Media Release - Women and children's safety is a national crisis and needs a national emergency response - 23 September 2026

Women and children’s safety is a national crisis and needs a national emergency response

Shadow Minister for Women, Melissa McIntosh MP is calling for women and children's safety to be treated as a national emergency following a horror weekend in New South Wales where another three women and one child lost their lives to violence.

"This year, 52 women and 20 children have lost their lives. If that happened in any other national crisis, Australia would already have a war room operating," Mrs McIntosh said.

"Following this horrific weekend, and with the NSW Premier and the NSW and Victorian Police Commissioners bracing for a surge in domestic and family violence ahead of the footy final weekends where we know domestic violence incidents spike - we need to act now.

"Australia cannot afford to keep acting like this is business as usual.  Women and children are dying because of violence. This is a national emergency, and it requires an emergency response.

"When we have fires or floods, we track the threats, process intelligence and deploy resources in real time. We need to be doing the same for domestic violence and mobilise our response teams now, so more women and children don’t needlessly lose their lives because of our failed systems.

"A National Women and Children's Safety Shield would operate just like an emergency response command centre does when we have fires, floods or a pandemic.

“Technology companies are often accused of causing harm to women and children. Well, now they can be part of the solution to identify risk earlier, coordinate responses faster and prevent violence before more lives are lost.

"The capability exists. What's missing is the national coordination."

“We are always bipartisan in approaches to addressing domestic violence, but we can’t be bipartisan in failures – and right now, we are failing the women and children of this nation who need us.

“I visited our amazing local community services this morning who are on the frontline supporting women, children and families in need. When they are telling us the status quo isn’t working, we need to change what we are doing so it does.