Section 1: Year in Review

Chair's report

On behalf of the Board and team at Respect Victoria, we are pleased to share with you our Annual Report for 2023-24.

Over the last year, in response to the horrific killings of women and children allegedly by male violence, communities and advocates have organised across the country, galvanising support for action from the streets of Ballarat to the halls of Federal Parliament. We have seen enduring calls to fund frontline services, state and federal governments announcing greater actions, and more people talking about how we can stop this violence. These moments of change have been made possible by the decades of advocacy from communities, organisations, victim-survivors and those working on the frontline of responding to gender-based violence.  

How we move beyond a moment towards lasting change has its roots in the Royal Commission into Family Violence, which laid the groundwork for comprehensive action to prevent and disrupt the cycle of family violence here in Victoria. This year has underscored the need to continue to build on these foundations, being open to new and innovative solutions to end violence, while amplifying the efforts that evidence tells us work to prevent violence against women.  

This year saw an opportunity to take systemic prevention work to the next level, with the announcement of the Ballarat community saturation model. The model is about every member of the community playing a role in preventing violence against women. Working with the community of Ballarat to design and implement the saturation model is a key priority for Respect Victoria in the year ahead.  

In our fifth year, our organisation evolved with the evidence while keeping our vision and purpose firmly in mind. We have continued to drive evidence-based primary prevention with creativity and compassion, while focusing public attention on violence against women and family violence as a priority social issue. Mobilising communities is key to creating the social change required to end this violence.  

We have continued to work closely with our partners in and outside of government to affect change. From grassroots campaigns to research collaborations and to working alongside practitioners, advocates and stakeholders across the family violence system - we know that the effort needed to drive quality, sustained prevention work requires collaboration and partnership.  

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the killing of Luke Batty. In a year marked by seemingly endless tragedy, Rosie Batty provided a much-needed reminder of the power of hope – why we do what we do, the progress that has been made and why we need to stay the course.  

I extend my sincere thanks to the Minister, Vicki Ward, Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change, Tim Richardson, and the Premier, Jacinta Allan – who have been unwavering in their support for prevention. I also want to acknowledge the significant work of our outgoing Acting CEO, Serina McDuff, who steered Respect Victoria for much of the last year and, with the Respect Victoria executive and wider team, continued to bring our vision to life.  

It continues to be an absolute privilege to serve as Chair of Respect Victoria. I am extremely grateful to work with my wonderful Board colleagues – thank you for your wisdom and dedication.  

And to each and every member of the Victorian community who has contributed over the last year to Respect Victoria’s vision of a Victoria free from violence – thank you for everything you do. This violence is preventable and we all have a role to play. We look forward to working with you over the next year.  

Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon
Chair of the Board

Purpose and functions

Respect Victoria is an independent statutory authority dedicated to the prevention of family violence and violence against women in Victoria. Respect Victoria was established under the Prevention of Family Violence Act 2018. Our vision is a Victorian community where all people are safe, equal and respected, and live free from family violence and violence against women.  

To achieve our vision, we lead and support evidence-informed primary prevention and act as a catalyst for transformational social change. Primary prevention aims to stop violence from occurring in the first place, by changing the culture that drives it. We drive coordination and effectiveness of the prevention system. We build and promote primary prevention knowledge and evidence. We keep prevention on the public and policy agenda. We guide prevention wherever Victorians live, work, learn and play. We raise awareness that violence against women is preventable and influence community conversations to fuel social change.  

We are an independent voice, with functions, powers and duties enshrined in legislation.

Budget Performance Output Statement

Respect Victoria contributes to the reporting on performance measures within the 2023-24 Budget Paper for the Primary Prevention of Family Violence output. This reporting is the responsibility of the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing. 

Key initiatives and projects

Driving quality, sustained prevention work across the state

Ballarat community saturation model

In May 2024, the Victorian Government announced this four-year community initiative to prevent violence against women in Ballarat. Respect Victoria will work alongside the local community to design a model that will 'saturate' Ballarat with initiatives and actions to address the gendered drivers of men’s violence against women. Evidence of key factors that reinforce the likelihood or severity of this violence will also inform the model. These include general violence acceptance, alcohol and other drugs, mental health and trauma, among others.

Respect Victoria undertook crucial planning and engagement throughout 2023-24 to inform the model. We commissioned a review of Australian and international literature to understand the impact of mutually-reinforcing, place-based initiatives on reducing and preventing violence against women. The review found that when initiatives are connected and reinforce each other, they have significantly more impact on preventing violence than stand-alone activities. It demonstrated the importance of local insight and community-led decision-making – key factors in the design of the Ballarat community saturation model.

