The brother of a domestic violence victim has decried the response Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave when he was asked if he would order a royal commission into femicide.
Appearing on Hit 100.9FM Hobart yesterday, Albanese was asked if his government would take action on a petition with more than 93,000 signatures calling for the royal commission to be ordered.
He responded by asking "what does a royal commission do besides fund lawyers?"
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"There's calls for a royal commission about everything," he told the radio station.
"They deserve justice. The question is, does the royal commission do that?
"Royal commissions, they're just processes that take time, cost a lot of money, rather than money going into services."
His answer has disappointed Shaun Azzopardi.
Azzopardi's 35-year-old sister Nikkita was bludgeoned to death by her partner Joel Micallef at their Melbourne home in October 2024.
"Life's never the same. You carry on your day-to-day, but it's like a fake life, in the sense, like it's not meant to be this way and there's a lot of things that could have prevented my sister from being killed," he said.
Micallef was found not guilty because of mental impairment in December last year. He was found dead at the Metropolitan Remand Centre in March.
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Azzopardi says he feels let down by the legal system and has signed a growing petition calling for a royal commission into the killing of women and girls.
The petition is calling for an investigation into current laws, systemic failures, police and the legal system, factors of violence, social media and disproportionately higher rates among First Nations women.
According to the latest government data, a woman was killed by an intimate partner every 11 days in the 2024-25 financial year.
The petition's organiser, anti-violence advocate Sherele Moody, said more than 1300 women and girls have been killed since January 1, 2000.
She has tallied up the number of women killed by men and found 77 were killed in 2025 and 105 in 2024.
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Azzopardi said he felt the federal government was not taking the issue of femicide seriously.
"I just think it's blood on their hands," he said.
"The question should be back to the prime minister, then. How many more lives is it going to take for it to be taken seriously?"
Questioned about the government's stance, a spokesperson for the prime minister said it will "consider anything that is effective to protect women and their children".
"We have ongoing consultation with the sector about the best way to have an impact," the spokesperson said.
But until a royal commission is held, Azzopardi believes women and girls will continue to be killed.
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