Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Davey for her question. The National Summit on Women's Safety is an absolutely critical step in the development of the next national plan not just to reduce violence against women and their children but also to end it once and for all. The plan must be an ambitious blueprint to wipe out the scourge on our national landscape that is domestic violence.

The first plan began in 2010, and since then we've developed a much larger body of evidence and a better understanding about the ways domestic violence is perpetrated. Our understanding of violence against women has changed since the first plan came into effect, and that's what we seek to understand through these round tables. We know that domestic, family and sexual violence is pervasive and it takes many different forms. Today and tomorrow, the round tables will consider all of those different forms of violence—things such as coercive control, technology facilitated abuse and the impact that violence has in the home on children. Participants in the round tables include survivors, frontline service workers and people who deal with domestic, family and sexual violence every single day in their line of work.

Together with the Minister for Women, a number of my colleagues—members in this place and members in the other place from all parties in this parliament—have been observing these round tables. This is so that we can hear directly, firsthand, from people—often survivors of these different types of domestic, family and sexual violence—so that we can make sure, as we develop the next national plan to end violence against women and their children, that we have got the voices of people who have survived this abuse firmly embedded into our decision-making. Importantly, the summit also gives the opportunity for all Australians to have their say and to be involved by live streaming, because we want to have a public debate to end this scourge on our society.