SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER: A peaceful Easter Sunday in the northern suburbs of Melbourne was shattered yesterday by the deaths of two little girls, aged three and four.

The sisters were reportedly killed at their grandmother's home. A 35-year-old man, whom police say was known to the girls, has been charged with their murder. He's believed to be their father.

This attack follows the killing of 11-year old Luke Batty two months ago, beaten to death by his father in front of his mother.

These are the cases that make the news, but there are hundreds of other acts of domestic violence against women and children reported every day.

Advocates claim Australian governments are guilty of shameful neglect when it comes to tackling family violence and the community guilty for tolerating sexist behaviour that encourages violent men.

Fiona McCormack is the CEO of Domestic Violence Victoria. She joined me earlier from Melbourne.

Fiona McCormack, welcome to 7.30.

FIONA MCCORMACK, CEO, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTORIA: Hi, Sarah.

SARAH FERGUSON: Now, first of all, what's the feeling in the community, your community this afternoon following the death of these two girls?

FIONA MCCORMACK: Look, obviously we can't talk specifically about this case, but, um, the feeling from family violence services, from our partner organisations, from so many that we're getting contacted is this overwhelming sadness and feeling for families who are devastated in these circumstances, but also fury, because we know that there can be so much more done, and if women and children were being abused and murdered by strangers at the rate at which they're being abused and murdered by men in their family, there'd be taskforces, there'd be funding, there'd be political will. But as it is, it's largely being met by political ambivalence.

SARAH FERGUSON: You say fury, now this isn't the first incident of its kind we've seen in the last few weeks. It comes on the heels of the terrible incident involving Luke Batty, who was murdered by his father in front of his mother. Why is it do you think that you're not able to galvanise society in the same way for these incidents that you are for others?

FIONA MCCORMACK: I think there's a couple of reasons. I think people don't necessarily understand the causes. Despite us having a wealth of information at our fingertips, almost on a second-by-second basis and being well-educated, the causes of violence against women are still largely misunderstood. And also I think that plays out in our political system. I don't think that our government necessarily understands these murders that we're seeing are just the tip of the iceberg from something that's rife in our community.

SARAH FERGUSON: What is it that people, politicians, the community, don't understand? Explain.

FIONA MCCORMACK: I think it's the causes. So, violence against women occurs in communities across the world to a greater or lesser extent where there's three factors. One is sexist attitudes and sex role stereotyping. So men who choose to use violence are - have hyper-masculine attitudes about their role as men, their rights as men and the role of women. As Tom Maher recently pointed out, they're not evil, they're not mentally ill, they are everyday men who believe that they have a right to behave in this way and that's why we see so many women and children at greater risk when women leave because these men who choose to use violence see it as a slight on their masculinity. And women are punished. And as Rosie Batty recently commented, you know, "I was no longer in his control and I was punished for it," and she believes that Greg Anderson actually orchestrated it so that she would witness the murder of her child. So, more and more we're seeing research - and the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming that rather than children being the target, often in many of these cases, it's actually the women who are being targeted.

SARAH FERGUSON: Are you saying there's actually a connection between sexist attitudes that we know to be still prevalent in society and violence committed against women and children?

FIONA MCCORMACK: Yeah, so that's the second factor. So community attitudes. So, I was on radio last week in response to another murder in Victoria, and inevitably, you will have people ringing in and saying, "This is really terrible. Violence against women, children, is never acceptable, but sometimes women will use children as pawns, sometimes women will be abusive." They excuse it. And workers who work with men's behaviour change programs, women themselves will tell us it's really, really difficult to get men who choose to use violence to take responsibility for their behaviour. It's everybody else's fault. And when they hear these excuses, it actually affirms their belief they have a right to do this and the community supports it.

SARAH FERGUSON: So are you saying that as well as those people who go on to carry out violence against women and children, there's also a role that people in the community are playing by indulging in the same sorts of, let's say, old-fashioned sexist language, sexist behaviour?

FIONA MCCORMACK: That's exactly right. So it's our response to violence when it happens, but also sexist attitudes. I think in the community, we have at least some understanding of the link between, say, racism and race-related violence or homophobia and homophobic-related violence. We really need to strengthen people's understanding of sexism and violence against women. People can see it as passe, but hopefully in the not-too-distant future, people will recognise that sexist attitudes, jokes, anything that reduce - minimises violence against women, actually supports the conditions that allows violence against women to flourish.

SARAH FERGUSON: Let's just talk about stereotyping for a minute 'cause there were some comments that were out and about on social media at the weekend coming from a former Palmer United candidate. I don't know if you saw them, but I'll quote them to you. He was essentially calling women whingers in domestic violence situations. He said, "Don't give me this bulls**t that women are not just as responsible for staying. Women have a choice." What's your response to language like that?

FIONA MCCORMACK: Yeah, unbelievable. I guess from working - our members work at the coal face and we see how few women actually have choices. So, they don't have choices because they're threatened that if they do leave, they will be murdered, their children will be murdered, they're threatened that their animals will be beaten, often they are tortured. It's really difficult for women to leave because there are so few options. We're seeing - you know, it used to be that women went into refuge for short periods of time and then they were exited into rental properties or social housing. Affordable rental is - affordable accommodation is so rare that we can no longer exit women and so there's a bottlenecking of even getting women into refuge.

SARAH FERGUSON: Let me just ask you one final question which is about male attitudes. Anna Bligh, the former Premier of Queensland, has raised this issue recently, which is that men must speak out against other men when they use threatening behaviour or threatening language or indeed just sexist behaviour. How important is the role of men in combating this?

FIONA MCCORMACK: Look, so often people say to me - and men included, which is really heartening - "What can I do? What can I possibly do?" And they think that they have to wait until they see some sort of physical altercation on a street before they can act. But we - what will prevent violence against women in the future from even happening in the first place is we need men speaking up and saying sexism isn't acceptable. And particularly, that no matter how disaffected a man may feel, no matter how put out or hard done by by the system, it is never OK to harm or take the life of your child. It is never OK to harm or take the life of your partner.

SARAH FERGUSON: Fiona McCormack, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

FIONA MCCORMACK: Cheers, Sarah.