On St Valentine's Day 1989, I condemned the not guilty verdict in the trial of my sister Vicki's killer, saying it reduced her and all women to "chattels" and imploring the feminist movement to confront the obliteration of women's rights occurring in our courtrooms. Such was the strength of the anti-violence campaign that emerged in the refuges and the community and legal centres over the next decade that in 2005 the Victorian government abolished the barbaric provocation law that had cleansed Vicki's killer of guilt.

Founded on the terror inflicted upon women, and what many of us believe is the justice system's complicity in male terror, the campaign has reached a crescendo. So confronting and widespread is men's violence against women that new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had no option but to convene a press conference and propose a solution. In offering a "$100 million package of measures to provide a safety net for women and children at high risk of experiencing violence" and declaring a commitment to "improve frontline support and services, leverage innovative technologies to keep women safe, and provide education resources to help change community attitudes to violence and abuse", Turnbull last week grasped the moment.

Although it was the conservative Tony Abbott who first flagged federal government initiatives to confront violent men, it will forever be Turnbull's bequest to the nation. In calling for cultural change, blaming men for the violence and committing to the funding of frontline services, the PM exceeded the expectations of many campaigners. The question is whether the conservatives will allow him to go a step further and describe the violence for what it really is: a counter-attack on the progress of women post feminism.

It's one thing to describe the violence as a product of a lack of respect. It's another to label it misogynist and to declare that the "wife killers" and bashers have only survived because of the patriarchal tenets of our justice system and many key institutions.