Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the contribution from the member for Richmond and acknowledge her service in the police force previously. I'd like to start by commending the work that has been achieved to date by both the Minister for Social Services and the shadow minister for child protection and prevention of family violence. Thank you for your continued commitment and for the heartfelt statements that have been made by each of you in this place to date. Hearing the similar goals of policies and planning benchmarks provided by each as we work towards eradicating this scourge from Australian society concisely reaffirms the bipartisan approach that is already in place and must continue to drive meaningful change.

We, as a collective government, must be decisive, evaluative, reflective and realistic in our goals, and appreciate that truly moving forward requires generational change. As we plan the next year, three years, 10 years, we must judge each step against a longer term commitment: I appreciate that the current government has the same noble intentions as the one that preceded it and a strong desire to move the dial further. A simple fact that I know that we all appreciate is we cannot buy our way out of this endemic. Every dollar we spend in aid of this cause needs to drive societal change and a systematic evolution of how we, as a community, deal not just with violence against women but with all family and domestic violence.

Since accepting the role of shadow of assistant minister for the prevention of family violence, I have met with dozens of organisations not only from within my electorate but also broadly across Australia who currently provide services and support for victims of family and domestic violence and, in some cases, for perpetrators. I have listened to and consulted with these organisations who span the pillars of the recent plan, from prevention to early intervention, response and recovery. While I have significant firsthand experience from my years as a police officer and then a prosecutor, there are many challenges and nuances faced by each organisation at each stage of the family violence journey that I now better appreciate. One particularly vivid analogy that I was presented with earlier on and which subsequently resonated with many of these providers was the feeling of being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.

As an example, the New South Wales police have attended over 140,000 domestic violence incidents each year for the past three years. This equates to one call to the police every four minutes in my home state. In one particular township within my electorate, I've heard from the providers that domestic violence response contributes up to 50 per cent of their workload. In regional and rural areas as a whole, incidents of domestic violence and subsequent court orders are significantly higher per capita than in their metro counterparts,. To illustrate this, in 2021 there were over 2,300 domestic violence orders granted in the Mid North Coast and Coffs Harbour areas, a rate more than double that of Greater Sydney. When looking at statistics such as these, I'm saddened and equally disgusted. I am also determined to ensure that, as parliamentarians, we are paying enough attention to prevention and early intervention.

I absolutely recognise the very real and immediate need to provide response and recovery services and to invest in appropriate housing and support measures for those already in the cycle. I personally worked with local and state governments in my first term to provide a great example of this in Kempsey, where the old ambulance station that was no longer in use is now being repurposed into 26 apartments to be used for crisis accommodation along with 24-hour on-site support and youth facilities. It's overdue and critical infrastructure that I am extremely proud to have played a part in. But I recognise that a lot of funding is back-end loaded and, without adequate resourcing and effective programs for prevention and early intervention, we will perpetually be the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, spending infinite time and resources on response rather than providing a pathway or guide rails for respectful relationships and attitudes towards women.

I have said before, and continue to say, that I am committed to working with any individual, organisation or party who dedicates themselves to ending violence against women, children and families. We owe it to our communities and we owe it to our future generations. This generational change must start with the saturation of education: education in schools, education at home, education at work—in sporting clubs, businesses and industry—not just for six months, not for a year but year after year until the message is heard and listened to and the language and the actions of respect are the norm rather than the exception. And I look forward to working with my colleagues across the floor.

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