Domestic Violence Statistics in Australia: What the Latest Numbers Reveal

Domestic violence in Australia continues to affect people from all walks of life, regardless of age, background, or postcode. It takes many forms, from physical and sexual harm to emotional abuse, financial control, and ongoing patterns of coercion. 

While more people are speaking up and seeking support, the reality is that many cases remain hidden, and recent trends suggest the issue is far from slowing down. 

Domestic violence isn’t just a private matter—it’s a national concern that impacts families, workplaces, and entire communities. In this guide, we unpack what the latest numbers really show, and why staying informed matters more than ever.

If you’re facing family or domestic violence, you don’t have to go through it alone. Reach out to VM Family Law at 07 3447 8966 for compassionate legal support and guidance when you need it most.

What is Domestic Violence? A Quick Overview

Domestic violence in Australia refers to abusive behaviour within intimate, family, or household relationships that aims to control, intimidate, or cause harm to another person.

While each state and territory has its own laws, a consistent national understanding is reflected through frameworks like the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), which recognises family violence as any violent, threatening, or controlling behaviour that makes a family member fear for their safety. 

Under this national law—and mirrored in state acts like the Queensland Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act 2012—domestic violence goes beyond physical harm. It includes:

Common Forms of Domestic Violence in Australia

• Physical violence: Assaults such as hitting, choking, or pushing.
• Sexual violence: Forced or unwanted sexual acts, including within relationships.
• Emotional or psychological abuse: Threats, intimidation, manipulation, or humiliation.
• Financial abuse: Withholding money, denying access to employment or financial independence.
• Coercive control: A sustained pattern of domination and isolation—now criminalised in Queensland and New South Wales.

These behaviours may occur individually or together, and they often escalate over time, affecting safety, mental health, and wellbeing.

Domestic Violence Statistics in Australia: The National Insights

Understanding the national data on domestic violence is essential to grasp the scale and urgency of this issue. These statistics paint a confronting picture of how widespread the problem is and how deeply it affects Australian communities.

Key Facts

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) remain the most reliable sources for tracking domestic and family violence trends nationally. While some data sources have not yet published figures for the full year of 2024, the latest available numbers offer critical insight.

Snapshot of National Statistics:

• 1 in 4 Australian women has experienced violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.

• 1 in 13 Australian men has also experienced this, though underreporting remains high.

• Around 13% of women have experienced emotional abuse from a current or former partner.

• In 2022, police recorded 31,118 sexual assault victims, marking a 15% rise from 2021. Female sexual assault victimisation rates increased by 58% between 2010 and 2023. 
• 7.7% of women who experienced sexual assault by a male in the 10 years before 2021–22 contacted police about the most recent incident.

However, it’s important to note that the ABS does not explicitly separate how many of these assaults occurred within a domestic relationship in the top-line national data.

That said, the ABS does acknowledge that the majority of sexual assault victims are female and that a significant proportion of assaults are committed by someone known to the victim, including current or former intimate partners.

Source: AIHW Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence

Lifetime vs. 12-Month Prevalence

The ABS Personal Safety Survey provides detailed data on how many Australians experience violence either at some point in their lives or in the past year.

• Lifetime prevalence:
  
  • Approximately 30% of women.
  • Approximately 10% of men.

• 12-month prevalence:
  
  • Around 2–3% of Australians reported experiencing domestic or family violence in the last year.
    

These estimates are based on the most recent available national survey data from the ABS Personal Safety Survey 2021–22.

Talk to VM Family Law

If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse, legal support is available. Contact VM Family Law in Queensland at 07 3447 8966 for confidential and compassionate advice.

Common Types of Domestic Violence Cases in Australia

Domestic violence doesn’t always look the same—its impact can range from visible physical harm to silent emotional suffering. Below is a breakdown of the most common types of domestic violence cases reported across Australia, each affecting victims in deeply personal and lasting ways.

