Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Almost one in five Australian women over the age of 18, as we heard yesterday, have experienced violence by a current or previous partner in their lifetime. Only one in five of those reported it to the police. Men who are victims of violence are even less likely to report family violence, with only one in 20 men who have experienced current partner violence reporting that to the police. Three in five victims of violence by a previous partner also reported having children in their care at the time of the relationship, and more than a third said that these children had witnessed the violence.

These are shocking figures. For far too long violence in the home was treated by the police, by the law and by wider society as a private problem. Slowly, we have seen a long overdue change to that attitude. We have seen laws changed. We have seen policing strategies change. We have seen attitudes change. It has come after many years, indeed, many decades, of work, particular by the feminist movement, the women's refuge movement and others. The violence that used to be a shameful secret with so many women and children, and, indeed, some men, living in terror in their own homes is now talked about. It is now understood to be the crime that it is—not an accident, not an outburst, not an incident, but an act of criminal violence every bit as serious as an assault on the street. And worse in some ways, because it occurs where we should feel safest, and at the hands of a person we should be able to trust.

When Rosie Batty became the Australian of the Year I think many Australians were so pleased to welcome that, because of her own dignity and resilience, but also as a sign that our country was continuing to move forward, continuing to make the much needed reforms to support, protect and help the victims of, and those fleeing, domestic violence. But the truth is that despite the great achievements of decades past many challenges still remain. Those challenges are best illustrated by the figures I used earlier. This is why Labor, in government, set up the National Council to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children. That council did wonderful work in consulting more than 2,000 Australians: survivors of violence, perpetrators of violence, educators, service providers, people living in rural and remote areas, members of Indigenous communities and culturally and linguistically diverse communities, women with disabilities, older women, members of the judiciary and police.

Out of this consultation process came the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, which set the direction for better, more integrated services and for necessary changes at state and federal level. This was the first time that we had a truly national plan, which state, territory and federal governments agreed to, that set targets and described how we would get there. The plan included an $86 million investment to drive nationwide change in culture, behaviour and attitudes that underpin violence against women and children. It included research initiatives, including the establishment of the Australian National Research Organisation for Women's Safety, ANROWS, and key measures focused on prevention and on innovative and integrated service delivery.

We provided additional funds for legal services and for homelessness programs, because we know that women escaping violence need legal support and need somewhere to go. We made sure that the right for victims to be able to request flexible work arrangements was included in the Fair Work Act, so that those who were experiencing family violence could stay in work, keep their jobs and stay safe at work. Many workplaces have now taken that a step further and have included domestic violence leave provisions as a workplace entitlement. For example, women might need time off to attend court, and being able to speak confidentially to your employer and explain why you are taking leave that day is very important. We invested in programs to improve community safety and to tackle family violence in Indigenous communities. Of course, this work is not done. Our efforts must be unceasing. Our determination must not waver. Our commitment must only increase.

I am sad to say—though I do not doubt the commitment of members of parliament on both sides of this parliament—that some of the resources to pursue those commitments have been lost in recent times. In the past 18 months desperately needed funds have been cut from front-line services. The cuts were compounded in my own state by further cuts from the state Liberal government. Around Australia more than 50 different services, which provide victims of domestic violence with services ranging from applying for intervention orders to obtaining emergency food and medical supplies, are cutting staff, slashing programs or closing entirely. These services must have certainty. The women who need them deserve certainty. Instead they face uncertainty and reduced resourcing.

Labor committed $42 million to community legal initiatives in 2013, much of which would assist victims of family violence. There are 190 community legal centres in Australia that play a vital role in day-to-day family violence casework. The centres help women negotiate the process of getting family violence orders, they advise them of their legal rights and options, and they bring a unique insight into how the legal system impacts victims and perpetrators. The legal assistance sector has faced $43 million in cuts from the Abbott government over the forward estimates. Community legal centres have no funding certainty beyond June 2015. Cuts announced in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook in 2013 included $6.5 million cut from legal aid commissions and $3.6 million cut from family violence prevention legal centres.

