The federal government has continued their attempts to combat the scourge of men's violence with funding for a new men's wellness centre in South Australia.
The Tullawon Health Service Incorporation in Yalata will receive $2.38 million in an announcement by Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth on Tuesday to create the Yalata Aṉangu Men's Healing Centre.
One of 13 wellness centres across Australia as part of the government's $41.4 million investment under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Action Plan 2023-2025, it will offer a safe space for men in the area to access a variety of programs to help them reconnect with culture and community, including education and therapy, with the aim of reducing domestic and family violence.
"We know to achieve our goal of ending violence against women and children in one generation we must work across a range of areas and with a range of solutions that are community-led," Minister Rishworth said.
"Men must be part of this change."
Coming as Australia grapples with levels of domestic violence, last month the government initiated three community-led Men's Wellness Centres in the Top End, with Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour arguing family and gender-based violence has "far reaching and serious impacts".
Ms Rishworth said the Yalata Aṉangu Men's Healing Centre would work alongside community to "develop and deliver holistic, trauma-informed, inclusive programs" for First Nations men to access the programs they need.
"The centre at Yalata will be one of 13 Men's Wellness Centres in First Nations communities across the nation to help break the cycle of violence and keep families safe," she said.
The initiative to combat domestic violence comes as part of target 13 under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, which calls for a reduction of at least 50 per cent of all forms of violence against First Nations women and children by 2031.
There has been significant criticism about the target, with the latest Closing the Gap data revealing no new data had been gathered since the baseline year of 2018-19.
This despite domestic and gendered violence against First nations women being described as a "national shame" by coroner Elisabeth Armitage, with the lack of reporting about murdered Indigenous women in comparison to non-Indigenous women highlighted on ABC's Media Watch in November.
"Would we be so willing to accept this complete lack of accountability and such outdated data about the safety of other women and children?" Djirra chief executive Antoinette Braybrook asked last year.
"This failure by governments to take even the most basic accountability for the safety of our women and children is completely outrageous. You cannot manage what you do not measure, and it tells us we have so much more to do."
The Yoorrook Justice Commission has heard vulnerable First Nations women are being forced to make decisions between homelessness - and the likelihood of their children being taken into child protection - or staying with violent partners, due to a lack of suitable options.
First Nations women are 45 times more likely to experience family violence than non-First Nations women, and at least 25 times more likely to be killed or injured by a former or intimate partner.
At least 476 First Nations women have been killed since 1989, with seventy-two percent killed by their current or former intimate partner.
A landmark senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children last year called for a review of policing practices, as well as a First Nations role at the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission and changes to the way the media reports on First Nations deaths.
