The panel will be convened jointly by the Commissioner for Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence, Micaela Cronin, the Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Office for Women, Padma Raman, and the Secretary of the Department of Social Services, Ray Griggs.
Panelists to be appointed on Tuesday are author and educator Jess Hill, University of Melbourne research fellow Zac Seidler, diversity and inclusion consultant Todd Fernando, RMIT Center for Innovative Justice associate director Elena Campbell , Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Leigh Gassner and Summers.
A research project by Australia's National Research Organization for Women's Safety (ANROWS) will be completed next month to guide the panel on where best to spend federal money to prevent violence against women women.
“This rapid review will bring together experts and provide practical advice to the government to help us end the scourge of domestic violence,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement.
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth described violence against women and children as a “national shame”, and Women's Minister Katy Gallagher said the group's advice would lead to more effective and targeted ways of preventing violence, including preventing the death of women.
Summers, a top adviser to former Labor prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, is a professor of domestic and family violence at the University of Technology Sydney, and has been a prominent voice calling for greater action on the issue.
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While Summers said some men had changed their behavior in a generational shift, he noted that ANROWS research suggested some young men condoned violence against women.
The agency's findings last December found that young respondents to a survey were still significantly less likely than those 25 and older to “strongly disagree” with some attitudes that minimize violence.
ANROWS also found that most young Australians recognized that consent must be active and ongoing, but said fewer young respondents “strongly disagreed” that a man was justified in forcing sex when the woman had initiated a kiss and then push the man away.
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