The woman leading New Zealand's work to review the circumstances involved with family violence deaths in Aotearoa's is calling for a "rethink" of New Zealand's system, confirming women have died at the hands of partners this year already.
The call comes as Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has labelled domestic violence a national crisis.
Thousands of people across the ditch took to the streets last month to draw attention to the increasing number of women being killed by their partners and ex-partners.
The issue is now top of Australia's political agenda, calling into question New Zealand's own horrific problem with domestic violence.
Chair of the Family Violence Death Review Dr Nicola Atwool told AM on Tuesday, taking population into account, New Zealand was just as bad as Australia.
She said most of New Zealand's figures are done over the long-term because it isn't always clear immediately at the time of death whether it counts as a family death or not.
However, she confirmed that women in New Zealand had died as a result of domestic violence this year.
Between 2009 and 2021 - the most reliable data set currently available - Atwool said there was a total of 355 family violence deaths.
Of those, 192 were women and girls - 47 were girl children who died of abuse or neglect - and 118 were intimate partner caused deaths.
Twenty-seven of the deaths were intrafamilial, meaning they were killed by someone within the family but not their partner.
"That's likely an underestimate," Atwool said, explaining the tragic figures.
"I think that in general the public are only aware of ones that are highlighted in the media, lots of deaths pass without any significant media attention.
"There's been an increasing awareness over quite a considerable period, certainly since the 1980s when the attention really first came to light, you know, the focus was put on the currents of family deaths. The problem is mobilising an effective response and the resources to support that.
"I do think we need a bit of a rethink."
However, Atwool said it was concerning that earlier in the year police announced they would step back from being on the frontline for family harm.
"The police have been at the forefront in terms of trying to be proactive in this space and they've provided quite a lot of leadership. The problem we have at the local level is that they have specialist family harm teams but they have a policy of rotation and moving people through those roles," she said.
"We'd quite like to see the best of them being able to remain family harm specialists on the frontline because they are invaluable, they provide very good service."
