Everyone deserves to be safe, but domestic, sexual and family violence remains one of Australia’s most urgent and preventable harms.
Alcohol intensifies and exacerbates gender-based violence. That’s why, to prevent harm, governments must consider the role alcohol plays.
FARE is leading the development of a National Framework for action to prevent alcohol-related family violence.
This Framework will support a national approach to end violence against women and children by laying out a pathway for federal, state and territory governments to address the role of alcohol.
This includes by implementing safe alcohol laws including reducing late-night trading and implementing stronger protections around alcohol delivery and advertising.
The Framework focuses on systems, environments and policies that support communities to be safe and well, rather than placing the burden on people experiencing violence.
Work on the refreshed Framework began in 2025 and will continue until 2027 when it is delivered to the Department of Health, Disability and Aging. The Framework will align with and support implementation of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032 and future Action Plans.
It will also complement work underway across states and territories to strengthen liquor laws to better prioritise the prevention of gender-based violence and violence against children.
The Framework is being co-designed with an Advisory Committee bringing together national leaders in policy, prevention, lived experience advocacy, research, and frontline service delivery.
Annabelle Daniels
Women’s Community Shelters
Annabelle Daniels OAM, inaugural CEO of Women’s Community Shelters, has worked with local communities around NSW to establish, open and support the 11 crisis shelters in the Women’s Community Shelters network. She has also established WCS as a Community Housing Provider which offers social and affordable housing, transitional housing, and multiple large-scale meanwhile-use homes for women aged 55+ experiencing homelessness.
She continues her efforts to create more crisis shelters and preventative programs addressing domestic violence and women’s homelessness in New South Wales and is now expanding the network into Victoria.
Ayla Chorley
Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education
Ayla’s work at FARE is driven by a commitment to social justice, health equity, and building inclusive approaches that deliver lasting, collaborative change.
Ayla joined FARE in 2021 as Operations Director and Company Secretary after more than a decade in senior leadership roles. Throughout her career, Ayla has successfully shaped award-winning organisational culture, implemented innovative workforce strategies and led complex transformations that align with mission-driven goals.
Appointed to the role of CEO in March 2025, Ayla champions integrity, empathy and collaboration as a way to achieve the full power of systems change to improve lives.
Ayla’s work alongside the FARE team focuses on driving change through evidence-based public policy, amplifying community voices, and strengthening partnerships to reduce alcohol-related harm across Australia.
Chris Mathieson
Safe and Equal
Chris brings significant senior public sector leadership experience, including as Director of Victoria’s Office for Disability and Director of the Office for Women’s Policy, where she helped embed gender equality and women’s economic participation into government policy and reform agendas. She also led the establishment of the Office of the Disability Services Commissioner.
She holds qualifications in Habilitation Studies and is a Harvard Club of Victoria Scholar, having completed the Strategic Perspectives in Not-for-Profit Management program at Harvard Business School. Chris has held numerous board and advisory roles, including Chair of National Disability Services (Victoria), Director of the NDS National Board, Director of Safe and Equal, and Deputy Chair of the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival. She is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Conor Pall
Lived Experience Advocate
Conor Pall (he/him) is a victim-survivor advocate and the Lead of Youth Engagement and Advocacy at the Australian Childhood Foundation. He works across policy, practice and systems reform to strengthen responses with and for children and young people impacted by family violence. Conor’s advocacy has contributed to law reform in Victoria so young people no longer lose family violence intervention order protections simply because they turn 18. He brings lived and professional expertise to advisory, advocacy and co-design work, with a focus on ensuring children and young people are recognised, heard and responded to.
Dr Ingrid Wilson
Singapore Institute of Technology/Latrobe University
Dr Ingrid WIlson is an Associate Professor at the Singapore Institute of Technology, Health and Social Sciences Cluster and Adjunct Research Fellow for La Trobe University. She has a PhD in Mother and Child Health from La Trobe University, a first-class Honours degree in Criminology from the University of Melbourne, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Law from the UK.
Dr Wilson is a social researcher with a strong interest in gender issues, preventing gender-based violence and improving women’s health. Her research skills include undertaking systematic reviews, conducting qualitative research, and exploring sensitive issues with vulnerable groups in line with international best practice. Her doctoral thesis, titled Fearing the “changed” man: Women’s experience of alcohol-related intimate partner violence. A constructivist grounded theory study provided the first in-depth insight into the dynamics of partner drinking and violence, and the complexity of women’s relationships with a violent drinker.
Julie Perkins
Gurehlgam Corporation
Julie Perkins, is a passionate advocate for our communities in regional New South Wales. From being the Vice President of the Australian Services Union (ASU) NSW and delegate of the national Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Committee to representing Red Cross in Northern NSW, and directly giving expert advice to the government through the NSW Women’s Advisory Council. Julie gets the message out there about social justice, supporting victims of family violence, promoting women, and preparing for disasters in regional New South Wales.
Julie, a proud Gumbaynggirr woman from Corindi Beach / Grafton, regularly meets with ministers, human rights campaigners and a wide range of agencies to provide input and real-life examples from an Aboriginal, regional NSW and women’s perspective.