Measuring statewide progress on prevention

Respect Victoria’s theory of change for the prevention of gender-based violence in Victoria maps short and medium-term outcomes required to enable enduring change. In 2023-24 we commenced development of a framework to measure statewide progress towards these outcomes. The framework will identify systems and behavioural outcomes necessary to advance prevention in Victoria, providing all of those working towards prevention with a common mechanism for describing and measuring key aspects of the prevention system.  

This framework will be complemented by Respect Victoria’s monitoring and evaluation of our own work. This year we also commenced development of an internal outcomes framework to strengthen our impact measurement.  

Victoria’s progress on preventing gender-based violence is currently supported by the Prevention of Family Violence Data Platform. The Data Platform houses key sources relevant to preventing violence, including:

• the Household, Income, and Labor Dynamics research program (HILDA)
• the National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey (NCAS)
• the Personal Safety Survey (PSS).  

The Data Platform is updated annually, and in 2023-24 this included data sets from the NCAS conducted in 2021 and the PSS conducted in 2021-22. The Platform was accessed via the Respect Victoria website 1,140 times in 2023-24, and we presented the Platform to several organisations working to prevent violence throughout the year.

Informing quality, sustained prevention work  

In 2023-24 Respect Victoria continued to lead an alliance of organisations, coming together to support coordination between agencies delivering prevention activities across the community. In 2023-24 membership of the alliance included:

• the Municipal Association of Victoria, the peak body for Victoria’s local councils
• Our Watch, a national leader for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children
• Safe and Equal, the peak body for specialist family violence services in Victoria
• Sexual Assault Services Victoria, the peak body for sexual assault and harmful sexual behaviour services in Victoria
• Women's Health Services Council, representing the leadership of 12 women’s health services across Victoria.  

Leaders met regularly throughout the year to discuss key initiatives, issues and work to strengthen Victoria’s prevention system.  

Respect Victoria helps support this system work by providing those working to prevent violence with evidence-informed guidance. Our Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Toolkit is an online resource to help prevention practitioners monitor and evaluate their work. In 2023-24 it was viewed 6,727 times. This year we undertook a survey with those working in prevention to better understand how we can improve the Toolkit for use by practitioners in 2024-25.

Building knowledge and evidence about what works to prevent violence

Summarising the evidence on the drivers of violence  

In December 2023, Respect Victoria published a suite of 16 resources from the Summarising the Evidence research partnership with the Australian Institute of Family Studies. These resources explore the extent to which addressing the gendered drivers of men’s violence against women is likely to help prevent different forms of family and gender-based violence. The project found that addressing the gendered drivers is likely to make significant contributions to preventing all forms of violence considered in the study. It also highlighted the knowledge gaps that remain, including the ways different sources of structural oppression interact with gender to drive different forms of violence.  

Respect Victoria has presented the review to various stakeholders, and there has been more than 1600 downloads of the resources from our website.

Understanding Victorian attitudes towards violence against women

As part of the 2021 National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey, Respect Victoria funded ANROWS to collect a larger sample of Victorian respondents. In 2023-24 we worked with the Social Research Centre to conduct two secondary analyses of this Victorian data that have never been done before. This novel analysis involved two statistical techniques:  

• structural equation modelling, to examine the complex relationship between Victorians’ attitudes towards gender inequality and their attitudes and understanding of violence against women, to highlight opportunities for changing attitudes  
• small area estimation, to explore the possibility of estimating NCAS results for smaller geographical areas, like local government areas, to inform prevention activity across the state.  

The findings of this research will be published in 2024-25 to inform Victoria’s violence prevention efforts.

The Man Box 2024

Across 2023-24, Respect Victoria worked in partnership with The Men’s Project (an initiative of Jesuit Social Services) to undertake a second Man Box study. The study surveyed 3,500 Australian men aged 18 to 45 to explore men’s perception of, and agreement with Man Box ‘rules’, or harmful stereotypes about what it means to be a man.  

The Man Box 2024: Re-examining what it means to be a man in Australia was launched by The Men’s Project and Respect Victoria in February 2024. The study found that the more men agreed with harmful stereotypes of masculinity, the more likely they were to hold violence-supportive attitudes and report perpetrating intimate partner violence.

The Man Box study included seven focus groups to explore how men navigate the pressure to conform to masculine stereotypes. In 2023-24, Respect Victoria analysed this focus group data using a strengths-based approach, to explore how to meaningfully engage men in gender transformative approaches to prevention. This report, Willing, capable and confident: men, masculinities and the prevention of violence against women, will be launched in early 2024-25.

Sharing prevention knowledge and evidence  

Respect Victoria has a legislative remit to build and promote primary prevention knowledge and evidence on what works to prevent family violence and violence against women. In August 2023 we brought together partners to identify opportunities for prevention research in Victoria and nationally. The symposium included participants from across the family violence and violence against women sector, academic researchers and government.  