Physical Violence

Involves physical harm such as hitting, slapping, choking, or use of physical force or weapons.

• Prevalence: The latest ABS Personal Safety Survey found that:
  
  • 22% of women and 8% of men had experienced physical violence by a partner at some point in their lives.
  • These acts often co-occur with emotional and financial abuse.
    

Emotional or Psychological Abuse

Includes verbal abuse, gaslighting, threats, intimidation, and controlling behaviours such as social isolation.

• Prevalence:
  
  • 13% of Australian women and 5% of Australian men reported experiencing emotional abuse from a partner. 
  • Over a lifetime, approximately 3 million Australian women have experienced this type of abuse from a current or previous partner.
  • These numbers reflect emotionally abusive behaviours like controlling social interactions, verbal degradation, threats, and isolating tactics.

Coercive Control

Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour that involves isolating, intimidating, monitoring, and dominating a person.

• Legal Status:
  
  • Queensland passed the Criminal Law (Coercive Control and Affirmative Consent) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023, aiming to criminalise coercive control by 2025.
  • New South Wales passed similar reforms, recognising coercive control as a standalone offence.

While it’s recognised legally in Queensland and NSW, there is currently no national dataset or ABS survey item that specifically reports on coercive control prevalence as a separate category.

However, coercive control is embedded within emotional, psychological, and financial abuse, which are tracked in national surveys like the ABS Personal Safety Survey.

Sexual Violence

Sexual acts committed without consent, including within intimate relationships.

• Prevalence:
  • 1 in 6 Australian women (approximately 17%) have experienced sexual abuse since the age of 15.
  • This includes sexual assault, sexual threats, and attempts—whether by a partner, ex-partner, family member, or stranger.
  • By comparison, 1 in 16 men (approximately 6%) reported the same experience.

Financial Abuse or Economic Abuse

Involves controlling a person’s access to financial resources, employment, or credit, limiting their independence.

• Prevalence:
  
  • 2.4 million Australian adults (12% of the population) had experienced economic abuse by a partner since the age of 15
  • Disproportionately higher rates of women (16%) who had experienced this type of abuse, compared to men (7.8%).
  • This includes behaviours such as:
    • Controlling access to money

    • Forbidding employment

    • Stealing income or savings

    • Racking up debt in the victim’s name

Underreporting & Legal Gaps

• Economic abuse is commonly overlooked in legal proceedings and rarely results in standalone police reports, despite its serious and lasting impact.

• It’s often intertwined with emotional or coercive control, and can prevent victims from leaving abusive relationships.

• Few jurisdictions have clear legal definitions or standalone offences for economic abuse, although Victoria and Queensland are starting to lead reform in this space.

Talk to VM Family Law

Need help navigating the legal side of domestic violence? Contact VM Family Law on 07 3447 8966—offering legal support throughout Queensland.

State-by-State Breakdown of Domestic Violence Statistics

Let’s take a closer look at how the numbers vary across each state and territory.

New South Wales

• 36,246 incidents of domestic violence-related assault were recorded by police in the 12 months ending December 2023.
  
• The rate of DV assault in NSW was 407.7 per 100,000 population.
  
• The majority of DV incidents involved female victims and male offenders, with intimate partners being the most common relationship type.
  
• Cumberland, Blacktown, and Penrith LGAs reported some of the highest rates of domestic violence-related assault.
• Coercive control has now been criminalised, with new laws coming into effect from 1 July 2024, aimed at better recognising non-physical forms of abuse in legal proceedings.

Victoria

• Family violence incidents have nearly doubled in Victoria over the past decade, with more than 92,000 incidents recorded in 2022–23.
• Family violence incidents have increased by 38% over the past ten years, with 94,170 incidents recorded by Victoria Police in 2023.
• In 2023-24, Victoria Police recorded a new high of 98,816 family violence incidents, a 6% increase from the previous year.
• The proportion of incidents involving stalking/harassment, sexual assault, threats or harm to a family pet, controlling or jealous behavior by the perpetrator, or financial difficulties all increased by 30% or more over the past 5 years.
• There has been a significant increase in the number of family violence intervention order cases heard in the specialist family violence jurisdiction.

