Tanya Plibersek on the PM’s viral DV comments and calls for a royal commission

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

7am – Tanya Plibersek on the PM’s ‘tone deaf’ DV comments and calls for a royal commission
Date: May 24, 2026
Host: Daniel James (for Solstice Media)

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Episode Overview

This powerful episode tackles Australia’s ongoing crisis of domestic and family violence (DFV), centered on government responses and public demands for a royal commission after a devastating week marked by the deaths of multiple women and children. Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek joins the show, addressing the limitations of government action, the “tone deaf” remarks from the Prime Minister on the value of royal commissions, and the urgent need to change social attitudes—especially among young people—to prevent further violence.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Call for a Royal Commission and the PM’s Response

• Backdrop: A surge of violence (five women and two children killed in a week) intensifies national calls for a royal commission into DFV. More than 90,000 Australians have signed a petition.
• Prime Minister’s Stance: When asked, the PM dismisses the idea:
  • "There's calls for royal commission about everything." [00:22]
  • "What does a Royal commission do besides fund lawyers?" [02:00]
• Public and Political Backlash: The PM’s remarks are characterized as “tone deaf” and out of step with public sentiment.

2. Tanya Plibersek’s Perspective: Plenty of Inquiry, Not Enough Action

• Plibersek’s Sympathy and Frustration:
  • She understands why Australians want a royal commission:
    "What people who work on the front line have said to me again and again is we've been consulted. We've had eight Royal commissions and major reports in recent years with a thousand recommendations." [02:07]
• Existing Knowledge and Need for Change:
  • Emphasizes that the issues and recommendations are well-known. The gap lies in lack of sustained action.
  • "We know so much of what we need to do..." [03:32]
• Addressing Policy Fatigue:
  • Notes the repetitive cycle of national focus after each tragic event, urging for constant, inclusive engagement rather than episodic attention.

3. The Limits and Power of Royal Commissions

• Contrast with Other Issues: Interviewers highlight how the PM previously championed a royal commission into veteran suicide as the “most powerful form of inquiry.” [03:11]
• Plibersek on the Difference: Emphasizes thorough prior consultation and existing recommendations in the DV space, unlike newer, less-explored crises; calls for focusing on "doing more of what’s working." [03:32]

4. Sustainable, Community-Wide Change Over Bureaucratic Answers

• Need for National Conversation:
  • Plibersek appeals for personal responsibility: "Every one of us, when we see behaviour that troubles us in ... our friendship circles or in our family... every one of us has the opportunity to change that conversation." [06:33]
  • Sustained change must go beyond government and rely on society-wide shifts, particularly targeting attitudes and gender norms.
• Ongoing Parliamentary Inquiries: She points out other key inquiries—such as those into suicide linked with DFV—illustrating that commissions can matter but shouldn’t stall action.

5. Government Funding—Is It Enough?

• Recent Government Actions:
  • $4.4 billion invested over four years for the national plan to end violence against women.
  • Highlights the “Leaving Violence Program”—offering up to $5,000 and support services for those leaving abusive relationships. [08:59]
  • $1.2 billion for emergency housing and reforms in family law and child support.
  • Over 500 activities in collaboration with states and territories emerging from the current action plan.
• Plibersek’s View:
  • "I will never in my life say, we're doing enough. While there is a single woman or a single child... I'm never gonna say, yep, job done." [08:59]
  • Stresses importance of celebrating progress without losing sight of ongoing work.