The aim of the symposium was to reinvigorate conversations about critical, overarching issues in primary prevention of violence against women and family violence requiring greater collective research and knowledge building efforts. Thirty participants from 18 organisations attended the symposium. A report from the symposium detailing key discussion points was shared with participants and published on the Respect Victoria website.  

Throughout 2023-24 Respect Victoria participated in several research advisory and working groups, including for the Personal Safety Survey (ABS) and 2025 National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey (ANROWS).

Keeping prevention on the policy and public agenda

Advice to government

Throughout 2023-24, Respect Victoria continued to provide expert advice to the Victorian and Federal Government to inform and influence prevention policy, legislation, regulation and investment. We worked to support a whole-of-government approach to prevention, supporting departments to embed prevention across new portfolios, reforms and systems. This included advice to:

• Family Safety Victoria and the Office for Women, Department of Families Fairness and Housing
• the Office of Sport and Recreation, Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions
• the Commission for Gender Equality in the Public Sector
• the Department of Education
• the Department of Justice and Community Safety
• the Department of Treasury and Finance.

Engagement with Members of Parliament

Our advice to government includes bipartisan engagement with Victorian and Federal Members of Parliament to support their understanding of and advocacy for preventing family violence and violence against women.  

In November 2023 Respect Victoria celebrated our 5th anniversary with Victorian Members of Parliament and leaders in the family violence sector at Parliament House. Speakers included the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence Vicki Ward and the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner, Micaela Cronin. The Djirri Djirri dancers welcomed us onto Wurundjeri Country with song and performance. We launched the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence at the event, with an activation encouraging Members to join the Walk Against Family Violence and get involved with campaign activities in their electorates.  

Recognising Respect Victoria’s unique role as the only state-based prevention agency in the country, in 2023-24 we expanded our focus to the national arena. We met with Federal parliamentarians in Canberra in November 2023, alongside family violence prevention advocate Rosie Batty, and again in March 2024, alongside The Men’s Project. Across these two visits, we met with more than 18 Members of Parliament and their advisers, briefing them on emerging research into men and masculinities, Respect Victoria’s leading prevention work, and opportunities for parliamentarians to show leadership and support for prevention within their portfolios and electorates across Australia.

Influencing policy reform

In 2023-24 Respect Victoria contributed advice and expertise to support the development of crucial Victorian policy reforms, including:

• the forthcoming third rolling action plan for the 10-year Ending Family Violence plan
• the refresh of the Indigenous Family Violence Primary Prevention Framework
• the second rolling action plan of the Family Violence Industry Plan  
• the forthcoming State-wide Wellbeing Plan
• review of the Victorian Government Family Violence Outcomes Framework.  

At a national level, we also provided expert advice and contributed to consultations concerning the development of key national strategies and frameworks, including:

• the forthcoming National Framework for Respectful Relationships Education
• the independent review of the Fair Work Amendment (Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Act 2022.

Working together with government and the family violence sector  

Respect Victoria continued to support collaboration, knowledge sharing, expert advice and governance between and among the family violence sector and the Victorian Government, including by co-chairing the Primary Prevention Sector Reference Group alongside Family Safety Victoria and via membership of:

• the Primary Prevention Working Group  
• the Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum and Dhelk Dja Priority Sub Working Groups
• the Family Violence Reform Advisory Group
• the Family Violence Reform Board
• the Family Violence Reform Policy Steering Committee
• the Victorian Strategic Alliance on Elder Abuse  
• the Ambulance Victoria ‘Your AV’ Advisory Group.    

In May 2024 we participated in the National Roundtable into Missing and Murdered Women convened by the National Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner, and have provided advice to the Federal Rapid Review of Prevention Approaches Taskforce.  

That same month Respect Victoria brought together victim-survivors, advocates, sector and political leaders for the Victorian launch of Rosie Batty’s latest memoir, Hope. Joining Rosie in conversation at the event were former Victims of Crime Commissioner and former CEO of Domestic Violence Victoria Fiona McCormack AM, former Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay AO APM, and former Premier of Victoria, the Honourable Daniel Andrews. The event was an opportunity to bring together those working to end family violence and violence against women, to reflect on and recommit to the remarkable reform journey Rosie’s advocacy sparked.

Influencing public conversation

Across the year, Respect Victoria placed and was mentioned more than 153 times across local, state, national and international media outlets (compared to 101 times the previous year). Spokespeople participated in television and radio interviews, online news and features, podcasts, and the organisation placed a number of high-profile opinion pieces. Media engagement focused on making prevention accessible for a wide range of audiences, commenting on relevant news and popular culture with a prevention lens, and building community momentum in the lead-up to or following major relevant events or news.

