Respected South Australian advocate, author, former diplomat and Senator, Natasha Stott Despoja AO has been appointed to lead the state’s Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence.

Ms Stott Despoja is highly qualified to undertake the role of Royal Commissioner.

In July 2013, she was named the founding Chair of Our Watch, the national foundation to prevent violence against women and children. She was appointed life patron of Our Watch in August 2022.

Ms Stott Despoja served as national Ambassador for Women and Girls from 2013 to 2016.

She was a member of the World Bank’s Gender Advisory Council from 2015 to 2017.

She is currently a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and served on the 2017 UN High Level Working Group on the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents.

A former Leader of the Australian Democrats and Senator for South Australia, Ms Stott Despoja is also the author of the book “On Violence”.

The Royal Commission is expected to take 12 months, and will have powers to recommend policy, legislative, administrative and structural reform.

It will formally commence on 1 July, however Ms Stott Despoja will imminently begin preliminary work.

The Royal Commission will examine five key themes, aligned with the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-2032:

• PREVENTION: How South Australia can facilitate widespread change in the underlying social drivers of domestic, family and sexual violence;
• EARLY INTERVENTION: How South Australia can improve effective early intervention through identification and support of individuals who are at high risk of experiencing or perpetrating domestic, family and sexual violence;
• RESPONSE: How South Australia can ensure best practice response to family, domestic and sexual violence through the provision of services and supports;
• RECOVERY AND HEALING: How SA can embed an approach that supports recovery and healing through reducing the risk of re-traumatisation and supporting victim-survivors to be safe and healthy;
• COORDINATION: How government agencies, non-government organisations and communities can better integrate and coordinate efforts across the spectrum of prevention, early intervention, response and recovery.

The Royal Commission will have a strong focus on empowering the voices of survivors and will help shift community understanding and discourse about domestic, family and sexual violence.

The Royal Commission adds to the considerable suite of policies and reforms already in train by the Malinauksas Labor Government including:

• A commitment to legislate to criminalise coercive control with extensive consultation with community and the sector undertaken;
• Making the experience of domestic violence a ground of discrimination in the Equal Opportunity Act;
• Enshrining 15 days paid domestic violence leave for workers engaged in the state industrial system;
• Committing $1 million to establish southern and northern DV prevention and recovery hubs;
• Providing $800,000 to restore funding to the Women’s and Domestic Violence Court Assistance Service for the next four years;
• Reinstating funding to Catherine House cut by the former government;
• Establishing the Housing Security for Older Women Taskforce knowing that domestic violence is a key factor in housing insecurity;
• Introducing laws to require high-risk domestic violence defendants who are not on remand to be electronically monitored on home detention bail;
• Ring-fencing a proportion of public housing for women escaping violence; and
• Engaging with the finance and real estate industries to ensure women do not bear the brunt of mortgages, loans and rent that go unpaid in a domestic violence situation.

Quotes

Attributable to Peter Malinauskas

I am very pleased that a great South Australian Natasha Stott Despoja, is willing to take on this incredibly important role.

She has a formidable CV – and a demonstrated dedication to making a real difference in stopping domestic violence.

For most people – the prevalence of domestic violence is hard to fathom.
But the hard truth is one woman a week in Australia is murdered by her current or former partner.

This is a scourge. It is incumbent upon all of us to stop it.

Attributable to Katrine Hildyard

The prevalence of domestic, family and sexual violence in our community is utterly unacceptable. We hold in our hearts all who are impacted by this terrible scourge.

Our Government is proud of our stringent focus on this issue and of the innovative work we’ve done so far in prevention, intervention, response, recovery and healing. But we absolutely need to do more.

Natasha Stott Despoja AO is a proven leader and a proud and enduring advocate in the struggle to prevent domestic, family and sexual violence.

We know this Royal Commission will generate important conversations in families and communities across South Australia about the role they can play to prevent violence, and will send a strong signal to men perpetrating violence that it has no place in our society.

We are resolute in our support for survivors – they will be heard.

Attributable to Royal Commissioner Natasha Stott Despoja

I thank the Premier for his faith in me and the opportunity to lead a Royal Commission that tackles the scourge of domestic, family and sexual violence in my home state.

I commend the Government on establishing this Royal Commission and acknowledge the tireless work of the sector in advocating for such a ground-breaking inquiry.

The Terms of Reference are comprehensive and broad ranging. They are underpinned by an intersectional approach, which is especially critical given the high rates of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children and the violence perpetuated against women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and women with a disability.

I may bring decades of policy work, have experience as a legislator for more than a decade, and have worked with an organisation specialising in primary prevention of violence against women and their children for the past ten years (Our Watch), but I mostly I am driven by a desire to see this violence eliminated in South Australia and beyond.

I hope to be part of a Royal Commission that presents findings that will change lives and, hopefully, save them.