6. Systemic Failures: Child Support and Financial Abuse

• Weaponization of Child Support:
  • Some abusers manipulate the system to inflict further harm, e.g., by failing to lodge tax returns to avoid payments.
  • "People are very creative in punishing their former partners...never lodging a tax return..." [12:31]

7. The Role of Young People in the DFV Crisis

• Concerning Statistics:
  • More than half of sexual assault victims in 2024 were under 18.
  • 15% of offenders aged 10-17, mostly male. [12:48]
• Action Plan Moving Forward:
  • Identifies the need to treat children and youth explicitly as both victims and (in rare cases) perpetrators.
  • "One of the areas that I'm most worried about is this violence between young people where both the victim, survivor and the perpetrator are under at the age of 18..." [12:54]
• Online Misogyny & Pornography:
  • Plibersek raises alarm at the role of the internet and early exposure to violent pornography in shaping unhealthy norms: "We are seeing kids who are, you know, 10 years old watching pornography that involves choking before they've had their first kiss." [14:13]
  • Outlines efforts to raise the age for social media use and implement age-verification for adult content.
  • Urges open, explicit conversations about relationships, consent, and respect in sex education.

8. The Emotional and Moral Weight on Policymakers

• Personal Impact:
  • Plibersek’s voice breaks as she reflects on the weight of responsibility and the stories of individual victims: "I feel the responsibility of it extraordinarily, and I am absolutely determined that this second action plan will give us some really practical things that we... can do to reduce the rates of violence in this society." [15:49]
• Whole-of-Society Effort Needed:
  • Final call for comprehensive action beyond government.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• PM’s Disregard:
  "There's calls for royal commission about everything." – Prime Minister [00:22]
  "What does a Royal commission do besides fund lawyers?" – Prime Minister [02:00]

• On Consultation Fatigue:
  "We've had eight Royal commissions and major reports... with a thousand recommendations." – Plibersek [02:07]

• On Personal Responsibility and Societal Change:
  "Every one of us has the opportunity to change that conversation... We shouldn't be waiting for any inquiry or commission to do that." – Plibersek [06:33]

• Acknowledging Limitations:
  "Will I say that that's enough? Never. Not while there's a single person who is still subject to violence or abuse or fear." – Plibersek [10:11]

• On Youth Exposure:
  "We are seeing kids who are, you know, 10 years old watching pornography that involves choking before they've had their first kiss." – Plibersek [14:13]

• On Emotional Impact:
  "I feel the responsibility of it extraordinarily, and I am absolutely determined that this second action plan will give us some really practical things..." – Plibersek [15:49]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:00–00:53] – National call for a royal commission and PM’s response
• [01:43–06:33] – Tanya Plibersek on the value (and limits) of inquiries and the need for direct action
• [08:30–11:14] – Discussion of government funding, the scale of the issue, and ongoing national plans
• [11:24–12:31] – In-depth on weaponization of child support and financial abuse
• [12:31–15:26] – The emerging crisis among young people, the role of online culture, and changing education
• [15:26–16:58] – Plibersek on emotional impact and the urgent need for collective responsibility

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Summary

This episode places Australia’s struggle with domestic and family violence under a microscope, pressing the government on its resistance to a new royal commission and highlighting the disconnect between policymakers’ rhetoric and the public's demand for concrete action. Minister Tanya Plibersek lays out both the deep challenges and existing efforts, insisting that change must be sustained, multi-layered, and society-wide. The conversation underscores that while government funding and inquiry matters, true solutions begin with shifting community norms—starting particularly with the young and reverberating through every level of society.

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Transcript

[Daniel James]

Australia is again being forced to reckon with the violence being inflicted on women and children.

[Unidentified Reporter]

You know, we've seen four deaths in now, four days of women, and we were yet to hear anything, any government official, especially yourself, Prime Minister, talk about it. I know that there is a call for royal commission into the deaths of women. There's 90,000 signatures so far. What does your government feel about that? Will we see this royal commission?

[Prime Minister]

Look, there's calls for royal commission about everything.

[Daniel James]

The PM's sudden disdain for royal commissions is out of step with what thousands of Australians want to see in response to the scourge of domestic violence. After another devastating week, thousands of people from all walks of life have backed calls for a royal commission in the killing of women and children at the hands of an intimate partner or someone they know. But the government says the country doesn't need another inquiry. It needs action on what is already known.

[Prime Minister]

We know what's required in terms of the economic support to get out. We know there's a need for more alternative housing. We know there's a need for more counselling and for community workers. And we need to get on with action.

