AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced new funding today to help women escape domestic violence following a surge in murders committed by current and former male partners.

Describing the increase as a “national crisis,” he said his government would invest 925 million Australian dollars (£480.6m) over five years in financially supporting women and children fleeing physical abuse.

The government also proposed new measures to tackle violent online pornography and misogynist content targeting children and young people, stressing that they exacerbate violence against women.

The measures would include legislation to ban deepfake pornography and more funding for a regulator to pilot age-assurance technologies to protect children from online harm.

“This is, indeed, a national crisis and it’s a national challenge and we’re facing this with a spirit of national unity,” Mr Albanese told reporters after a meeting with state and local authorities.

Tens of thousands protested in cities around Australia over the weekend to draw attention to the deaths of 27 women in gender-based violence so far this year. By today, the death toll had reached at least 28.

“Can we be satisfied when a woman’s losing her life on average every four days? Of course not,” the prime minister said.

“I’ll be satisfied when we eliminate this as an issue, when we’re not talking about this as an issue, when women are not feeling as though they have to mobilise in rallies."

The Australian Institute of Criminology reported that in the 12 months to June 2023, 34 were killed by an intimate partner. That represents a 31 per cent increase on the same 12-month period a year earlier, in which 26 women died.

The rise bucks a longer-term downward trend in Australia, where there has been a 66 per cent fall in “intimate partner homicide rates” since 1990.