Women killed by violence this year have been remembered at a candlelight vigil in Newcastle.
Newcastle Domestic Violence Committee staged the vigil on Friday night at the Foreshore Carriage Sheds after a spate of horrific deaths across the nation in recent months.
The event coincided with the end of Family and Domestic Violence Prevention Month.
The names of the women, children and, in some cases, men killed in Australia this year in domestic and family violence and other violence were read out during the remembrance vigil, including the victims of the Bondi Junction shopping centre murders.
Committee chair Lisa Ronneberg said governments needed to do more to protect women and children in the Hunter from domestic violence.
"We'll see what comes from the state budget," she said.
"We're certainly hoping some of the priorities we've outlined that we need in the Hunter are going to be in the budget. The federal budget was pretty disappointing.
"Governments make decisions about where to spend the money, but they do make a choice not to fund us. It's a matter of the will to do it."
She said the Hunter needed more funding for all of its domestic violence services, staff specialised in working with children, and more emergency and transitional accommodation.
"We don't want pilot programs any more. We should be investing genuinely. We're talking about services which have been around for 40 years and know what they're doing."
Ms Ronneberg said publicity over recent murders must translate into concrete action.
"It's clearly not the first time there has been incidents that prompt a reaction from the state and federal governments and the community, but the response has never been enough."
She said domestic violence was getting worse rather than better.
"Everyone is beyond capacity. Everyone who has been in the sector for such a long time says they have never seen anything like there's been right now."
The Newcastle Herald last week published a list of Hunter and state services available to women fleeing domestic violence.
