Sam Lim (Tangney, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Social Services. How is the Albanese Labor government working to reduce family, domestic and sexual violence?

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you so much to the member for Tangney. I know how passionately he cares about reducing family, domestic and sexual violence. A lot has changed in the last 50 years in the way that we regard issues around family, domestic and sexual violence. Back in the day when we were first discussing whether we should fund refuges, there were people in this place who actually said we wouldn't because that would break up families. We've seen so many advances because of the hard work of people on the frontline, because of the advocates and, of course, because of the actions of successive governments.

Last week we launched the next phase of this work with the consultation on the next action plan to reduce family, domestic and sexual violence because, just as we've had many successes, we've also seen a changing environment. Tech facilitated abuse is a new challenge for us. We're seeing rates of violence where both the perpetrator and the victim are under the age of 18 increasing quite dramatically. As our challenges evolve, we need to make sure that we are keeping up to date with the very best evidence and applying it to this problem so that we can truly end family, domestic and sexual violence.

No government has done more. We've invested an extra $4.4 billion under this Prime Minister in tackling this problem. That includes very substantial investments like making the leaving violence payment permanent; the $1.2 billion we're putting into thousands of new homes in crisis and transitional housing; the $183 million we put into the recent budget to make our child support system safer; the first standalone plan to tackle family, domestic and sexual violence in First Nations communities, with $218 million in this budget; boosting funding for our 500 Workers program by 70 per cent; boosting funding for 1800RESPECT by 40 per cent; providing really practical work and investment directly into programs that assist men and programs that assist adolescents; and dedicated funding for counselling for children who've been impacted by family and domestic violence, with more than $80 million going into that. We've introduced 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave. We've already passed legislation that makes sure that our social security system can't be weaponised by the perpetrators of family and domestic violence.

This is a challenge for every one of us. It's a challenge for both the Commonwealth government and states and territories to show leadership because, of course, governments have to lead here. Every Australian has the opportunity to make a difference when it comes to family, domestic and sexual violence, and every one of us has a responsibility to do so.