The National Family Violence Prevention Legal Services, which specifically work with Indigenous families across 14 organisations, will be forced to close unless new funding is found. The executive director of the Women's Legal Centre (ACT and Region), which covers a large area, not just of the ACT, but also of southern New South Wales, has said that the centre will have to turn away 500 women a year after losing $100,000 in federal funding over the next two financial years. This centre assists about 1,200 women a year. Two-thirds of those women have recent experience of domestic violence, and two-thirds of those women earn less than $35,000 a year. Many of the centre's clients earn much less than that, and some earn nothing at all.

In Victoria alone, another 14 community legal centres will lose front-line family violence specialists. The Murray Mallee Community Legal Service will lose their full-time lawyer specialising in intervention orders and family violence work. Last year, that lawyer single-handedly dealt with 150 intervention orders. Women's Legal Service Tasmania will lose $100,000 a year from 1 July 2015. That is fully one-third of their Commonwealth funding, which means, literally, that many hundreds of women and their children will be missing out on legal support each year during what is probably going to be the toughest time of their lives.

These legal services provides a vital help to thousands of women, many of whom are victims of family violence. Without their specialised and expert assistance in family law and family violence matters, and their emphasis on early intervention, thousands of women will go without help. Many programs and services which provide emergency relief, family relationship counselling, financial counselling, homelessness support and settlement services—services crucially important to women fleeing violent homes—depend on community grants, which of course have also been cut. Yet, this government has cut $271 million from the discretionary grants program since May 2014 which will impact these services in unprecedented ways.

In New South Wales Burwood Community Welfare Services, which operates six direct programs to Sydney's inner west dealing with housing and homelessness, financial counselling and other matters, has had all its Commonwealth funding cut. Another Blue Mountains based service, which lost $125,000, will no longer be able to provide either emergency food or emergency medication for women and children. In New South Wales we have seen the impact of that across the board in refuges, in homelessness services and in services providing emergency relief.

Mr Husic interjecting—

My colleague speaks of the Mount Druitt community centre that has also seen funding cuts. Family violence is the leading cause of homelessness for women and children, but under this government housing and homelessness programs have also been cut. In the first budget, $44 million was cut out of homelessness services and there is no funding certainty beyond 2015 in the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. That $44 million is all of the new building money in the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme has been abolished—a scheme that has provided homes for thousands of women and children. It would have been set to provide homes for thousands more, and it has been cut. They have abolished the National Housing Supply Council and they have cut funding for the National Affordable Housing Agreement. These cuts put at risk programs like Safe At Home, services located in the Perth metropolitan region which help victims of domestic violence stay in their own homes, with security and other upgrades, which see perpetrators required to leave rather than uprooting victims of violence and their children. There are the Western Australian services that help women who have fled to refuges find more permanent housing in the private rental market and support them for their first year. Neither of these successful programs has any certainty past June.

It is not just Australian women who are suffering from cuts to services that help victims of violence. The cuts to our aid budget—$11.2 billion across the forward estimates; incidentally, there was a cut at every budget and at each of the two updates since the government was elected—undermine the work that Australia has been globally renowned for in supporting victims of violence, particularly in our region. This includes the work that we have supported in the past by the Vanuatu Women's Centre that I visited with the Minister for Foreign Affairs in December 2013. That centre is run by remarkable women. It is run for women and their children. It has 37 island based committees across the country and since 2007 has helped more than 10,000 survivors of family violence with counselling, legal assistance and accommodation. It works hard to improve educational and economic outcomes for women too. That centre provided 4,267 people with counselling and support services across all six provinces in 2012-13. Follow-on surveys suggest that 95 per cent of clients were satisfied with the counselling they received. They have also helped 280 at-risk women to obtain family protection orders. That is just one of the outstanding aid projects that Australian aid funding has supported in the past in addressing violence against women and children. Another example is the domestic violence awareness training for police in Solomon Islands, which I was also privileged to see.

In 2015, our community accepts that violence in the home is not a second-order issue; it is not a private problem; it demands a government response, specialist services, co-ordinated delivery and resources on the ground. I do not doubt for a moment that people on both sides of this parliament are united in their implacable opposition to domestic violence, but it takes more than fine words. It takes resources. The cuts to these resources will be deeply damaging to the very services that help women fleeing domestic violence.

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