Policy & Advocacy

AMWA’s submission responds to the consultation on the Second Action Plan under the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032. Drawing on an extensive national consultation program – including AMWA’s Gender-Based Violence Thematic Working Group, state-based consultations, and engagement with the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner, the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, and the National Advocacy Group on Women on Temporary Visas – the submission sets out ten core recommendations across the Plan’s five priority areas.

AMWA argues that migration status, race, language, visa insecurity and economic dependence are not incidental complications but structural determinants of whether safety is accessible at all. Without embedding these realities into the Second Action Plan’s design, funding and accountability mechanisms, the reform risks reproducing the same inequitable outcomes multicultural women have experienced to date.

Key recommendations include:

• Recognising temporary migration status as a structural determinant of vulnerability, including a new substantive visa pathway for victim-survivors currently ineligible for family violence provisions.
• Funding settlement and multicultural community organisations as essential prevention and early intervention infrastructure.
• Addressing economic barriers — employment, skills recognition, economic participation — as protective factors against violence.
• Investing in culturally safe, faith-informed protective environments for children and young people.
• Developing culturally responsive behaviour change and sexual violence prevention programs, co-designed with communities.
• Implementing the National Anti-Racism Framework and mandatory Cultural Safety Standards across the sector.
• Building workforce capability across formal, informal and adjacent sectors, and investing in community navigation models.
• Strengthening disaggregated data collection and embedding multicultural women’s leadership in governance.