He is preparing to unveil a new commitment expected to exceed $100 million, aimed at raising awareness, forcing the issue into the open, and forcing the violent men at its heart to confront their own weakness. Kerry Stokes with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Credit:Andrew Meares Australia has a rate of almost two domestic violence deaths a week, and police across the nation respond to an average of 657 domestic violence calls every day. The new money will constitute Mr Turnbull's first major funding and policy announcement since becoming Prime Minister a week ago. He will be joined for the Melbourne-based announcement on Thursday by Australian of the Year Rosie Batty and former Victorian police commissioner Ken Lay.

Included will be measures designed to improve services, extend refuges and bolster support for women subjected to, or at grave risk of, domestic violence. The Watson man has pleaded not guilty to 14 charges linked the alleged domestic abuse. There will also be money for items such as personal duress alarms and watches with similar features. Also included will be preventative program funding aimed at schools, and domestic violence training for frontline emergency staff and social workers. Australian of the Year Rosie Batty, whose son was killed by his father, will join Mr Turnbull for the funding announcement. Credit:Daniel Munoz

Fairfax Media has been told the announcement will exceed $100 million in value but will not affect the budget bottom line because almost all of it had been allocated in the last budget under its "contingency reserve". While Mr Turnbull was unavailable for comment on Wednesday, he made his personal views about the scourge known on Tuesday in an interview with Lisa Wilkinson. "The issue of family violence, or domestic violence as it's often called – which is just violence against women, which is the way I would prefer to describe it – is an enormous one," he said. "It has been overlooked, to some extent ignored, for far too long. We have to have, we must have, zero tolerance for it. I think the growing level of awareness is vital. Real men don't hit women. We have got to be very determined to eradicate it. Now, will we have new measures to announce? Watch this space. That's what I would say." Undertaking a series of broadcast interviews as he builds momentum, Mr Turnbull has repeatedly said policies will be reviewed because nothing should remain set in stone.

This, he revealed on Wednesday to Sky News, might include changes to Australia's mandatory offshore detention rules, under which about 1600 people are currently detained in Papua New Guinea and on Nauru. But if refugee advocates hope to see a softening of offshore detention policy under Mr Turnbull's leadership allowing those detained to be resettled in Australia, those hopes were quickly dashed when he told Radio National that people held on Manus Island and Nauru, "will never come to Australia". Also up for consideration are areas of taxation policy previously ruled out by former treasurer Joe Hockey or former prime minister Tony Abbott, including generous superannuation tax concessions for the well-off, and capital gains tax concessions. And the government is also flagging a rethink of its stymied and deeply unpopular higher education deregulation reforms. Among the details to be announced on Thursday are $14 million over three years for expanded domestic violence-alert training for police and other emergency workers as well as social workers.

The government will also pump $15 million over the same period into what it is calling "innovative wrap-around support in domestic violence hot spots". Emerging personal security technology is also to be included. This takes in duress alarms that enable people under attack or under threat of violence to press a button alerting police to an unfolding emergency 24 hours a day. Follow us on Twitter