Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise in support of the member for Griffith's matter of public importance motion today, which is the need to address family violence as a national priority. I admire the member for Griffith's commitments to this area. The reason why I get up in support of her motion is because it is indeed already a national priority, and it was this government which put it on the national agenda predominantly when Prime Minister Turnbull came to office as Prime Minister. Indeed, the very first cabinet decision of the Turnbull government was the $100 million Women's Safety Package. I will go through that package in a few moments time, but, before doing so, can I say that as all of us across all sides of this chamber would agree, violence against women and children is completely unacceptable in any form.

As a husband, as a father of two daughters and as the son of a mother, it is almost unfathomable for me to think that there are men out there who would physically harm the girls and women in their lives. It is unfathomable for so many of us. But when you look at the data, unfortunately, it occurs way too frequently. The member for Griffith talked about some of that data for domestic violence. I will just reiterate some of those figures, which are truly staggering. This is from the Domestic Violence Prevention Centre website. They have some data which shows: just under half a million Australian women reported that they had experienced physical or sexual violence or sexual assault in the past 12 months; more than a million women had experienced physical or sexual assault by their male current or ex-partner since the age of 15; over a third of women who experienced physical assault in the 12 months before the survey said the perpetrator was a current or previous male partner; a third said the perpetrator was a male family member or friend; a third of women had experienced physical violence since the age of 15; and one in five women had experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.

And, of course, we know that so many physical assaults, sexual assaults and family violence episodes are not reported at all to the police but they are truly staggering figures. But behind every single one of those pieces of data is a person, is a child in many cases or is a family that may have been devastated because of the violence which had been committed against that woman or against that girl. It is truly a tragic situation when we still have statistics like that and, of course, in the Indigenous community the figures are just so much higher again. If time permits, I will reflect on that towards the end of my remarks.

Governments, and particularly the national government, should be leading in this area and should be leading to address some of the statistics and some of the domestic violence which is occurring at way too high a rate. This government has been the most proactive federal government that has ever been in this place in addressing domestic violence. I mentioned at the outset that the very first decision of the Turnbull cabinet was a $100 million Women's Safety Package.

Ms Burney interjecting—

When you look at some of the issues that funding package went towards, it went towards very practical measures which are now being implemented, for example: $12 million to trial with states the use of innovative technology to keep women safe; $5 million for safer technology, including working with telecommunications companies to distribute safe phones to women and with the eSafety Commissioner to develop a resource package about online safety for women; $17 million to keep women safe in their homes by expanding successful initiatives like the Safer in the Home program to install CCTV cameras and other safety equipment; $5 million to expand the 1800RESPECT number, which the Minister for Social Services referred to in question time; and a $2 million increase in funding for MensLine for tools and resources to support perpetrators not to reoffend.

I could go on, but all the details of the $100 million package that was announced are now public.

As the Prime Minister himself said a few weeks ago, that package is now having real, tangible results on the ground. He referred to a couple of things in his remarks when he was with the Queensland Premier at the COAG summit. He referred, for example, to the fact that there are now 12 new specialist domestic violence units and five health justice partnerships which are now operational as a result of that funding. Those services are being delivered by community legal centres and legal aid commissions at locations across Australia. Since January of this year, 1,400 services have been provided to 535 women experiencing family violence—82 per cent of whom have one or more children—and it provides a very integrated case-management approach. The 1800RESPECT line has also had a significant take-up since the announcement. Since the additional funding has been introduced, over 80 per cent of calls are answered within 20 seconds, which is a very significant improvement. That has been a very good initiative which came out of that package.

That package was informed very much by Rosie Batty and Ken Lay and the work they did to support that package being developed. I am a bit disappointed about some of the snide remarks coming across from the other side. Of all the issues that we deal with, surely this is one which should be above politics.

Honourable members interjecting—

Just in recent times, we announced a further $100 million package, which is the Third Action Plan 2016-19, and that has a number of initiatives as well including: $20 million allocated to prevention and early-intervention programs to break the cycle of domestic and family violence; and $15 million to improve and expand national, domestic and family-violence services, which includes the 1800RESPECT number and other initiatives. There has been a record amount of funding being put into domestic violence services from this government. It has also had the imprimatur of the Prime Minister—firstly of Tony Abbott and now of Malcolm Turnbull, who has made this a national issue.

Honourable members interjecting—

I want to just briefly address perhaps the most important issue—

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