Domestic Violence NSW has called for a national response matching the scale of the domestic and family violence crisis after a deadly weekend in NSW, including a fatal incident involving three young children in the Blue Mountains.
A five-year-old boy died after three children and a 42-year-old woman were found with stab wounds in a vehicle on Waratah Road at Valley Heights on Sunday, September 20.
The two surviving children, also aged under five, and the woman were taken to hospital in critical condition and underwent surgery.
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Peter McKenna said the woman was considered a suspect and police were treating the incident as a domestic violence matter. Police said they were not looking for anyone else, but stressed that the investigation remained at an early stage. No motive had been established publicly at the time of publication.
Members of the public discovered the vehicle, contacted emergency services and provided first aid. Police have appealed for anyone with information or relevant dashcam footage to contact Crime Stoppers.
The incident prompted renewed calls for governments to treat domestic and family violence as a national emergency.
Domestic Violence NSW, the peak body representing more than 200 specialist services, said the latest deaths across the state demonstrated that domestic violence affected women of every age and people in every community.
“Domestic violence doesn’t have an age limit. And it doesn’t stop being a national emergency because it happens behind closed doors,” the organisation said.
“This is large-scale violence and, at its most devastating, murder. We would not accept this level of loss in another area of national safety, and we cannot accept it here.”
Hundreds of Hawkesbury applications
The most recent publicly available figures broken down specifically by police command show Hawkesbury Police Area Command made 464 applications for Apprehended Domestic Violence Orders during 2023–24.
That followed 501 applications in 2022–23 and 404 in 2021–22, a total of 1,369 applications over three years.
The same NSW Government data shows 354 domestic violence orders associated with Hawkesbury Police Area Command were granted in 2023–24, compared with 339 in 2022–23 and 294 in 2021–22. One application can lead to more than one order, and the figures do not represent the number of individual victims.
More recent statewide figures underline the continuing pressure on police, courts and support services.
The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research recorded 38,844 domestic violence-related assaults in the 12 months to June 2026, compared with 38,345 during the previous year.
Although BOCSAR classified the two-year trend as statistically stable, the number of recorded domestic violence-related assaults has risen by an average of 3.4 per cent a year during the past decade.
Breaches of apprehended violence orders increased by 6.5 per cent in the latest reporting year, from 26,781 to 28,515 recorded incidents.
Police statistics cannot capture every incident. Domestic and family violence is frequently unreported, meaning the true level of harm within the community is likely to be higher than recorded crime figures suggest.
“No woman should fall through the gaps”
Domestic Violence NSW acknowledged that governments had undertaken important reforms and investment but said the response remained inadequate for the scale of the problem.
The organisation called for a genuinely integrated system connecting specialist domestic and family violence services with housing, mental health, health care, policing, justice, child protection and education.
“No single government, service or system can solve this alone,” it said.
“No woman should fall through the gaps between systems. No frontline service should be left carrying a national crisis alone.”
The peak body also called for properly funded perpetrator interventions and accountability measures, alongside specialist assistance enabling victim-survivors and their children to remain safe.
Men and boys needed to be brought into the conversation in ways that challenged the attitudes and behaviour driving violence, it said.
The organisation argued that Australia already had extensive research, recommendations and a National Plan addressing violence against women and children. The remaining challenge was sustained investment and coordination extending from the Commonwealth and state governments into local communities.
“We cannot keep responding to women being killed one tragedy at a time,” Domestic Violence NSW said.
“This is an intergenerational crisis that requires long-term commitment, coordination and sustained national investment.”
Support is available: In an emergency or if someone is in immediate danger, call Triple Zero on 000. The national domestic, family and sexual violence service 1800RESPECT is available around the clock on 1800 737 732, by text on 0458 737 732, or through online chat and video call at 1800respect.org.au. (1800respect.org.au)
