A ground-breaking new report on murder in Australia has provided overwhelming proof of the gendered nature of domestic and family violence.

The report shows that men commit more than 80 per cent of murders between couples who have a history of domestic violence. The overwhelming majority of those men had a history of abusing the women they ultimately killed.

In the 20 per cent of murders committed by women, over two-thirds were women killing men who had been abusing them. Of the 152 murders examined by the report only two cases were found where a woman killed a man she had a history of abusing.

Fiona McCormack, CEO of Domestic Violence Victoria, says it is vital to recognise how gender is a factor in family violence.

“The fact that family violence is primarily perpetrated by men and overwhelmingly experienced by women and children can be a deeply uncomfortable truth, but unless we have the courage as a community to look at why it is that some men choose to perpetrate violence, we’ll never be able to fix this,’’ she said.