On the eve of the release of the national white paper on homelessness and the national plan to prevent violence against women and their children, the nation’s peak body on domestic and family violence is calling for government action on several critical issues.

Australia’s peak body on the prevention of domestic and family violence has described as groundbreaking the Federal Government’s National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children

Co-author of the report "Womens Refuges, Shelters, Outreach and Support Services in Australia: from Sydney Squat to complex services challenging domestic and family violence" Julie Oberin, said the research shows there continues to be an urgent need for improvements in the availability of services responding to the issue of domestic and family violence. This research shows that there is a persistently high number of women, many with accompanying children seeking the safety and security of SAAP funded refuges and domestic violence services. Too many are turned away because of the lack of appropriate safe places.

The Body Shop has once again demonstrated their commitment to the safety of women and children with their recent Stop Violence in the Home Campaign.

WESNET raises concerns about the Government's media campaign.

How many more deaths will it take? asks WESNET Chair Pauline Woodbridge, before the Commonwealth seriously tackles the systemic violence suffered by Indigenous women in Australia. A recent Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report shows that Indigenous Women are 12 times more likely to be murdered than non-Indigenous women.

How ironic that on the day the devastating costs of domestic violence to the Australian economy are released to the public we find out that the Howard Coalition government has downgraded the Office for the Status of women to a division within the Department of Family and Community Services

The proposed changes to the Family Law system will result in even more deaths of women and children, unless the new Family Relationships Centres to be established across the country prioritise safety of women and children above all other considerations, according to WESNET (the Womens Services Network), peak body for domestic and family violence services across Australia.

WESNET The Womens Services Network is pleased to see the Labour Partys Plan to Combat Violence Against Women released today at Australian Parliament House. This comes at a time when the Howard government for the first time in 20 years failed to release a womens budget statement at all.

More than 450 participants at Australia's Inaugural Domestic and Sexual Assault conference today condemned the decision of the Victorian Government to refuse Heather Osland's petition for mercy for the killing of her abusive partner.