Russel Brand got away with it for decades. He didn’t kill anyone, but his crimes are symptomatic of a culture of male entitlement that calls for strong action. Will Australia take the lead? Andrew Brown concludes his six-part series on domestic violence.
Anthony Albanese has called Royal Commissions before. When robots harmed Australians, he called one. When fifteen people were murdered at Bondi Beach, he called one before the funerals were held. When veterans took their own lives, he extended one. Each was justified. Each cost lawyers.
He refuses to call one into the killing of Australian women.
Sherele Moody’s ledger reached 29 women dead in 2026 before the year was half done. It’s now 59. In 2024, the year Albanese declared a national emergency, 101 women were killed. Seventy-seven more died last year. Two women a week. Every week. Year after year.
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Australian police respond to a domestic violence matter every two minutes. Five thousand calls every week. This is the system the prime minister has refused the powers to investigate.
The first five parts of this series put the machine on the record. This is the close. Every mechanism short of a Royal Commission has been tried. The toll has risen on every one of them.
What has been tried
The National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children runs to 2032. It is four years in. The toll is climbing.
In 2024 the prime minister convened National Cabinet, commissioned a Rapid Review and announced a $4.4 billion package. None of it carried statutory deadlines. There were inquiries into family law, online safety and gambling, repeated Women’s Safety Ministers’ Council meetings, and a federal election in which the issue did not earn a single direct question in any leaders’ debate.
Reviews, plans, packages, panels and ministerial statements have been produced at industrial volume. The death rate has not moved.
None of these mechanisms compels anything. They request. They recommend. They invest. They do not subpoena.
What Victoria proved
On 30 March 2016, Marcia Neave delivered the final report of the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence. It made 227 recommendations. The Andrews government committed to implementing every one. By October 2024, it had. The investment exceeded $3.7B.
Victoria built Family Safety Victoria, Respect Victoria, the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme and the Multi Agency Risk Assessment framework. The rates of family violence remain stubbornly high. That is not the failure of the Royal Commission. It is the limit of what a state can do alone.
Victoria can reform Victoria Police. It cannot reform the Australian Federal Police, Services Australia, the Family Court or the Department of Home Affairs. Most of the killing in this country happens in the gaps between the states.
Victoria proved the model works. It also proved the model is bounded by the federation.
What South Australia exposed
On 19 August 2025, Royal Commissioner Natasha Stott Despoja delivered her final report, With Courage. 700 pages. 136 recommendations. More than 5,000 contributors.
The South Australian government’s response on the day was to accept seven.
Read that again. A twelve-month Royal Commission. Five thousand contributors. Survivors who testified about being raped, beaten, controlled, surveilled and silenced. A 700-page document. Seven accepted on the day.
It took until December 2025, after four months of sustained pressure, for the Malinauskas government to commit $674m over a decade and accept 129 in some form. The default response to 136 recommendations from a Royal Commissioner was to accept seven.
South Australia’s reach ends at the state border. Stott Despoja could not subpoena the federal Department of Social Services. She could not compel the Family Court. She could not bring a federal minister to the witness box.
State Royal Commissions can be brilliant. They cannot be national.
What only a federal Royal Commission can do
The Royal Commissions Act 1902 carries powers no parliamentary inquiry, rapid review or state commission has. A federal Commissioner can compel documents from any Commonwealth agency. She can require sworn testimony under threat of imprisonment. Refusal to attend is a criminal offence.
This is the mechanism Catherine Holmes used in the Royal Commission into Robodebt. She compelled former Prime Minister Scott Morrison. She compelled Stuart Robert. She compelled Alan Tudge. Her sealed chapter referred named individuals for civil and criminal action. The teeth have closed on people who once thought themselves untouchable.
Tony Pagone used the same Act to rewrite aged care. Ronald Sackville used it on disability abuse. Peter McClellan used it on institutional child sexual abuse. When the Commonwealth has wanted an answer from itself, it has used the Act. When it has not, it has called a rapid review.
The Albanese government has called a Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. The 2026 budget allocated $131.1 million for it. Against a death toll that exceeds Bondi every seven and a half weeks, the prime minister said a Royal Commission would only fund lawyers.
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What it must compel
The Red Heart Movement petition has the architecture right. Subpoena powers. Compelled testimony. Binding findings.
The witnesses must include every commissioner of police in every state and territory. The chief justices and magistrates whose courts grant bail to men who later kill the women named on the order. The Australian Federal Police. The Department of Home Affairs on visa abuse. Services Australia on child support. The Department of Social Services on the Plan. The state departments of child protection, housing and corrections. The ministers responsible for the funding decisions.
The findings must be binding. Not aspirational. With statutory deadlines, parliamentary reporting and consequences for non-implementation.
The report must name the people. Not the systems. The people. Not the failure. The decisions. The minister, the commissioner, the secretary, the magistrate, the public servant who held the file and closed it.
The Prime Minister’s defence
Anthony Albanese has offered one argument against this Royal Commission. He has said it would fund lawyers.
Catherine Holmes, whom he appointed, is a lawyer. Tony Pagone is a lawyer. Ronald Sackville is a lawyer. Peter McClellan is a lawyer. Natasha Stott Despoja is a lawyer. Marcia Neave is a lawyer. Every Royal Commissioner in modern Australian history has been a lawyer.
The fee for counsel assisting is, every time, a fraction of the cost of the dying.
There is no constitutional barrier. There is no funding barrier the Antisemitism Royal Commission has not already cleared. There is no precedent barrier Robodebt has not already established. There is only a choice.
The lawyers’ line was tested once on radio in Hobart. It has not faced a second test. That is what 100,000 signatures are for. So is the next 100,000.
The verdict
The Royal Commission would investigate the killing of Hannah Clarke and her children Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey. Of Doreen Langham, who called police sixteen times in sixteen days. Of Lilie James, twenty-one, killed at her workplace. Of Molly Ticehurst, killed on bail. Of Kumarn Rubuntja, Kumanjayi Haywood, Miss Yunupingu and Ngeygo Ragurrk, whose killers were known to police every time.
Also, of Jill Meagher. Of the 101 dead in 2024. Of the 77 in 2025. Of the 29 already counted in 2026. Of the more than 1300 documented since the year 2000. Of every woman whose name is in a state police file that no federal commissioner has ever been empowered to read.
The demand is not Sherele Moody’s alone. More than 100,000 Australians have signed the Red Heart Movement petition.
Rosie Batty has spent over a decade demanding federal action equal to the scale of the killing. Sue and Lloyd Clarke have spent five years asking why their daughter’s death produced reform only in Queensland. Antoinette Braybrook and Djirra have named the same gap for First Nations women.
The families of the dead have stopped waiting. The government has not stopped refusing.
The Royal Commission will not call itself. Sign the Red Heart Movement petition. Send the letter below to your federal member, to Minister for Women Katy Gallagher, and to the Prime Minister. Ask which side of the line they stand on. The 2026 budget found $131.1m for the antisemitism Royal Commission. It can find it for this.
Anthony Albanese said he would eradicate one threat to Australians and called a Royal Commission to do it. He has refused to call one for this.
The death toll is not the difference. The lobby is.
Australia has buried 1300 women since 2000. Do not let another 1300 bodies pile up before this Royal Commission is called.
Their names are known. Their decisions are on the record.
>>> Send this letter <<<
Copy the letter below. Address it to your federal member, to Minister for Women Katy Gallagher, and to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Send it to all three.
Andrew Brown is a Sydney businessman in the health products sector, former Deputy Mayor of Mosman and Palestine peace activist