First national plan to address violence against Indigenous women and children

First Nations survivors of domestic violence have been involved in the establishment of the first national plan specifically aimed at realising a world where they live free from harm.

"Our men really want to send a message that violence is not on. Our women want to feel safe in their own homes," steering committee co-chair Muriel Bamblett told the ABC's Indigenous Affairs Team.

"Children want to be able to grow up in good, nurturing families, not be victims of violence themselves."

The 10-year road map Our Ways — Strong Ways — Our Voices, released today, was developed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in co-design with Australian and state and territory governments.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 27 times more likely than other Australian women to be hospitalised due to family violence, and seven times more likely to be victims of intimate partner homicide.

Ms Bamblett, a Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurung and Boon Wurrung elder and CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency, said this plan addressed the complexity of family violence.

"We shouldn't have to respond to a death of a woman at the hands of a male every time to be able to get resources," she said.

"And I think that's a travesty on the way that we see family violence where it actually has to be driven by a terrible murder or a terrible case.

"We can't keep seeing those sorts of stats within the communities without acting."

The federal government has committed $218.3 million in new funding over four years for a network of up to 40 Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations to deliver specialist support services.

These will include crisis response teams (including mobile teams in remote areas), emergency accommodation, therapeutic support and behaviour change and education programs.

It will also help fund services to assist victim survivors to leave violence safely and receive ongoing support when they do.

"The plan really is about acknowledging the past and looking at systems that work against us," Ms Bamblett said.

"We're looking at a focus on healing and bringing back cultural strength and what that means.

"We really want to address some of the barriers to safety and justice [and] look at long-term strategies to build on the strengths that exist in communities."

In helping design the plan, SNAICC, the peak body for First Nations children, consulted with more than 80 Indigenous organisations and held "knowledge circles" with more than 70 women with lived experience.

The plan identifies trauma, poverty, homelessness, drug and alcohol use, gambling and mental health issues as key risk factors.

Hannah McGlade, an associate professor from Curtin Law School who was also on the steering committee, said the plan was focused on delivering specific, targeted reforms led by First Peoples.

"We often think that self-determination is a political issue that may concern people around land, etc," she said.

"But it's really about our community's rights as well to be heard, be driving responses, be driving safe responses to violence, including early intervention and prevention."

A new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander national peak body for family, domestic and sexual violence, due to be set up soon, will also ensure accountability, the plan says.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives from each state and territory will also meet regularly with federal and state government departments to oversee the plan's implementation.

"It does need that continued commitment and accountability to ensure that state and territory and the federal government do deliver," Dr McGlade said.

Dr McGlade is among those who have been advocating both in Australia and at the United Nations for a separate national action plan for Aboriginal women for many years.

"It's really important that people also understand that it didn't fall from the sky as some gift from the federal government," she said.

"It was hard fought for by Aboriginal women in the international human rights law sphere, but also within Australia."

Racheal Dungay from the Ngarra Aboriginal Corporation told ABC News Breakfast the plan would have a "massive impact" on services such as hers, which have been constrained by short-term funding cycles.

She said her team had been inundated with referrals for their trauma-informed intervention programs for men and boys, which had "shown real outcomes in a very short period of time for us".

"To see these men … that want to change their behaviour, but take accountability for their actions, they're really seeing a massive difference," she said.

"They're identifying the triggers to understand why it's being triggered. It's a lot deeper than what they think because it's the underlying trauma."

Launching the plan at Parliament House on Tuesday, Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy said she was reflecting on the victims, and their families, of the fatal shooting at Lake Cargelligo.

"There are families across the country, like those in Lake Cargelligo, who are still in desperate need of support, of love, of healing, of being surrounded in good ways to come through the other side."

The government said the plan also responded to eight of the recommendations of the 2024 Senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children.

Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek told ABC News Breakfast the new funding would make a "real difference on the ground".

Helping women leave violence safely in a city area is hard enough, she said, "but if you're in a tiny remote community and you need to fly in to help someone stay safe, you can imagine how much more complex that work is".

She said the plan "prioritised delivery of programs that are locally designed, locally delivered, locally staffed because Aboriginal communities themselves know what works in their communities".

"But it also says our mainstream systems like health, education, policing and justice need to reform themselves as well so they are better fit for purpose."

Under the Closing the Gap national agreement, all levels of government have committed to reduce the rate of family violence and abuse against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children, but no updated data has been provided to the Productivity Commission to measure progress.

In a statement, opposition spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians Kerrynne Liddle said the fact this target "remains void of data", along with the worsening Closing the Gap targets, should be prioritised by government.

"The standalone plan began under a Coalition government and was finally delivered by Labor nearly four years later. It is fair to say that those experiencing domestic and family violence would say it has taken far too long," she said.

"This plan talks about a strategy that remains unfinished. The Coalition is focused on the challenges for frontline services where impact matters most, and on ensuring those services funded to turn the dial, are delivering outcomes as intended."