Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is, of course, a very important week to talk about family violence—violence against women and their children. This Friday, 25 November, is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. It is also the commencement of 16 days of activism against gender related violence that concludes on 10 December, which is International Human Rights Day, as members would know.

Family violence is a national priority, and it should be treated that way in this country. On average, at least one woman is killed by a partner or former partner in Australia each week. One in three Australian women has experienced physical violence since the age of 15. One in five Australian women has experienced sexual violence. One in four Australian women has experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner. One in four Australian women has experienced emotional abuse by a current or former partner. And women are at least three times more likely than men to experience violence from an intimate partner. These sets of statistics are repeated so often in this place—and they are repeated for a very good reason, because family violence is a national epidemic and, as I said earlier, it should be a national priority.

As a nation, we do need to do better when it comes to family violence. I am really proud that it was a Labor government that introduced and instigated a plan, under the great leadership of then Minister Tanya Plibersek, who instigated the National Plan for the Reduction of Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022. This is an excellent document that is currently under its third action plan, which was announced in October this year. Much more needs to be done when it comes to fulfilling the aspirations of that plan: for a country that does not suffer from this epidemic of domestic and family violence that we have seen here for such a long period of time.

I wanted to make some observations about some policy challenges that arise in relation to family violence. For example, it has been almost three years since the coalition government announced its cuts to community legal centres, which directly provide front-line services to domestic violence victims. From 1 July 2017, community legal centres or CLCs are facing a 30 per cent funding cliff, with almost $35 million in cuts. And that is a terrible shame, Mr Deputy Speaker Coulton—welcome to the chair—because, obviously, access to legal services and the assistance that surrounds legal services is incredibly important for women who are seeking domestic violence orders, and for women who are in the family law courts, who need assistance to manage the experience of going through the family law courts. Legal assistance is incredibly important.

Another thing that is incredibly important for people who have left a violent relationship is housing. Domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness in this country. It is incredibly important that the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness be renewed. I call on the government to confirm that it will renew the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness, which expires very soon, and therefore that it will give those services that provide housing for homeless people, including homeless women who have left violent situations, the certainty that they need to continue their programs and ensure that their workforce does not leave.

Speaking of the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness, it has actually now been more than two years since the coalition government's cuts to that partnership agreement's capital expenditure component. There were two annual cuts of $44 million—so an $88 million cut—to capital expenditure on homelessness in this country, at a time when people across the country are crying out for more housing options for women and children who have been forced to leave home because they have been facing family violence at home.

We have also been talking in this parliament today about family law, and I mentioned it earlier. There is a really important reform that needs to happen in relation to family law. It has been more than two years since the Productivity Commission recommended that the government reform family law processes so that perpetrators of family violence could not personally cross-examine their victims. It has also been a little bit more than 12 months since Women's Legal Services Australia wrote to the Minister for Women and to the Attorney-General to ask them to implement cross-examination reform in this country. In February this year in Senate estimates, the Attorney-General said that nothing would be done in that term of parliament to give effect to this recommendation, but we found out in April that a roundtable had been held in relation to this issue back in March. It is now November and there has been no news from the government about this crucial cross-examination reform in that intervening period.

We invited the government today in question time to get on board with our policy. Our policy would require judges at the first mention in a family law proceeding—by which time you will have seen on the papers the disclosure of any allegations of family violence—to consider whether vulnerable witnesses can be protected using existing measures, like video-conferencing, having witnesses behind screens or having a support person, but, then, if that were not enough, to require a judge to consider whether they should refuse to allow an alleged perpetrator to personally cross-examine the alleged victim. Of course, it is important that accusers be able to be cross-examined by the accused. We do not seek to prevent people from cross-examining, but we say that it should be able to be done through a lawyer—through someone who is a professional; through someone who is bound by a code of ethics; through someone who is bound by professional responsibility obligations and under the scrutiny of legal profession regulators. That is what we say the court should be able to do.

The court should be able to order that someone who has been accused of abusing, of assaulting, of committing crimes against the other party in the family law matter should not be allowed to revictimise and retraumatise that person through personally grilling them in a courtroom, through using family law proceedings to personally grill them.

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