[Daniel James]

I'm Daniel James and you're listening to 7:00am today. Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek on the pressure for a national reckoning, the limits of government response and the growing concern about how violence is shaping the lives of young people. It's Monday, may 25th.

[Interviewer]

Minister, welcome to 7am It's a pleasure

[Tanya Plibersek]

to be with you, Minister.

[Interviewer]

In the last week, five women and two children have been killed in very devastating circumstances that have shaken a lot of people in this country. And yet, when the PM was asked about calls for a royal commission into the killing of Australian women and girls,

[Prime Minister]

he said, but you've got to work out, what does a Royal commission do besides fund lawyers?

[Interviewer]

That's a pretty dismissive response, isn't it?

[Tanya Plibersek]

I understand why people want a Royal commission because they say this is such an important issue for our society and when an issue is important, they think a royal commission is an appropriate response. What people who work on the front line have said to me again and again is we've been consulted. We've had eight Royal commissions and major reports in recent years with a thousand recommendations. Our family domestic and sexual Violence Commissioner, Michaela Cronin, last year totalled up all these recommendations. And I've got a lot of sympathy for the argument of frontline workers that we've been consulted. We know what the problem is. What we need is sustained action to change the incidence of violence in our community.

[Interviewer]

Just if we just stick on the idea of a royal commission for a moment. The prime minister in 2021 said about the Royal Commission into defence and veteran suicide that a Royal commission is the most powerful form of inquiry that we have. It'll ask the hard questions, it will find the hard truth.

[Prime Minister]

The fact is we're not doing enough in this area and that's why the call for a royal commission is reasonable. This is one that's been led not by politicians, this has been led by the families of veterans.

[Interviewer]

Why is that different from for this particular circumstance?

[Tanya Plibersek]

Because we know so much of what we need to do. I go back to those thousand recommendations. Frontline workers. I've just come from a service now, multicultural workers working with refugee and immigrant women. They'll tell me what I need to do. I'm meeting people every single day who say, we've been consulted, this is what we need more of. And like I say, I mean, in Victoria, you've had a Royal commission. Here, the South Australian Government's had a Royal Commission. We've had the coronial inquests in the Northern Territory, We've had the rapid review that all of the premiers and Chief Ministers and Prime Minister commissioned a little while ago. It's not that we don't understand family, domestic and sexual violence. Unfortunately, we understand it all too well because it is so prevalent. We also know the answer to some of what is working to change, where we're seeing positive change. We've got some really good pointers to what we should be doing more of. And so actually, the big opportunity now, I think, is in refocusing our efforts to do more of what's working, less of, you know, what's not working, and pick up where we've got gaps. So we've got a national plan on violence against women and their children. We're launching the consultation on the second action plan for that. This is sounding very bureaucratic. I don't mean it to. What that means is what are the specific practical actions that we need to be doing now, as a federal government, as state and territory governments and right across our community to change the incidence of violence in our community? Those deaths are horrific and they are the most obvious pointer to where we've failed. But for every death, there are thousands of people who never come into contact with police or the service system. We need to be reaching those people with better supports and most particularly, we need to be changing the attitudes and behaviours in our society that allow this sort of thing in the first place, it's a huge job. We know so much of what we need to do to do that. We need to get on and do it.

[Interviewer]

Absolutely. Just one final point on the Royal commission and I'll drop it and we'll move on. Isn't that part of what a royal commission can do? It can spark a national conversation because from, I guess, from a punter's perspective, people on the street that aren't on the front line and in service provision or in advocacy around this, there's a mix of funding from one place there's state police, there's courts, in another, there's separate legal services, separate prevention campaigns. Couldn't a royal commission sort of force

[Daniel James]

all those systems to talk to each,

[Interviewer]

but also, more importantly, I reckon, start a national conversation around what we need to do as a society to address this scourge?