Professor Kate Fitzgibbon
Monash University
Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon is Professor (Practice) with the Faculty of Business and Economics at Monash University and an Honorary Professorial Fellow with the Melbourne Law School at University of Melbourne. Kate holds affiliated research appointments with the School of Law and Social Justice at University of Liverpool (UK) and the Research Center on Violence at West Virginia University (US). Kate is a leading scholar in the field of family violence, femicide, criminal justice and law reform. Kate has advised on homicide law reform and family violence reviews in several Australian and international jurisdictions.
Kate has served as an invited member of several Victorian Government committees emerging from the Royal Commission into Family Violence. In 2016, she was appointed to the Special Minister’s Expert Advisory Committee on Perpetrator Interventions. In 2024 she was selected as a World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader. She previously served as Chair of the Barwon Centre against Sexual Assault, and was Director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre.
Katherine Berney
Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education
Katherine Berney is a nationally recognised non-profit leader whose work has driven significant policy, prevention and systems reform in Australia’s response to gender-based violence. Through strategic federal policy leadership, she has strengthened national approaches to domestic, family and sexual violence and elevated the role of civil society in shaping long-term, evidence-based reform.
A widely published and influential voice on sector reform, funding integrity and public accountability, Katherine has played a critical role in advancing collaboration across government, community and industry. Her leadership is marked by a commitment to rigorous policy design, transparency and measurable impact, contributing to safer systems and improved outcomes for women, children and non-binary people across Australia.
Kym Valentine
Lived Experience Advisor
Kym Valentine is an experienced actor, family violence survivor-advocate and Lived Experience Advisor at the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education.
Kym is an experienced public speaker, event MC and has over 40 years’ experience as a film, television and theatre performer. Well known to many for her long-running and much-loved role in the television show Neighbours, Kym has extensive experience as a television and theatre actor, as well as in teaching.
Kym joined Family Safety Victoria (FSV) in 2020 as a council member of the Victim Survivor’s Advisory Council (VSAC) and was promoted to the position of Chair of the Victim Survivors Advisory Council (VSAC) by the Minster for Prevention of Family Violence in 2022. In 2023, Kym joined the Safe & Equal Communications Team in the roles of Facilitator Advisor, Survivor Advocate and has also been appointed Well-Being Coordinator and Lived Experience Research Officer on a number of research projects.
Micaela Cronin
Domestic Family and Sexual Violence Commission
Micaela Cronin began her career as a social worker in family violence and sexual assault services. Since then, she has held leadership roles across the social service sector in Australia and internationally, including as President of the Australian Council of Social Services.
Micaela was also CEO of an international non-government organisation based in Asia, working to build global service delivery and strategic partnerships to tackle human trafficking and human rights abuses.
In 2014, Micaela was awarded the Robin Clark Leadership Award – Victoria’s most prestigious children’s protection award – in recognition of her leadership in inspiring others to achieve the best outcomes for children, young people and their families.
Dr Michael Savic
Monash University
Dr Michael Savic is a Senior Research Fellow in Addiction Studies at the Eastern Health Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, and Strategic Lead of Clinical and Social Research at Turning Point, Eastern Health. Michael’s research focuses on the social and cultural contexts of alcohol and other drug use, addiction concepts, treatment and experiences of intervention implementation and care across several mediums. His research is multi-disciplinary in orientation, policy and practice relevant, and often draws on critical approaches and qualitative methods.
Dr Savic coordinates units in the Monash University Master of Addictive Behaviours and is a Culture and Policy Theme leader at the Monash Addiction Research Centre. He is a also co-convener of the Victorian Substance Use Research Forum, an Associate Editor at the International Journal of Drug Policy, and a Deputy Editor at Drug and Alcohol Review.
Patty Kinnersly
Our Watch
Patty Kinnersly is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Our Watch, an independent not-for-profit organisation and national leader in the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia. She joined Our Watch in 2015 as Director, Practice Leadership before becoming CEO.
Patty is a board member of Carlton Football Club and the Australian Women’s Health Network National Board, having previously been involved with Rural Northwest Health Victoria, Child and Family Services, Ballarat (Victoria), and Ballarat Health Services.
Rob McPhee
Danila Dilba
Rob McPhee is the current CEO of Danila Dilba Health Service in Darwin and has over 30 years’ experience in Indigenous affairs. His family connections are to Derby in the West Kimberley, as well as the Pilbara and Midwest regions of Western Australia.
Before joining Danila Dilba, Rob was deputy CEO and chief operating officer at the Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services in Broome. He holds a degree in Aboriginal Community Management and Development and a Graduate Certificate in Human Rights. His career spans executive leadership in Aboriginal health, teaching roles at Curtin University and the University of Western Australia, and senior advisory positions in community relations and Indigenous affairs within the oil and gas industry.
Tanya Graham
Danila Dilba
Tanya Graham is a Proud Bangerang Women from Victoria.
Previously the Aboriginal Hospital Liaison Team Leader for 6 Hospitals for 5 years before travelling up the east coast and finally reaching the beautiful Lands of the Larrakia People.
Currently the Project Lead for Early Steps Together Danila Dilba, where she is fulfilling her passion with helping Mob in time of need.
She looks forward to learning, growing and being a strong voice with FARE.
Fill out the form below to receive regular updates & resources.
