Murder and disappearance of First Nations women and children examined in Senate inquiry in Darwin

The Senate inquiry has heard that the NT has among the highest rates of domestic violence in the world. (ABC News)

A Senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children is sitting in Darwin today to hear from grieving families and organisations working to reduce harm in the community.

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images and names of people who have died and content that may be distressing.

The committee is considering, among other issues, the number of First Nations women and children who are missing and murdered, and the current and historical ways these deaths have been investigated.

The federal Senate inquiry follows a 2022 Four Corners investigation into the deaths of First Nations women and a recent coronial inquest into the deaths of four Indigenous women in the Northern Territory at the hands of their partners.

The Senate inquiry has heard from a number of NT-based legal services and organisations working to combat domestic, family and sexual violence in the territory.

North Australian Aboriginal Family Legal Service (NAAFLS) principal legal officer James Lowrey said that while the root causes of the territory’s domestic violence epidemic were complex, the solutions were relatively straight-forward.

He told the inquiry the Northern Territory was failing in four “base-level areas”:

1. Safe houses in every remote community;
2. Indigenous language interpreters being available for victims;
3. Family dispute resolution services in lieu of child protection services; and
4. A lack of men’s behaviour change programs delivered by Indigenous men in Indigenous communities.

The inquiry heard that of the 49 communities serviced by NAAFLS, only 19 had safe houses, two had men’s behaviour change programs and none had family dispute resolution services.

“It is pedestrian that we are here having an inquiry about these issues, and that we keep having so many inquiries and retraumatising victims and asking them to give evidence again, and again, and again,” Mr Lowrey said.

Advocates say funding models need to change

Tangentyere Council anti-domestic violence campaigner Chay Brown told the inquiry the NT suffered from some of the worst domestic violence rates in the world, yet only received 1.8 per cent of the nation’s domestic violence funding.

Dr Brown said the federal government needed to move away from the current population-based funding model and commit to funding the NT’s services based on need.

She said many nationwide programs targeting domestic, family and sexual violence were culturally inappropriate for remote Indigenous communities.

“We are talking about communities that don’t have phone network coverage, communities that don’t have sealed roads, there’s no public transport, there’s no services on the ground and those that do have services, those services are just drastically underfunded,” she said.

Dr Brown said services like hotlines were inappropriate in communities where many residents shared mobile phones and lived in crowded housing.

Zara O’Sullivan from the Domestic Violence Legal Service in Darwin echoed calls for needs-based funding, saying a lack of resources was failing women and children across the board.

“There must be needs-based funding,” she said.

“The current system leads to a disjointed and fragmented response from all service providers, from police to legal services to support services, that lets these women down and places them at risk of further harm or death.”

Domestic violence epidemic in the spotlight

The 2022 Four Corners investigation revealed at least 315 First Nations women in Australia were either missing, murdered or killed in suspicious circumstances between 2000 and October 2022.

The Northern Territory coroner last year investigated the deaths of four Indigenous women in the jurisdiction at the hands of their partners.

Kumanjayi Haywood, Ngeygo Ragurrk, Miss Yunupiŋu and Kumarn Rubuntja were just four of the 76 Aboriginal women killed at the hands of their partners in the Northern Territory between 2000 and November 2023.

The coroner, Elisabeth Armitage, examined the responses of institutions such as police and emergency services to the “domestic violence epidemic” being experienced in the NT, which has the highest rates of domestic, family and sexual violence in the country.

Among the key issues the federal Senate inquiry will examine is institutional responses to the disappearance and deaths of First Nations women and children, and the systemic causes of all violence that is experienced by First Nations women and children.

Dr Brown noted that one of the women working for Tangentyere to reduce domestic violence, Kumarn Rubuntja, was herself murdered at the hands of her partner in 2021.

Her partner, Malcolm Abbott, pleaded guilty to murdering her in 2022.