A year on from the Northern Territory’s historic domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) coronial inquest, frontline specialists and Aboriginal health leaders say urgent action is still missing - and more Aboriginal women are dying as a result.
Dr Chay Brown, a domestic, family and sexual violence researcher, spoke to NITV about the ongoing crisis in the Northern Territory, highlighting the continuing failures of government and the devastating impact on Aboriginal women, families, and communities.
“We’ve already lost another eight women this year alone, allegedly at the hands of their partners. Based on last year’s rates, that’s roughly five times the national average,” she said.
“The violence is frequent, severe, and the impact on families and communities is immeasurable.”
Dr Brown criticised the NT Government’s response to the coronial findings, describing it as dismissive and insufficient.
“All we’ve seen from the government is them stand in Parliament and try to ridicule the coroner - and by extension, the families and friends of those four women.
"It’s a deliberate attempt to demean the efforts of families who gave 18 months of their lives to a traumatic inquest, travelling across remote communities to bear witness and contribute.”
She said the Territory’s housing crisis compounds the problem.
“The Northern Territory has 12 times the national rate of homelessness. Programs like the escaping violence payment are helpful in theory, but they’re meaningless if there’s nowhere to go.
"The waitlist for public housing is around 10 years, even for priority cases. At the very least, women and children’s shelters need proper funding and resources - right now, hundreds of women are being turned away every month.”
Dr Brown emphasised that the crisis is systemic and racialised.
“If the Territory continues to delay, there will be more dead Aboriginal women and children.
"More than 90 per cent of domestic violence homicides in the NT since 2000 have been of Aboriginal women. The government has no political will to tackle the number one community safety issue here."
She stressed that the impacts extend beyond immediate deaths.
“The effects are generational. You cannot overstate the devastation these deaths have on friends, family, and the wider community.”
Dr Brown called for urgent resourcing and support for the frontline sector, saying communities cannot continue to bear the burden alone.
The Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance of the Northern Territory (AMSANT) has also marked the anniversary with a renewed call for systemic reform.
The coronial findings, handed down by NT Coroner Elisabeth Armitage on 25 November 2024, followed Australia’s largest-ever DFSV inquest, which examined the deaths of four Aboriginal women - Kumarn Rubuntja, Kumanjayi Haywood, Miss Yunupingu and Ngeygo Ragurrk - all killed by partners with known violent histories.
Despite detailed recommendations calling for transformational change, AMSANT says little has shifted.
In the year since the report was released, five more Aboriginal women have allegedly been killed by their partners across the NT.
Fresh figures highlight the severity of the crisis: the Northern Territory continues to record the highest rate of domestic, family and sexual violence in the world, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women face intimate partner homicide at seven times the national rate.
The harm is also starkly visible in the health system, where almost three-quarters of assault-related hospitalisations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are linked to family violence.
AMSANT Chair Rob McPhee said these figures reflect a Territory-wide emergency.
“Aboriginal women are bearing the heaviest and most devastating impacts,” he said.
“Every woman and child deserves to be safe. We wouldn’t accept this level of violence anywhere else.”
Mr McPhee said the inquest made clear that Aboriginal-led responses must sit at the centre of any reform.
“Each woman who died wasn’t hidden from the system - they all reached out for help, and their partners were known to authorities. Yet the system failed to protect them.”
Coroner Armitage’s report pointed to trauma, grief and systemic disadvantage as driving forces behind DFSV in the Territory.
She urged government to prioritise Aboriginal leadership, community-designed prevention programs and early intervention.
In a statement, the NT's minister for the prevention of domestic violence, Robyn Cahill, said the government was committed to reducing the rates of domestic violence.
"This Government considered the recommendations of the Coronial Enquiry ... and found majority of the recommendations referenced programs that were already in place," she said.
"It was obvious that doing more of the same was not going to achieve the desired result of addressing DFSV in communities."
But AMSANT says the Territory has not yet matched those recommendations with meaningful investment.
“In-principle acceptance isn’t keeping women safer,” Mr McPhee said.
“We need real investment in prevention, early intervention, community leadership and culturally strong support - exactly what the coroner identified. Our duty of care is to ensure no woman’s cries for help go unheard again.”
Ms Cahill said a "record" $36 million had been allocated to the sector, investment that was already "seeing results".
"We have seen a decrease of 1.4% from January to September 2025 compared with the same time last year ... That is a massive turn around and has come about because this Government is willing to do things differently."
AMSANT and community-led organisations are calling on the NT Government to partner meaningfully with Aboriginal organisations and adopt new approaches to prevention and support, as consistently recommended by the coroner.
The anniversary also coincides with the start of the global 16 Days of Activism campaign - a reminder, AMSANT says, that the Territory cannot afford another year of delay.
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