Albanese has called an urgent national cabinet meeting as thousands rallied to end men’s violence against women. Follow the day’s news live

• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has been making the rounds on breakfast television this morning, currently speaking on ABC News Breakfast.

He is asked why the government won’t declare violence against women as a national emergency?

When we declare a national emergency, things kick in [such as] one-off payments for people – for a bushfire, for a flood, for something like that. I don’t really want to get into a debate here that misses the point over whether it’s a national emergency or a national crisis. But an emergency declaration by state or territory governments kicks in immediate one-off actions by the federal government. What we need here is not one-off actions. What we need here is a concerted plan.

The organisers throughout the country deserve credit for organising these rallies. I was happy not to speak. I was happy to speak, it was about raising awareness of the issue, but a call to action by all governments, quite clearly, we need to do more.

It’s not enough to just have empathy. The fact that one a woman dies every four days, on average, at the hand of a partner, is just a national crisis. So I’ll be convening the national cabinet on Wednesday. We’ll talk about what more we can do. Clearly governments need to do more, but as a society as well, we need to acknowledge that we need to change behaviour. We need to change attitudes. We need to change culture, because it is completely unacceptable.

I’m focused on the issue, Karl. It was an emotional day for people and I get that, on what is an emotional issue. Because women were saying yesterday, enough is enough.