development plan was proposed to fill the gaps in data, but it never materialised.

This week in parliament saw the tabling of the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission’s second annual progress report on the national plan, which identifies persistent blind spots.

“... the National Plan ... sets out an ambitious framework for measuring progress through outcomes and performance measures, however, due to key and critical data gaps, we cannot ascertain a clear picture of what change is occurring,” the report notes.

“Three years into the National Plan and I see a real sense of possibility, but we are at a crossroad, and we now need to act with urgency,” said Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin on the report’s release.

The commissioner has called for the creation of a national watchdog to ensure state, territory and federal governments effectively implement the national plan.

“If we are serious about ending violence against women and children, we must treat data collection as a core pillar of accountability,” says Kate Fitz-Gibbon, a professor at Monash Business School, who led the consultations to inform the second national plan. The first, she says, “failed to effectively measure progress against a diverse set of indicators, and three years into its operation, the current plan risks the same fate unless we see a clear pivot towards consistent and transparent reporting”.

During the consultations, adds Fitz-Gibbon, “we heard loud and clear from stakeholders across Australia that a diverse range of targets was essential to measuring progress and understanding the impact of this national plan”.

Following inquiries from The Saturday Paper, late last week the department sent an update email to stakeholders thanking them for their patience and expressing appreciation for the time and commitment of everyone who provided feedback throughout the process.

Asked for comment on the concerns and frustrations expressed to The Saturday Paper, the DSS gave assurances that the revised governance arrangement would be announced within “weeks”.

In response to questions about the fate of the governance review and the Nous proposal, a DSS spokesperson said the consultancy’s work was “one input”.

They added that the department was still considering feedback and recommendations to “ensure the voices of all stakeholders are captured”, and the review would be “finalised in due course”.

Three years into the second national plan, and a year after it was revealed the femicide rate had increased by 28 per cent, prompting two emergency national cabinet meetings, crisis talks, a rapid review of prevention approaches and another round of women’s marches, we still don’t seem any closer to answering the most basic question: is the national plan “on track”?

National domestic, family and sexual violence counselling service 1800 737 732

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on November 1, 2025 as "How a consultancy stalled Labor’s plan to end violence".

For almost a decade, The Saturday Paper has published Australia’s leading writers and thinkers. We have pursued stories that are ignored elsewhere, covering them with sensitivity and depth. We have done this on refugee policy, on government integrity, on robo-debt, on aged care, on climate change, on the pandemic.

All our journalism is fiercely independent. It relies on the support of readers. By subscribing to The Saturday Paper, you are ensuring that we can continue to produce essential, issue-defining coverage, to dig out stories that take time, to doggedly hold to account politicians and the political class.

There are very few titles that have the freedom and the space to produce journalism like this. In a country with a concentration of media ownership unlike anything else in the world, it is vitally important. Your subscription helps make it possible.

Send this article to a friend for free.

RELATED READING