There is one particular sentence in the Productivity Commission's latest Closing the Gap Annual Data Compilation Report that should alarm you.

Not because of what it counts. Because of it admits out loud what cannot be counted: Australia does not know the true scale of what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children are enduring.

The latest report, released in July, notes that more than 90 per cent of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women is estimated to go unreported. It also acknowledges that Australia's current data systems are not capable of assessing progress against Closing the Gap Target 13, which commits governments to reducing the rate of all forms of family violence and abuse against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children by at least 50 per cent by 2031, as progress towards zero.

Pause and consider what that means.

Australia has a national target.

Australia has national commitments.

Australia has a national plan.

Yet Australia cannot actually tell whether it is succeeding.

No one claims that figure is precise. Violence of this kind is extraordinarily hard to measure accurately.

But if the estimate that more than 90 per cent of violence goes unreported is even remotely accurate, then the situation is horrific and warrants urgent attention from every government in the country.

Because if we are only seeing a fraction of the violence occurring in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, then the reality being experienced by women and children may be far worse than the official statistics suggest.

The figures we do have are already confronting.

The Productivity Commission reports that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women were hospitalised due to family violence at a rate of 783.1 per 100,000 women aged 15 and over in 2023-24. More women are turning to specialist homelessness services because of family and domestic violence: 19,579 women in 2024-25, a rate almost 16 per cent higher than when the Closing the Gap baseline was set. The hospitalisation rate has barely shifted since the 2018-19 baseline of 789.8, and on an age-standardised basis it is about 30 times the rate for non-Indigenous women. At the same time, many women continue to face barriers accessing services: almost one in four reported a problem in 2022-23, with distance and physical accessibility the most common barrier, ahead of affordability and cultural safety.

Those are not indicators of a problem that is being brought under control.

Those are indicators of ongoing crisis.

The Commission is careful to note that a rise in hospitalisations could also mean more women felt safe enough to seek treatment and to name the perpetrator. That caveat is fair. It is also the whole problem. When the same number can mean either more violence or more trust, it cannot tell governments whether they are succeeding.

The most disturbing aspect of the report is not simply the rates of violence. It is the possibility that the violence we measure is only a small part of what is actually occurring.

Imagine a health emergency where governments believed nine in every ten cases were missing from official systems.

Imagine a road toll where nine in every ten deaths were not recorded.

Imagine a major crime problem where police believed most incidents were never reported.

We would demand answers.

Yet when it comes to violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children, we have become far too comfortable with not knowing.

Our Ways Strong Together, launched in March, is the new national community-controlled peak body for family, domestic and sexual violence. We were created because Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities refused to keep waiting for governments to see what they have long known.

The Closing the Gap data was released a few weeks ago, but the 90 per cent figure didn't seem to prompt much of a reaction.

For too long, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have carried both the burden of violence and the burden of proving that violence exists.

The proof is already sitting in the Commission's own data. In the most recent national attitudes survey it reports, 94 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women aged 16 and over agreed that violence against women is a problem in Australia. 69 per cent said it was a problem in their own town or suburb. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are not uncertain about this. Australia's data systems are.

Communities and Aboriginal organisations have repeatedly told governments what is needed.

They have called for culturally safe services.

They have called for Aboriginal community-controlled responses.

They have called for healing.

They have called for self-determination.

They have called for systems that work with communities instead of around them.

Prevention.

None of this is new.

The Productivity Commission itself highlights Our Ways - Strong Ways - Our Voices: National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Plan to End Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence 2026-2036 as the dedicated national plan to address family, domestic and sexual violence affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The principles are well established: community control, healing, self-determination, system reform and Indigenous Data Sovereignty.

The challenge is no longer knowing what needs to be done.

The challenge is whether governments are prepared to act with the urgency the situation demands.

Because a nation that cannot accurately measure violence cannot confidently claim it is reducing it.

A nation that knows women face barriers to accessing support cannot simply accept those barriers year after year.

And a nation confronted with the possibility that most violence remains hidden should not be reassured by incomplete statistics.

It should be alarmed by them.

At a minimum, governments should treat the Productivity Commission findings as a warning that Australia's current approach to measuring family safety is inadequate. Better data systems, stronger community-led information gathering, investment in Indigenous Data Sovereignty and greater accountability must become immediate priorities.

But data is only part of the story.

Women's safety is the story.

Children's safety is the story.

Communities trying to break cycles of violence are the story.

Behind every hospitalisation statistic is a woman.

Behind every homelessness figure is a family.

Behind every unreported incident is a person who, for whatever reason, could not seek help, could not access support, or could not trust the system to respond.

If more than 90 per cent of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women is going unreported, Australia is facing a crisis of a magnitude that should shock the conscience of the nation.

Olga Havnen AM is the Chief Executive Officer of Our Ways Strong Together, the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peak body for family, domestic and sexual violence.