The women who need those orders, the women and children at risk in every state and every territory, will not be able to apply for those orders because of planned harsh cuts to community legal centres all over Australia.

So, a national scheme on the one hand, yet eight separate ways to seek legal help on the other hand. How on earth this will work to defeat violence against women is completely baffling.

The leading researcher in Australia on access to the law, Liz Curran, is dismayed by the government's decision.

"This is what happens when policy-makers are removed from the real world," she said.

Curran, a legal academic at the Australian National University and current practitioner, was asked by the Productivity Commission for advice on funding for legal services. She said she was troubled by the proposed cuts.

She believes that the combination of funding cuts and the devolution to states and territories will lead to a fragmented approach at a time when coordination is required.

She said it was absolutely critical that before policy makers make policy they listen to – and respect – the expertise and experience of the community centres which deliver services on the ground on a day-to-day level.

"They must hear the voices of the providers and those affected by family violence."

Instead, she feared that more women and children will be caught in an ideological war.

"I wish we could put as much money into supporting women and children who are in fear of their lives as we are into promoting the fear of the spectre of terrorist acts," she said.

The federal government used to fund those centres. It wasn't lavish funding. It wasn't even enough under the former government so the then Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus topped it up. What's been dubbed the Dreyfus money will be removed over two years – which is why a spokesperson for Attorney-General George Brandis said that the cuts weren't really cuts.

Yet these cuts which aren't cuts will cut and cut deeply. And Claire Moore, the Queensland senator who is shadow minister for women, said the Dreyfus money was provided as a way to look at what really worked in the sector. It was, she said, funding which Dreyfus proposed to continue. Dreyfus commissioned the Productivity Commission to examine legal assistance funding – and the report revealed that it was money well-spent and that there continued to be significant unmet legal need.

Of course, Moore must say that now – but there isn't a Community Legal Centre in the country which isn't short of funds. Michael Smith, chair of the National Association of Community Legal Centres, said that while the government claimed there were no cuts, the fact was forward estimates told a very different story - $42 million in 2016 to 2017, yet just $30 million in 2017 to 2018.

He said the move to decentralise funding was a mistake which would cost lives.

"There is a missed opportunity for leadership on the issue of family violence," he said. And as Claire Moore pointed out, there will be nine decision-makers instead of one.

Smith said that how the money was allocated would become even more arbitrary than it is now. State and territory governments would decide which centres got the money – and women and children in families who moved across borders would be most at risk.

Last week in Mildura, Smith said those working at the community level – not the politicians, not the funders – expressed deep concern over basic access to duty lawyers. With new funding arrangements, that would mean lawyers all over Australia would have to become more familiar with the laws in each state and territory – and that's not even ensuring for duty lawyers in all courts across Australia.

Consistency of service would appear to be a long way off, he said.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is happy to say that his government has domestic violence as high priority.

But politicians of all parties need to fund their priorities and it's clear that this government isn't planning on doing that now or in the future.

I wondered how it would respond when Rosie Batty was made Australian of the Year. For a few moments I thought the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General would work together to try to address a national crisis. I thought that the mounting deaths of women would make a difference. I thought that they might act when they knew that one woman is hospitalised every three hours in Australia because of family violence.

I thought they might spend money they needed to spend to make this stop.

It's one thing to get on a stage with a woman who lost her son to family violence. It's quite another to stop it happening to someone else.

Twitter @jennaprice or email jenna_p@bigpond.net.au