Labor has written to the new prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, urging him to keep domestic violence a top priority for the Coalition government.
The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, has been calling for the government’s support for a national summit on the scourge, which would take in the opinion of welfare groups, shelters, law enforcement, and survivors and their families.
Shorten wrote to Turnbull, who beat Tony Abbott in a leadership spill late on Monday night to be named new Liberal party leader, to urge him to keep momentum going on tackling domestic violence.
“I remain committed to working with you and your government in a bipartisan way to progress our proposals and welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss how we can work together to eliminate domestic violence,” the letter read. “More can be done to create an Australia where every woman is safe at home, secure in the community and supported by the system.”
In his last question time as prime minister on Monday, Abbott remained open to holding a national conference.
“I certainly don’t rule out another summit,” he told the chamber. “What I think we need is concerted action and maybe a summit might help, but what we really want is action.”
The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, is backing a national summit.
She is trying to fast-track stronger legislation to tackle domestic violence, after two women were killed in that state last week in horrific circumstances.
The Council of Australian Governments (Coag) will report back on a suite of measures aimed at reducing domestic violence, including tackling online harassment, by the end of 2015.
Labor will introduce a bill that creates federal laws criminalising the sharing of private sexual imagery for the purposes of humiliating, intimidating or blackmailing victims, a practice known as “revenge porn”.