Supporting social change and educating the community that violence is preventable

16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence

Across November and December 2023, Respect Victoria supported the state’s participation in the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, a grassroots campaign to end violence against women and girls. Respect Victoria partnered with peak body Safe and Equal to fund organisations to bring the 16 Days of Activism to communities across the state, including:  

• 74 local councils across Victoria (44 rural or regional councils and 30 metropolitan councils)
• Nine regional women’s health services and their regional prevention partnerships (including health and social services, sporting clubs, businesses, education and training organisations, and other community organisations)
• One statewide women’s health service
• One Aboriginal community-controlled family violence prevention and legal service.  

Grassroots activities included community events and walks, social media campaigns, panel discussions and staff trainings to strengthen engagement in the prevention of gender-based violence across Victoria.

Respect Victoria supported organisations, workplaces and communities across the state to join the campaign, using the 16 Days of Activism Toolkit. The toolkit includes information, tools, resources and campaign assets to help organisations engage in violence prevention. The campaign page was visited by 18,900 unique users over the year.

Walk Against Family Violence

To commence the 16 Days of Activism, Respect Victoria led the annual Walk Against Family Violence in the Melbourne CBD. An estimated 5,000 Victorians joined the Walk (the highest attendance to date), taking a stand against family violence and violence against women and showing solidarity with victim-survivors. Speakers and performers on the day represented a wide spectrum of family violence advocates and organisations.

Media coverage of the Walk and the issue of family violence appeared on all major television news programs including ABC News Breakfast, 10 News and 9 News. Social media content promoting the CBD event reached 338,621 people from metropolitan Melbourne.

Respect Starts With A Conversation  

The Respect Starts With A Conversation campaign ran from October to December 2023, and again in June 2024, being viewed an estimated 10 million times by Victorians. The campaign focused on addressing the harmful impacts of rigid gender stereotyping and dominant forms of masculinity. It called on Victorians to have conversations amongst peers, colleagues and friends about challenging these harmful ideas as an essential act in preventing violence against women. The campaign featured real Victorians having these conversations with their partners, families, friends, workplaces and communities. It highlighted the transformative impact of individuals recognising and challenging violence against women and its drivers.

Telling the story of prevention

In addition to paid and grassroots campaigns, Respect Victoria’s organic content created for our website and social media channels focused on educating the Victorian community about prevention – a core legislative remit of the organisation. There was significant growth in Respect Victoria communication channels over 2023-24. This was fuelled by relevant and engaging content, and the growing awareness in the community that violence is not an inevitability, but a preventable social problem.  

There were over 168,000 unique users of our website during the year. The largest group of users of the website came via organic search, who had the highest engagement rate – indicating they found the content they were searching for. The rollout of regular blog-style pieces on the site contributed to this engagement. This included a series educating Victorians on various forms of coercive control and that resulted in high engagement rates and positive user feedback.  

Tailoring this educational content for social media channels also contributed to significant growth. We gained 10,878 followers between July 2023 and June 2024, growing our total audience by 33% - or a 189% rate of growth compared to the previous year. The number of engagements (likes, comments, shares etc.) with our posts across channels increased by more than 85% compared to the previous year.

Community activations

For International Women’s Day 2024, Respect Victoria worked with local creatives Wall Lords and artist Niqui Toldi to create a public art piece promoting women’s rights and safety. The ‘Respect Women’ mural featured a collaboration with local First Nations-owned business Haus of Dizzy, and was launched with the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Vicki Ward and Minister for Women, the Honourable Natalie Hutchins.  

Installed outside Richmond Station, the Respect Women mural reached over 11,000 commuters. Collaborations with content creators, a social media campaign promoting the mural alongside the Victorian Honour Roll of Women, and other posts drawing on the respect women theme garnered significant engagement across the period.

The following month Respect Victoria participated in the inaugural Respect and Equality at TAFE campaign, in which all 16 TAFE Institutes and Dual-Sector Universities hosted online and in-person activities to promote gender equality and the prevention of gender-based violence. The initiative recognises the powerful role that leadership, staff and students in vocational education play in shaping not just their institutions, but the future of the Victorian workforce in creating a future free from violence.  

Respect Victoria supported the campaign by hosting stalls at 15 in-person events across both metropolitan and regional campuses, and supplied campaign collateral and promotional materials to all campuses. A total of 4,173 students and staff participated in campaign activities across both metropolitan and regional Victoria.

Building a trusted and effective organisation

In 2023-24, the initiatives and projects outlined above were enabled by the development and roll-out of a new approach to governance and operations, which included reviewing and updating key governance and corporate services policies and processes to maximise efficiency and reduce operational risk. Project managers were supported to build their capabilities through formal training, quarterly budget and Business Plan review discussions, improved planning and reporting tools and templates, and information sessions on risk management.