MEN who hit their wives or partners should receive tougher sentences than those imposed on other violent criminals and be subjected to on-the-spot apprehended violence orders in bid to stamp out domestic abuse.

Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick said weak sentences and insensitive remarks by judges discouraged women from reporting domestic assaults.

Ms Broderick said courts needed new guidelines to ensure they treated domestic violence seriously and applied the tough sentences already available.

"If I assault someone who loves me, whom I have loved, who has an intimate relationship with me, there's an argument that that should be a premium penalty, not a discount," Ms Broderick told The Sunday Telegraph in an interview to be aired on today's Meet The Press.

Speaking a week after a Melbourne magistrate handed sports agent Ricky Nixon a sentence of 200 hours community service for assaulting his girlfriend, Ms Broderick said high-profile cases where sentences were weak were a major deterrent to victims speaking up.

On Thursday, Tasmanian judge Peter Evans told a court a 33-year-old rapist had been "gentle" with the 17-year-old girl he sexually assaulted and gave the man a six-month suspended jail sentence.

Ms Broderick said the women she met in refuges around the country were deterred if they thought nobody took them seriously. "It's a strong deterrent to stand up and say 'that's my situation' when you have gratuitous remarks (by judges) and you see sentences which are not what the community would think are appropriate," she said.

"Sometimes the penalty we might assume would be applied isn't applied because it's 'just a domestic'."

She said at least 1.2 million women were living in a violent relationship or threatened by physical violence.

"It's the greatest human rights abuse that's happening in Australia towards women. It's a very hidden problem. What we need to do is drag it out of the shadows," she said.

With 125,000 incidents each year, state Minister for Community Services and Women Pru Goward said the current laws were failing women. She is spearheading a raft of reforms including on-the-spot apprehended violence orders to tackle domestic violence.

The draft reforms are due to go to cabinet later this year.

A Sunday Telegraph investigation can reveal:

HALF of all murder, manslaughter and attempted murder charges in NSW are domestic violence related and almost one woman a week dies at the hands of her partner;

THE rate of domestic violence has consistently climbed every year over the past decade;

ONE in three people facing domestic violence seek police help; and

THERE were more than 20,000 domestic violence related assaults in 2011-12.