Thirty-two Aboriginal submissions to three family violence inquiries converge on self-determination

Thirty-two documents across three inquiries works out to about eleven submissions each ^[14]. The same items recur through them, the researchers report: Indigenous-led and culturally safe services, data sovereignty, decolonisation and sustained investment in Aboriginal community-controlled organisations ^[6]. The phys.org article does not say how the 32 were selected, or how many submissions the three inquiries received altogether ^[18]. So the 32 describe what these organisations argued, and how large a share of all the submissions that is stays unknown.

Self-determination has a specific meaning in this analysis. The researchers point to the first Indigenous-led National Plan to End Family Domestic and Sexual Violence, which they describe as restoring Indigenous control over how responses are defined, governed and delivered ^[11]. They write that the term is sometimes treated as consulting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, or including them in existing systems, and that this is not what communities have asked for ^[17]. Policing, child protection and mainstream services remain government-controlled ^[16], and the reviews themselves are rarely Indigenous-led or controlled ^[5]. The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency recommended mandatory training covering cultural safety, unconscious bias, anti-discrimination, culturally responsive trauma-informed practice and domestic, family and sexual violence training ^[9].

The claim that reaches back further rests on other evidence. First Nations women and communities have made these calls for more than 40 years, the researchers write ^[10]. The sample covers 2020 to 2025 ^[1], roughly an eighth of that period ^[15].

Submissions complained consistently about short funding cycles and inadequate resources ^[12]. The Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council said community involvement is crucial and adequate resourcing is necessary if solutions are to be enacted and sustained, and that solutions will not thrive when they are interrupted by short-term funding cycles, changes in policies and priorities, and KPIs that are not embedded with self-determination and cultural understanding ^[8].

Intimate partners account for 76% of the killings of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women ^[3]. That share puts men's behaviour in the middle of the prevention question. The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Alliance said in one submission that "women want trauma-informed and culturally safe programs to heal men and empower them to develop better behaviors. Successful programs must be delivered through First Nations-led organizations and based on self-determination. They are at the heart of preventing violence" ^[7]. The alliance was stating its position on what works. The study counted how often positions like it appeared; it did not evaluate any program.

"The problem is no longer simply a lack of evidence about what needs to change. It is getting governments to act on what Indigenous women and communities have recommended for decades," the researchers wrote ^[13]. A submission corpus can show that the asks repeat ^[1]. Showing that a review displaces implementation would mean following each recommendation into a government response, a budget line or a statute.