[Tanya Plibersek]

I think that's an absolutely vital question for us as a community to answer, and I'm so pleased to be talking to you today. And, you know, I have a lot of opportunities to have this conversation with the Australian public. The second action plan consultation is exactly that, is exactly that opportunity, and it's a great opportunity for every Australian to have their say. Can I add to that, though? What often happens is there's a horrific event, we have so much talk about it for a few days and then it drifts out of people's consciousness. What we really need is for this conversation to be sustained, and that means every one of us taking some responsibility personally for doing that. Governments can do a lot. Yeah, you know, commissions, inquiries, we can do a lot. We've got actually a really important inquiry on in the Parliament at the moment about deaths that are suicides, but where there's been a history of family, domestic and sexual violence, because we know suicide and FDSV are intrinsically linked. These inquiries do play a really important role. I'm not for a second dismissing that. But every one of us, when we see behaviour that troubles us in, you know, the relationships that we observe in our friendship circles or in our family, when we see young men in particular talking about women in a way that is disrespectful or supports those really gendered stereotypes that we know so often permissive, become permissive of violence, every one of us has the opportunity to change that conversation. And we. We shouldn't. We shouldn't be waiting for any inquiry or commission to do that. Every one of us needs to take responsibility for that every day.

[Daniel James]

The question that's always being asked when it comes to any Sort of portfolio is, is the government doing enough? And I guess that's the question in this particular space as well. Minister, you've got a national plan to end violence against women, which has so far invested $4.4 billion over four years. But the government's just announced an additional 5.3 billion per year on new defence spending. Does the money focused in this space equate to the priorities of the government?

[Tanya Plibersek]

So I will never in my life say, we're doing enough. While there is a single woman or a single child or a single person experiencing violence or coercion or control or whether they're frightened at home or on the street, I'm never gonna say, yep, job done. I've been working in this area for decades and I've seen amazing progress, but not enough progress for me to think that we don't need to continue to push. But I think it's also important to acknowledge where progress has been made, because unless you celebrate the wins, it's hard to keep people motivated. And so. So acknowledging we've added $4.4 billion of funding in this area, that includes around a billion dollars every year, for example, for the Leaving Violence program, which gives people up to $5,000 support to leave a violent relationship. When I first started working domestic violence, if you had told me that we could help a woman with $5,000 of support to leave a violence situation immediately, I would have thought, wow, that will change everything.

[Interviewer]

And on top of that, you've got $5,000 and access to goods and services. And safety planning.

[Tanya Plibersek]

Safety planning is a really important part of that, actually being able to talk to someone about making your safety plan, leaving safely. Because we know most violence, including most homicides, happen when someone's leaving a violent relationship. We've got $1.2 billion going into emergency housing. We're doing big reforms in both family law and child support to make these big government systems safer for victims of violence. We're working with the private sector, like financial institutions, to prevent abuse through, you know, financial abuse through things like banking apps. We're working with the tech sector on stalking and nudify apps. And all the things that technology facilitated abuse are throwing up as new challenges. There's so much work going on. In fact, We've got over 500 activities right now with the states and territories coming out of that first action plan. Will I say that that's enough? Never. Not while there's a single person who is still subject to violence or abuse or fear.

[Daniel James]

Coming up, the Minister's emotional response to the task at hand.

[Interviewer]

Let's talk about one of those touch points that the government can have a very direct impact on, and that's around reforms to child support. Because the system is being weapon.

[Tanya Plibersek]

Hell, yeah.

[Interviewer]

Women and children. For people who've never dealt with it, how does a payment system become a form of abuse?

[Tanya Plibersek]

Oh, well, look, there's a lot of families that just sort out their financial arrangements after separation themselves. They're fine on their own. About half of separated families use the child support scheme to collect money from the paying parent and pass that on to the child and the parent that they're living with most of the time. In most cases, the paying parent is the dad, in most cases, the recession is the mum. But of course, there's always variations to this. How can it be misused? Let me tell you, people are very creative in punishing their former partners. Just one example is just never lodging a tax return. So you, as the receiving parent, never get the money you're entitled to. Cause there's an assumption that the paying parent is on a much lower income than they're actually on.

