There are two national tragedies that have claimed Australian lives for decades.
Women continue to be killed through domestic and family violence.
Aboriginal people continue to die in police and prison custody.
For decades, governments of every political persuasion have commissioned royal commissions, coronial inquests, parliamentary inquiries and expert reviews. They have accepted recommendations, announced reforms and expressed their determination to do better. Yet the deaths continue.
Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody handed down its report in 1991, more than 600 Aboriginal people have died in custody.
Domestic and family violence tells a similarly confronting story. Women have been killed by current or former intimate partners, most often men, for decades despite repeated national plans, countless reviews and bipartisan commitments to end the violence.
Each death brings public grief and renewed promises of action, yet the pattern continues.
No Australian would argue these deaths are acceptable. The question is whether our political and institutional responses have reflected the urgency that these decades-old crises demand.
Recent responses to antisemitic attacks have demonstrated that, when governments recognise a serious threat to a community, they can act quickly and decisively.
The challenge is to bring that same sustained focus and determination to other longstanding national crises, including domestic and family violence and Aboriginal deaths in custody.
Governments often speak of equality. Equality, however, is not measured by speeches or expressions of sympathy after another tragedy. Equality is measured by the willingness to prevent foreseeable harm.
For Aboriginal Australians, the recommendations are not a mystery.
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody delivered 339 recommendations more than three decades ago. Many remain only partially implemented or have been abandoned altogether.
For women experiencing domestic and family violence, the evidence is equally clear. Reviews consistently identify the same gaps: fragmented services, inconsistent intervention, insufficient housing, inadequate perpetrator accountability and chronic underinvestment in prevention.
Communities judge governments by outcomes, not intentions.
When Aboriginal families continue burying loved ones who die in custody, and women continue dying at the hands of violent partners, despite decades of recommendations and promises, many inevitably question why meaningful reform remains so elusive.
Australia should never have to choose which injustice deserves attention.
We are capable of responding forcefully to antisemitism while also confronting domestic and family violence as a national emergency and finally implementing lasting reforms to prevent Aboriginal deaths in custody.
If every Australian life has equal value, then every Australian life deserves an equal commitment to protection, justice and accountability.
Mr Sean Gordon AM, a proud Wangkumarra and Barkindji man, is the CEO of Yadha Muru Foundation and an advisor to the Commonwealth Bank, Woolworths, Steadfast, and the Insurance Council of Australia.
