Nearly 400,000 Australians reported experiencing physical assault over the past 12 months, according to the latest Crime Victimisation survey from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. For a country that prides itself on liveability, the figure is sobering.
Released on March 25, the data covers the 2024-25 financial year and paints a picture of a nation where violence remains stubbornly present, even as some indicators show gradual improvement. About 210,000 men and 180,000 women told the ABS they had been physically assaulted, putting the overall victimisation rate at 1.8 per cent of the adult population.
William Milne, ABS head of Crime Statistics, said the headline numbers for men and women may look similar, but the circumstances behind them are worlds apart. “Although the victimisation rates for men and women are similar in 2024-25, there’s clear differences in the nature and circumstances in which men and women experience assault,” Mr Milne said.
For women, the threat is overwhelmingly personal. In their most recent assault, the perpetrator was a family member or intimate partner in 44 per cent of cases, and nearly half of those attacks, 48 per cent, took place inside a home. Women were also more likely to suffer repeat violence, with 56 per cent reporting multiple incidents over the year compared with 44 per cent of men.
For men, the pattern reverses. Strangers were the perpetrators in 56 per cent of cases, and 72 per cent of assaults happened outside the home, in streets, car parks, licensed venues, or other public spaces. The typical male victim, statistically speaking, is more likely to be caught up in an unprovoked encounter with someone he has never met.
One finding that cuts across gender lines is workplace violence. More than one in four physical assaults for both men and women occurred at work, with 57,000 men and 51,000 women reporting that their most recent incident happened on the job. “For both men and women, more than one in four physical assaults occurred in the workplace,” Mr Milne said.
Nearly 400,000 Australians reported experiencing physical assault in the last 12 months, new ABS data reveals. The numbers may look similar for men and women, but the dangers differ sharply: women are most often attacked by a partner at home, while men face strangers on the street. More than 108,000 assaults happened at work
That figure carries particular weight for Indian-Australians working in frontline and customer-facing roles. Retail workers, taxi and rideshare drivers, healthcare staff, hospitality employees and petrol station attendants are among those most exposed to workplace aggression. Community organisations across Melbourne and Sydney have previously flagged concerns about the safety of Indian-born workers in late-night service roles, and the ABS numbers add national-level data to those concerns.
Over the longer term, the trend for women shows some improvement. The victimisation rate for women aged 15 and over dropped from 2.0 per cent in 2014-15 to 1.6 per cent in 2024-25. For men, the shift was smaller and not statistically meaningful, moving from 2.3 per cent to 2.0 per cent over the same decade.
Police reporting rates were similar across genders, with 55 per cent of men and 58 per cent of women saying they had reported their most recent assault. That still leaves more than four in ten victims choosing not to go to police, a gap that community leaders say is often wider among migrant populations where language barriers, visa anxieties, or unfamiliarity with the justice system can discourage reporting.
For Indian-Australian families, the data on domestic violence warrants close attention. The finding that 44 per cent of women’s assaults were perpetrated by a family member or partner echoes patterns raised by community support services working with South Asian women across Australia. Organisations such as inTouch Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence in Melbourne have noted that cultural pressures, fear of stigma, and limited awareness of legal protections can delay help-seeking among women in the community.
The workplace numbers also raise questions about occupational safety for a diaspora that is heavily represented in industries such as healthcare, IT, education, and small business. While the ABS data does not break down assault figures by country of birth or cultural background, the sectors where Indian-Australians are concentrated overlap closely with those flagged for elevated workplace violence risk.
Australia’s overall assault rate of 1.8 per cent, while concerning, has not climbed over the past decade. Whether that plateau represents a floor or simply a pause remains an open question. What the numbers do make clear is that the nature of violence in this country is deeply gendered, that workplaces are far from safe spaces for a large number of Australians, and that communities with lower reporting rates may be carrying a burden the statistics do not fully capture.
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