[Interviewer]

Minister, I also want to talk about how young people are showing up on both sides of sexual violence data. More than half of recorded sexual assault victims in 2024 were under 18 at the time of the incident. And 15% of offenders in 2324 were aged 10 to 17, mostly male.

[Tanya Plibersek]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Will the new action plan treat young people as one of the central parts of this crisis?

[Tanya Plibersek]

Absolutely. So the new action plan gives us an opportunity of doing more of what's working, as I said, but it also is really an important opportunity to identify any gaps in what we're doing at the moment. And I think treating young people, children and young people on their own, specifically as victims of family, domestic and sexual violence, is a really big gap in the current action plan. But one of the most alarming statistics I see. There's a lot of areas, as I said, where we're seeing slow, gradual improvement that we should celebrate. One of the areas that I'm most worried about is this violence between young people where both the victim, survivor and the perpetrator are under at the age of 18. Sometimes it's in the context of relationships, sometimes, sometimes it's not. I'm really worried about it because we, you know, your question earlier about are we putting enough resources in? We'll never be putting enough resources in if we're growing a new generation of people who use violence.

[Interviewer]

I mean. Yeah, I can hear it. I can hear it in your voice. I Mean, how worried are you about the rise of things like online misogyny in young people and how it connects to domestic violence and sexual violence? How do we develop a plan to address that? Is that part of the plan? Is that what we're consulting on?

[Tanya Plibersek]

100%. And in the discussion paper that we're releasing, it's one of the areas that we specifically identify as an area that needs focus because there's a lot of really bad stuff happening on the online world. So that's why we've raised the, you know, age to 16, where you can have your social media. And that's why we've got an age verification for pornography. Now, I know a lot of people don't like that. They think it's such an intrusion on their civil liberties. We are seeing kids who are, you know, 10 years old watching pornography that involves choking before they've had their first kiss. And we need to be really explicit in addressing this with young people. We need to be much more explicit in our respect for relationships and sex education talks like the, you know, the spermatoza goes to the egg and the impregnate. That's all kids know that that's not complicated. What they don't understand is consent or pleasure or desire or negotiation. And while ever we think adults think that we're protecting kids because we don't talk to them about sex, we are missing the opportunity of setting healthy norms for them.

[Interviewer]

Finally, Minister, there's every chance by the time this interview goes to where that another child or woman will have been killed by a man that they know. How do we ensure that these victims don't become statistics and that their stories and their memories aren't left behind in the scramble to tackle this scourge? How heavy does the responsibility to get this right weigh on you?

[Tanya Plibersek]

I feel it extraordinarily. I remember, you know, I remember so many of the victims that I've heard about over the years. I've met so many of their family members and I know how missed they are. And I also, you know, I meet so many people who've been victims of violence and see and hear from them the impact that it's had on them long term, in many cases, how they felt they might be the next homicide statistic. I feel the responsibility of it extraordinarily, and I am absolutely determined that this second action plan will give us some really practical things that we, we can do to reduce the rates of violence in this society. But, and I don't want this to sound like an excuse at all, governments have to lead, but this has to be a whole of society effort.

[Interviewer]

Minister, thank you so much for your time.

[Tanya Plibersek]

It's a pleasure.

[Prime Minister]

Foreign.

[Daniel James]

Also in the news, a man has died after opening fire near the White House, shooting at Secret Service agents and hitting a bystander. He was shot by the Secret Service and died later in hospital. One White House reporter was forced to duck for cover as the gunfire broke out during a live cross.

[Unidentified Reporter]

President Trump has said a deal is called close only for the two sides to remain far apart.

[Daniel James]

President Donald Trump was inside at the time, but unharmed. It comes just weeks after an alleged assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Now, Senator David Pocock hasn't ruled out forming a party of independence. He told insiders there's plenty of conversations happening all the time in response to the rise of one nation. It's after a Redbridge poll revealed here on the 7am podcast on Saturday, which predicted Pauline Hanson could win up to 59 lower house seats if an election was held today. I'm Daniel James. Thank you so much for listening to 7am we'll be back tomorrow.