New First Nations violence peak body aims to strengthen community-led responses

A new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander national peak body focused on family, domestic and sexual violence has been launched, with sector leaders describing it as a long-awaited step towards more coordinated, community-controlled responses to one of the most urgent crises facing First Nations communities.

The organisation, Our Ways Strong Together, was launched in Canberra this week by the Albanese Government and the Coalition of Peaks. It brings together Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations, including specialist family violence services, legal and health services, and sector peak bodies. Its role will be to help shape national policy and strengthen the broader service system through a unified First Nations-led voice.

The timing is significant. The launch comes more than 18 months after the Senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children, and follows years of calls for a dedicated national body that can link local knowledge with national decision-making. Supporters say the absence of such a body has left community organisations doing critical frontline work without a strong coordinated platform to influence governments at scale.

Interim chair Donnella Mills said the new body was “built from community, for community”, describing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations as trusted, place-based services that succeed because they are grounded in culture, local knowledge and accountability. That framing goes to the heart of why the launch matters: the argument is not only that violence rates are intolerable, but that responses work best when designed and led by the communities most affected.

Government statements around the launch reinforced the scale of the problem. Ministers said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are seven times more likely to be victims of intimate partner homicide than non-Indigenous women, 27 times more likely to be hospitalised because of family violence, and 41 times more likely in regional and very remote areas. The new body is intended to contribute to Closing the Gap Target 13, which aims to reduce family violence and abuse against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children by at least 50 per cent by 2031.

Olga Havnen, a proud Western Arrernte woman, has been appointed chief executive officer. The interim board includes Mills, Muriel Bamblett, Lisa Charles and Wynetta Dewis, reflecting a mix of leadership across health, child and family services, sector policy and legal advocacy.

Bamblett said violence “requires a coordinated national response” and argued that real progress depends on prevention, early support and backing the organisations communities already trust. That emphasis is important because the launch is not being sold merely as another advisory body. Rather, it is being framed as an effort to shift power closer to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services and to build a more integrated national response that tackles the drivers of violence, including trauma, poverty, housing insecurity and systemic inequality.

For First Nations organisations that have been pushing for stronger structures, the launch is both symbolic and practical. It signals recognition that community-controlled leadership must sit at the centre of policy, and it creates a national vehicle through which that leadership can be organised, heard and acted upon.