Three years before Malcolm Abbott murdered Kumarn Rubuntja she told the country the violence had to stop.
Those words open the recommendations from Northern Territory Coroner Elisabeth Armitage’s landmark inquiry into the killing of four Aboriginal women by their partners.
The coroner said the killings were part of a “plague” of domestic violence homicides contributing to a “national shame”.
On Monday she handed down 245 pages of findings, along with 35 recommendations, after spending more than 18 months investigating the deaths of Kumanjayi Haywood, Ngeygo Ragurrk, Miss Yunupingu and Kumarn Rubuntja.
Judge Armitage criticised the government for delaying funding to the sector and called on Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro to implement an all-of-agency response team and spend the $180 million promised during the August election campaign.
Of the 35 recommendations at least six focus on a need to expand men’s behaviour-change programs. There are only two in the Northern Territory, and none for boys under the age of 18.
“Shockingly there are currently no pre-court diversion-specific programs for children who are exposed to or are perpetrating domestic violence,” she said.
The findings detail the “horrific” killings of the four women, and the systematic failings that contributed to them. Judge Armitage acknowledges the territory has the highest rates of DV and the most violent forms.
Neil Marika almost killed Ms Yunupingu at the age of 16 but 13 years later he delivered a fatal stab to her chest in a Darwin kitchen.
“She endured and survived years of abuse,” the coroner said.
Ngeygo Ragurrk was the only woman in her tribe who knew all the names of sacred sites and totems on her country, a knowledge that died with her when Garsek Nawirridj beat, drowned and strangled her on a popular Darwin beach.
Kumanjayi Dixon couldn’t contain his rage, his jealousy, when he poured petrol under the bathroom door of their home and killed Kumanjayi Haywood.
Malcolm Abbott had already killed one woman, when he stole the anti-domestic violence advocate Kumarn Rubntja from her family.
Three years before she was killed, she said on a video about domestic violence prevention that “fighting … it’s got to stop … it’s not only for me it’s for everyone … stop the violence.”
Judge Armitagge said the “plague” of domestic violence homicides in the Northern Territory was “our horror and our national shame”.
She said her recommendations “were not radical or new” but the women’s killings were “preventable, senseless and shocking”.
During the inquest the court heard a call centre operator berate and belittle Ms Yunupingu, whose second language was English, while she continued to plea for help, repeating “he is going to kill me”.
In all cases, the women had reported violence to police, a fact reflected in the judge’s calls for further investment into Aboriginal interpreter services and training for licensed venues and police.
She recommended increased funding to expand the specialist DV court from Alice Springs to include Katherine and Darwin.
The coroner is aware of 86 women killed by domestic homicide in the past 24 years, most of them Aboriginal.
“Appallingly, eight Aboriginal women have died since June this year and a sister girl has also died, and all of these nine deaths are allegedly from domestic violence,” the judge said.
“In these inquests we have talked about sad times, indeed the worst of times… but I know that you remembered them smiling and laughing,” the coroner told families in the courtroom.
“In handing down these findings, I will remember them that way too.”
Judge Armitage said the numbers exclude missing women and deaths closely connected but not directly caused by domestic violence, such as suicides.
She called for funding for a Territory peak body to respond to the “shocking horror”.
“It is only the Northern Territory, which experiences the highest rates of domestic violence in the country, that does not have a peak body,” she told the courtroom.
The coroner put the NT government on notice, declaring another inquest into the domestic violence deaths of more women beginning in August 2025.
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