Western Australia

• Over 20,000 family and domestic violence offences were recorded in WA in 2022.
  
• Remote Aboriginal communities continue to face disproportionately high rates, with some regions experiencing DV rates six to eight times higher than urban areas.
• An estimated 305,400 women in WA (30%) have experienced physical, emotional or economic abuse by a cohabiting partner.
• Aboriginal women are 32 times more likely to be hospitalised because of violence than non-Aboriginal women.
• The number of family and domestic violence incidents WA Police attended has increased: 55,926 in 2021-22 to 58,994 in 2022-23.

South Australia

• In 2022, South Australian police recorded a 2% increase in sexual assaults, with 1816 victims compared to 1783 the previous year.
• The number of female victims in SA (176 victims per 100,000 females) was more than eight times higher than the number of male victims (21 victims per
• 100,000 males). 
• 35% of victims were under the age of 18 years at the date of the incident.
• Majority of both female and male victims of sexual assault knew the offender.
• The South Australia has passed new laws to better protect victim-survivors and improve justice outcomes, as part of its Women’s Equality Blueprint 2023–2026.

Tasmania

• Tasmania Police attended 6,743 family violence incidents in 2021-22
• There were 2,518 occasions classified as family arguments or family information reports during the same period.
• In 2021-22, 1 in 6 women and 1 in 18 men experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a current or previous cohabiting partner since age 15, and 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men experienced emotional abuse.
• The Tasmanian Government continues to implement its Family and Sexual Violence Action Plan 2022–2027, focusing on prevention, early intervention, and survivor support.

Australian Capital Territory (ACT)

• Between 2022 and 2023, ACT family violence incidents attended by police jumped 20 per cent.
• 72% of domestic and family violence-related homicides in the ACT between 2017–2021 involved a current or former intimate partner.
• 84% of adult victims of domestic and family violence homicides in the ACT were female.
• 63% of perpetrators had a known history of prior family violence before the fatal incident occurred.
• Children were exposed to the homicide in 27% of fatal domestic violence incidents, either as witnesses or present at the scene.
• The ACT Government is implementing the Family Safety Hub and Safer Families initiative to improve prevention, early intervention, and support services for those affected by domestic and family violence. 

Northern Territory

• The Northern Territory (NT) experiences the highest rates of domestic, family, and sexual violence (DFSV) in Australia, with Aboriginal women being particularly impacted.
• The rate of domestic and family violence-related assault in the NT was three times the national average and five times that of most other jurisdictions.
• On average, there are 61 domestic and family violence incidents per day, and four homicides related to domestic and family violence per 100,000 people per year in the NT.
• The NT government has a Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Reduction Framework (2018-2028) to address this issue, with a focus on improving the justice response to DFSV.

Current Statistics and Trends in Queensland

Although the Queensland Police Service (QPS) and Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) have not released finalised figures for all of 2024, available data and official projections reveal consistent and concerning patterns:

• QPS recorded more than 140,000 domestic and family violence occurrences in the 2022–23 financial year, a rise from the previous year.

• Physical assault and physical abuse remain the most commonly reported types of violence, followed by emotional, financial, and sexual abuse.

• Family homicides continue to reflect the most extreme outcome of domestic abuse, with a high proportion involving female victims and male offenders.

• A growing number of cases include abuse of a sexual nature, particularly within online communication contexts (e.g., image-based abuse, digital threats).

• According to the ABS, experiences of violence are underreported, especially in non-physical forms.

Queensland Government Initiatives

In response to increasing demands and community pressure, Queensland has taken major steps toward strengthening support and prevention:

• Passed the Criminal Law (Coercive Control and Affirmative Consent) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023, making coercive control a criminal offence from 2025.

