In the past two years, Chay Brown has lost three of her friends to domestic violence.
WARNING: This article contains descriptions of domestic violence as well as an image and name of an Aboriginal woman who has died.
"Three friends of mine have been killed by their male partners and we have to be horribly honest, that's not an unusual experience," she said.
Dr Brown is a domestic violence academic and researcher based in Alice Springs.
She has witnessed the impact of domestic violence in First Nations communities, including the death of domestic violence advocate Ms R Rubuntja.
Ms Rubuntja was actively speaking out about violence in central Australia, which saw her and the Tangentyere Women's Family Safety Group in 2018 travel to Canberra, where they held an emotional sit-down inside parliament house, urging federal politicians to take action on the extreme levels of violence towards Aboriginal women.
However, in 2021, Ms Rubuntja's fate was met, and the silent abuse she was suffering became known to her family and friends when she was murdered by her partner, Malcolm Abbott.
Last year, Four Corners revealed that the Northern Territory was Australia's homicide capital, and due to its small population, only received 1.8 per cent of the $260 million that the previous federal government dedicated in June 2021, for two years, to reducing domestic and family violence.
"In 2021, the Northern Territory had around seven times the rate of domestic and family violence-related homicides, seven times the national rate that is," Dr Brown said.
On Tuesday, the federal government announced $589.3 million in funding for women's safety, including $194 million over five years dedicated to supporting First Nations women across Australia.
The federal government hasn't laid out how much of Tuesday's budget will go to each state and territory's women's safety sector.
However, Dr Brown isn't hopeful the money will be distributed on a needs-based basis.
"We have been advocating very strongly for needs-based funding, so the Northern Territory has access to the resources it needs to meet this level of need," she said.
Australia not on track
The federal government has a national plan to end violence against women and children by 2032.
"We are not on track to meet that extremely ambitious target," Dr Brown said — and, to reach that goal, she added, at least $1 billion a year was needed.
"When it's the first full budget delivered by the Albanese government, we're seeing a figure nowhere near that," she said.
For Gudanji, Garuwa, Yunuwa and Marra woman Margaret Allwood — who runs the women's safe house in the remote Northern Territory community of Mabunji — "it doesn't sound like a lot".
"I know a lot of people who have been affected by domestic violence. We have two women in the community who lost their legs, one was in a car accident and the other was attacked by a machete."
Domestic violence is "active" in her community, and the women's safe house has no shortage of women escaping violence.
"Once a month, we might get 10 women or more if it's alcohol people are bringing in from elsewhere," she said.
"It's always alcohol that exacerbates domestic violence around here, men and women."
All too often in her community, Ms Allwood sees men stuck in a cycle of abusing their partners and being sent to prison.
"They can't get away from the cycle of violence," Ms Allwood said.
"The men go in and they come out of jail and they do it again, and the women go back to the husband because they have children to that man.
"[And] we're seeing $150 million a year, instead of a billion, so it seems like the government's ambition does not extend to their wallet."
Frontline workers feeling the impact
Larissa Ellis is chief executive of Women's Safety Services of Central Australia, which runs crisis accommodation.
Ms Ellis told the ABC that about 97 per cent of women and children accessing service's accommodation are First Nations people.
"We need to address behaviour associated with domestic violence. We need to hold perpetrators accountable for their behaviour, and we need to provide support and therapeutic interventions for women and children who experience violence," she said.
"We are in crisis all the time, in regards to our levels of domestic and family violence."
Ms Ellis said funding was often "so tight", that organisations often weigh-up where to invest the dollars.
"When you're working in trauma every day and you're immersed in other people's trauma, you can't help but to take on that trauma yourself," she said.
"Often it is time-limited, how long you can work in this sector, and it's imperative that organisations provide sufficient and adequate support to our staff to ensure that we're not traumatising them and exposing them to unnecessary vicarious trauma."
She said crisis support services for women often battled tough decisions.
"Do we put more money into frontline and try to [meet] demand, or do we put money into supporting the staff that we've got, so we can continue to provide quality service? Unfortunately, that's probably where a lot of organisations are at," she said.
