A series of domestic violence deaths across NSW last weekend has put the devastating impact on children back in the spotlight, as the Federal Government prepares its next five-year plan to tackle violence against women and children.

Almost one in five domestic homicide victims are children, while around 40% of Australians report being exposed to domestic violence as children.

The deaths come as the Federal Government prepares its Second Action Plan under its 10-year strategy to end violence against women and children, with advocates demanding children be recognised as victims in their own right.

Lived experience advocate Conor Pall and Australian Childhood Foundation CEO Janise Mitchell are among those helping shape the Government’s Second Action Plan.

Here’s what they want policymakers to hear.

This newsletter discusses heavy topics, including domestic and family violence, and suicide. Help is available at 1800 RESPECT: 1800 737 732. Lifeline: call 13 11 14, or text 0477 13 11 14.

Last Saturday, three NSW women were killed, all allegedly by men known to them.

The following day, two children were killed, and another is in a critical condition after an alleged stabbing in NSW. The children’s mother has been charged with murder and attempted murder.

Advocate Sherele Moody documents femicide and filicide – the killing of a child by a parent or guardian – in real time through the RED HEART Movement.

The Memorial to Women and Children Lost to Violence also documents women and children killed due to murder, manslaughter or neglect.

In 2025, 106 women and children were killed, including 27 children.

So far this year, 73 people have been killed, including 21 children.

Janise Mitchell is a social worker and child rights advocate, an Adjunct Associate Professor at Southern Cross University and the CEO of Australian Childhood Foundation.

She told TDA that the current definitions of family violence “sees children and young people too often fall off the end of sentences.”

Children, she said, “aren’t a benign cohort in the community,” but are “experiencing violence too, just as women are.”

While Australia’s understanding of family and domestic violence has largely centred on women as the largest cohort of adult victim-survivors, Mitchell said the issue needs to be understood differently when it comes to children.

“Family violence, it doesn’t run along gendered lines,” she said.

She pointed to the example of a teenage boy escaping violence with his mother, only to be told by a refuge: “No, that adolescent boy can’t come in, he’s too old’,”.

She added that there is still “work to do” to build a genuinely child-centred approach to family violence policy.

Now 23, Conor Pall became an advocate at just 18, after his own experience of family violence exposed a critical gap in the support available to young people.

“I didn’t grow up wanting to be an advocate against family violence,” he said.

“I experienced violence from someone who should have loved and cared for me unconditionally, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.”

Pall reached out for help as a 16-year-old, but was told: “I couldn’t access help because I was under the age of 18.”

“I experienced a system that wasn’t built with a young person like me in mind,” he said.

That experience drove him to push for change.

Pall spent three years on the Victorian Victim-Survivors Advisory Council before being appointed to the Federal Government’s Domestic Violence Advisory Council.

In 2022, the Federal Government launched its 10-year National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children.

But Pall said the first five-year action plan failed to adequately hear from children and young people.

“My understanding is that only one young person was consulted as part of the First Action plan,” he said.

He described the gaps in Australia’s family violence system, including the response he received as a teenager, as a “national shame.”

The Second Action Plan, which will set the direction for the next five years, is now being developed.

Pall called it not only “an opportunity for the government to not only recognise children and young people as victims in their own right”, but to also ensure any young victim-survivor can “access a service if they reach out for help.”

The Australian Childhood Foundation has been involved in consultations for the plan, Mitchell said, and wants to see these talks “translate through to policy” and “investment in services.”

Pall said hundreds of children and young people have now been consulted for the Second Action Plan, including himself.

At last month’s National Cabinet meeting, ending gender-based violence was again put on the agenda, with the nation’s leaders agreeing to the priorities for the Second Action Plan.

Those priorities include “enhancing supports for children and young people who have experienced violence”.

Addressing the NSW domestic and family violence deaths in an interview with ABC earlier this week, Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek said the Government also needed to engage more with “big points of contact”, in children’s lives.

She pointed to schools, universities, TAFE, and medical systems as places “where we can identify there is a risk that there’s family, domestic or sexual violence,” allowing services to “intervene earlier.”

The Government conducted submissions and consultations for the Second Action Plan this year, with the draft expected to be considered in the coming months.

Looking ahead, Mitchell wants to see holistic support for all young Australians, regardless of their location, age, or gender.

She flagged the particular impact on “a lot of boys and young men” who have witnessed their fathers or father figures being abusive and are “really fearful that they’ll turn into their father.”

That group, she said, needs access to experienced counselling “that understand[s] the impact of violence.”

More broadly, Mitchell said “we need more services, but then we’ve got to clarify young people’s rights to access services in their own right.”

That means specialist counselling, housing, income and social support, as well as long-term initiatives to keep them engaged at school and employment.

For Pall, the starting point is simple: “We need to start believing children and young people”.

He also wants a “separate stream of funding” dedicated to young victim-survivors.

“They’re dying from being killed in the context of family violence, but they’re also dying by suicide… we need a dedicated case management support for young people,” he said.

Ultimately, Pall wants “every young person in this country to know that they have a right to be safe and free, and to know that the violence that they’re experiencing was never their fault and never will be”.

Lifeline: 13 11 14
1800 RESPECT: 1800 737 732

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