The very last thing this country needs is a royal commission into violence against women. The absolute last thing. According to one researcher, royal commissions routinely cost somewhere between $300 million and $600 million.
I can tell you clearly where that money should be spent. It should be spent on funding what we already know works to stem violence against women. We know what the problems are. We need to fund the answers.
It annoys me to have to agree with Anthony Albanese on this - but he's right. Royal commissions fund lawyers. But that money should go to where it's needed. I'm trying to imagine how it could fund housing, or the lawyers supporting kids in the family court, or specific therapies or shelters. It would be transformational.
Let me introduce you to Patrick O'Leary who worked for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which began in 2013. He says the Commission in itself was very successful and needed.
But here's what happens with all royal commissions - the findings are not acted on instantly. In some cases, they are left to languish - let me think, Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody anyone?
As O'Leary points out, maintaining the rage and action nearly a decade after the recommendations were released is one of the biggest challenges. Governments routinely implement recommendations they agree with and lag on anything that's hard or costly.
"Even today the implementation of recommendations has not been completed and some have been ticked off as implemented when they have not been actioned as intended by the royal commission," he says.
O'Leary is now the co-director of the Disrupting Violence Beacon and chief investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence against Women at Griffith University.
He's done the hard yards - along with so many other researchers in this country - and he's clear on this. Addressing gender inequality is one part of it but not the only part we need to address other issues as well to make the elimination violence against women sustainable.
Government after government spends money on what Australia needs. Hospitals, schools, infrastructure. We pay taxes (could someone please tell the whining entrepreneurs) to fund these crucial needs.
Australia's most basic unit of infrastructure is family relationships, our connections with each other. How do we improve connection? By making it safe to be in relationships, to make our children safe, by making adults safe.
I asked a number of researchers what they would fund instantly. I didn't give them the half-a-billion-dollar budget. I just wanted to see what they said. The overlaps made me feel all the feels. We know what works.
We need to fund it instantly.
O'Leary's top asks? Housing.
Address that crucial part of our relationship infrastructure. Build a sustainable pathway to long-term housing and support after crisis accommodation and separation.
Then? Build crisis responses for people/men who use violence so that they get an intervention as close to the proximity of the occurrence of violence or their attempt to seek help.
As he points out, that would also have to include strategies to accommodate men away from the family home. Fund drug, alcohol and mental health treatments.
Address male violence in all its forms. Men kill women. They also kill men. They kill themselves. We know this. We also know how to fix it.
Building positive men who have better relationships with each other is one thing we could do because we know how to do it.
As O'Leary points out, "This will disrupt all the rubbish on the manosphere that is a response to the deficit approach to masculinity that is often out there."
It's not just the academics who have their doubts about the efficacy of royal commissions.
Lisa Wheildon, research lead at No to Violence, says she doesn't believe it's what we need. As she points out, earlier this year veteran researcher Kate Fitz-Gibbon at Monash University gave a presentation where she pointed out some of the reports, commissions and inquiries that have already presented recommendations for action.
"We know what needs to be done. What we are missing is the political will to do it - and a royal commission won't manufacture that." Amen to that.
She's done a truckload of work with survivors and like O'Leary, has come to conclusions, based on her research. Housing is crucial.
Wheildon asks what causes some men to use violence when others with all the same risk factors don't?
"We currently rely almost entirely on men's behaviour change groups. These suit some perpetrators, they are not a one-size-fits-all solution. We need an ecological system of interventions, including case management, restorative justice, individual counselling and trauma support."
She points out that funding to address perpetrator behaviour has not increased beyond the existing $9.6 million allocation. There we go. It's the money again. Imagine what would happen if we poured even $50 million into investigating perpetrator behaviour?
And Griffith University's Silke Meyer's top needs break my heart. How on earth are we still asking for money to fund child-centred recovery support? How are we still asking for money for specialist services for young women experiencing domestic and family violence.
Meyer, a professor at Griffith and a criminologist and social worker by training, says we must invest in trauma-informed educational settings which can identify and respond to childhood experiences of domestic and family violence and their impacts.
We must do it in a way that meets kids' needs and supports their ability to stay engaged at school. Roll out evidence-based primary prevention in all schools, not just state schools.
Like the others, she wants more money for housing, therapeutic interventions and court support. And a post on LinkedIn by young lawyer, Kiara Want, explains the need clearly.
She wrote: "I decided to study law because as a young person I was appointed a lawyer from legal aid to advocate for me in similar proceedings. I remember greatly appreciating that someone was advocating for me, during a time where I was unable to do so for myself ... I remember at the time thinking that this lawyer's job 'must be so cool' because they got to speak with children and advocate for them. I was eternally grateful to have had someone who could speak for me and what was in my best interests."
Elena Rosenman is the chair of Women's Legal Services Australia and when I ask her what she thinks would work in this country, she's straightforward.
"We haven't tried funding the service sector like we want it to succeed." Good points. And yes, people have said to Rosenman that 'we could throw all the money in the world and still wouldn't end'. But wouldn't we like to try funding it properly before we give up?
As Wheildon says, what we really need is political will commensurate with the scale of the crisis.
Police, courts, hospitals, schools, all overwhelmed managing the impacts of family violence. Our communities are overwhelmed.
"Investment in prevention and early intervention now is investment in savings across the whole of society.
"Our political leaders need to act on what survivors and researchers have been telling governments for years."
100 per cent. Let's start now. Entrepreneurs whining about paying more tax? Let's remind them that their taxes could save lives, maybe even their own.
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