• Launched the Fourth Action Plan 2023–2026 under the Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Strategy, which targets both intervention and primary prevention.

• Increased investment in community-based domestic violence services, including:
  • DVConnect: https://www.dvconnect.org/

  • 1800RESPECT (QLD): https://www.1800respect.org.au/

  • Women’s Legal Service QLD: https://wlsq.org.au/

How VM Family Law Can Help in DV Cases

When facing domestic or family violence, legal support can be the first step toward safety and protection. VM Family Law offers dedicated, trauma-informed assistance tailored to the unique needs of those experiencing abuse.

Here’s how VM Family Law can help:

1. Apply for protection orders (like Domestic Violence Orders) to help keep you and your children safe.

2. Advocate for your rights in parenting and property matters impacted by family violence.

3. Provide confidential legal advice backed by years of experience in Queensland family law.

4. Guide you through the legal process with compassion, clarity, and respect for your safety and privacy.

Need legal support now? Reach out to VM Family Law at 07 3447 8966 for expert advice and personalised consultation.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the statistics for domestic abuse in Australia?

According to the ABS Website, about 1 in 4 women and 1 in 13 men have experienced violence by a current partner or former partner. The prevalence of violence includes various forms of violence such as physical threat, emotional abuse behaviours, non-physical abuse, and online abuse, which often go unreported due to problematic attitudes, fear, or lack of awareness.

Which state has the most domestic violence in Australia?

While all states experience family violence, Queensland and New South Wales consistently record the highest number of victims of assault recorded in domestic abuse contexts. The relationship to perpetrator, residential location, and community location all influence the likelihood of violence, with remote locations and non-urban locations often facing additional barriers due to cultural isolation and geographical isolation.

What are the statistics of domestic abuse cases?

The ABS Personal Safety Survey shows that millions of Australians have reported family violence services, emotional harm, and physical assault in domestic settings. However, the level of underreporting remains a key issue due to complex factors such as demographic factors, difference in attitudes, and lack of perpetrator accountability. In 2022 alone, over 31,000 sexual assault accusations were recorded nationwide.

What are the four national domains of FDV (Family and Domestic Violence)?

The four domains typically used in Australia’s prevention initiatives are:

• Victim safety and recovery

• Perpetrator accountability

• System coordination

• Primary prevention

These aim to improve the understanding of violence, promote autonomy in relationships, and challenge attitudes towards violence.

What influences attitudes about violence and acceptable behaviour in relationships?

Childhood experiences, such as childhood physical abuse or exposure to parental violence, can heavily shape future beliefs. Other factors include sexist behaviour, disrespectful behaviour, difference in attitudes across generations, and a lack of education on acceptable behaviour and impact behaviour. These elements influence the attitudes about violence and whether people speak out or stay silent.

How does relationship of offender affect the issue of violence?

The relationship to perpetrator—whether a current partner, ex-partner, or family member—is central to identifying patterns of abuse. Most victims of family violence know their offender, which can make reporting difficult. This factor affects not only the form of abuse counted, but also the costs of violence for victims, especially when children or current partners are involved.

How do residential location and autonomy in relationships affect risk levels?

People living in remote locations or non-urban locations often face reduced access to family violence services, lower level of understanding, and fewer safe escape options. Limited support, alongside challenges to autonomy in relationships, contributes to increased risk and worsens the impact of violence on vulnerable individuals.

Final Thoughts

Domestic violence in Australia is more than just a statistic—it’s something affecting families, friends, neighbours, and entire communities every day. As we move into 2025, awareness, support, and strong legal protections will play a crucial role in how we respond to this issue. 

Whether it’s physical, emotional, sexual, or financial abuse, understanding the signs and knowing where to turn for help can make all the difference. If you or someone you know needs legal advice or support, you’re not alone—help is here.

Contact VM Family Law today on 07 3447 8966 for confidential, compassionate support and expert family law guidance.