Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How is the Albanese Labor government working to prevent family, sexual and domestic violence; improve early intervention; and make sure women and children can access support they need free from violence?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Richmond for her question. Over the last three months, our government has undertaken major consultation on the next phase of our second National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children. Yesterday, as part of that, I—along with Minister Plibersek, Minister Gallagher and Assistant Minister Kearney—took part in an extensive roundtable with leaders of 14 organisations who do work on the front line. That was one of more than 160 roundtables that have occurred right around the country, engaging over 1,100 people in person and over 2,000 people online.

This comes at a time when, just yesterday, it was reported there was another death of a First Nations woman in Queensland—allegedly, murdered by her former partner. That death is tragic, just as every single life lost to violence is.

As elected representatives, we must listen to Australians when they tell us they want violence against women and children to stop, and we must continue to act on it in the best ways we know how. As a government, our investment has been heavily focused—understandably so—on response and recovery for women victims-survivors. That's about 80 per cent of our record $4.4 billion investment. Yesterday the housing minister made another announcement about emergency accommodation.

What I heard yesterday was that, when it comes to the second action plan, we also need to think more deeply about prevention and listen to the voices of children. I met Conor Pall, a 22-year-old advocate for action on family and domestic violence and a survivor himself. He is an incredibly eloquent and very brave young man, who told the story of violence in his family in a very personal way.

It is clear that there are gaps in the system, and my government will seek to address them as part of our second action plan. It is clear as well that government can't do it all—that all of us, as Australians, have a responsibility to do better. What is clear also is that violence against women and children, as well as the pervasiveness of violence on social media—and the normalisation of sexual violence amongst young men, such as strangulation, which is becoming more and more witnessed, with more people, victims, in hospitals—are festering issues that must be addressed, just as the role of technology and what's happening online must be addressed.

They are national issues. They require national leadership. We all have a role to play to end this violence against women and children. We'll keep working with states and territories as well, including at the National Cabinet meeting later this month. States and territories are responsible for a lot of the actual service delivery, of course, in departments of community services around the country, which is why we want to have the update following on from the special National Cabinet meeting that I convened to deal with these issues that set in train the second national plan process.

Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) | Link to this | Hansard source

on indulgence—I'd like to associate the coalition with the Prime Minister's remarks, and, in addition, to say to the states that the coalition is very willing to work with the government to prevent violence against women and children in particular. In this cost-of-living crisis, we're hearing that more and more women are unable to leave their violent partners because they can't afford to do so.

On behalf of the coalition, I would also like to thank Conor for coming forward and being a very brave young man and sharing his story. It's a story that none of us like to hear. But these stories do need to be told, and they're the stories that every one of us, as elected officials, hears in our electorate offices every day. Sadly, despite all the investment, we're hearing them more and more. We'd like to work with you, Prime Minister, on your national action plan, and we'll continue to do so until we fix this terrible, terrible issue.