The Canberra community has rallied around the family of Tara Costigan who was found dead on Saturday.
More than $72,000 in donations have been raised for Tara Costigan’s three children since her body was discovered in her Calwell townhouse in Canberra’s south on Saturday afternoon.
For more on this story: “A week ago Tara Costigan was celebrating the birth of her daughter. Now she is dead.”
The 28-year-old, who police suspect was murdered by an ex-partner, left behind a newborn daughter and two sons aged nine and 11.
A crowd funding website was set up by Ms. Costigan’s friends on Monday to raise money for her family.
One of the organisers of the fund, Emma Luke, said she was overwhelmed by the response so far.
“I’m hoping it will go towards the kids, they’re never going to get their mum back, but a little bit of money can go a long way,” she said.
Marcus Rappel, 40, has now been formally charged with Ms Costigan’s murder and with breaching a domestic violence prevention order.
In a powerful speech delivered to the lower house today, Deputy Leader of the Opposition Tanya Plibersek offered her condolences to the family and spoke out about the scourge of family violence in Australia.
Bill Shorten: “We need a national crisis summit to tackle domestic violence.”
“This morning we woke to a front page story in the Canberra Times about the brutal murder of Tara Costigan,” she said.
“Tara had sought, and gained, an interim domestic violence order against the man now charged with murdering her, just one day before her death.
“Tara hoped that the provisions of the law and the resources of her government would protect her. They did not.”
Ms Plibersek reminded the house that Ms Costigan’s death was not an anomaly – far from it.
“Tara Costigan is not the only, is far from the only, Australian woman our community, our legal system, our governments have failed,” she said.
“How many thousands of women, right now, how many thousands of women and their children are living in terror in their own homes?
“These women are not statistics. Each and every one of them is a daughter, a sister, perhaps a mother, an aunt – each and every one of them is part of our community and to each and every one of them we owe an unyielding determination that this will stop.”
Watch the full speech here.
Top Comments
This is horrific. I hope this man is made an example of and given life in prison to show that Australia is no longer going to tolerate domestic violence against women.
How many more women have to die before they start taking this seriously?
He wont get life and I can guarantee you that he probably got bail many, many times before he did this. This is the problem with our system. Police get these men to the courts and the courts continuously give them bail or very lenient sentences. The men think they are untouchable. My husband is currently dealing with two such cases.
For a DVO to work, the person being served needs to have some sense of right and wrong and respect for the law. Obviously this is not the case with these abusive idiots! They show no respect to their own family let alone the law. The current process is simply not working, change is needed and fast! Let's see what our "minister for women" will do about it. There's no time like the present Mr Abott.