Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I was waiting for the minister to jump, but he's just composing his answer to the member for Berowra's probing question. I go to a recent survey conducted by antiviolence campaign group White Ribbon, which came to very disturbing findings about the attitudes of young men to domestic violence. Forty-two per cent of the 1,074 men surveyed aged between 18 and 34 did not recognise hitting, punching or restraining another person to be domestic violence. Non-consensual sexual activity, degrading and punishing a person or isolating them from their friends was also not considered by a similar proportion of those surveyed to be domestic violence. In Australia right now, one in two women have experienced being sexually harassed and women are almost three times more likely than men to have experienced violence inflicted by a partner since the age of 15. On average, one woman a week is killed in Australia by her intimate male partner. Women with additional disadvantages and inequalities experience even higher rates of violence.

In that context, I was very pleased to hear the Morrison government announce, in March 2019, funding of $2.8 million for a three-year antiviolence education campaign. However, the recent Morrison government budget that we're considering in detail now appeared to cut funding to this important campaign. We've since been reassured in Senate estimates that the full funding will be moved back into that fund and made available for the Respect Matters campaign, but we were also told in Senate estimates last week that Respect Matters does not yet exist and there is no time frame 'at this point' for these resources to be made available. It is now 20 months since the press release was made by the Morrison government minister and so far there's nothing to show for it. I don't know why I'm surprised. It's the same old pattern: big announcements and no follow-through; all photo op but no follow-up. Deputy Speaker, I'm sure you would agree that this issue is particularly important and it is urgent. The young men who were in year 11 when the announcement was made, when the press conference was held back in 2019, are about to leave their classrooms forever. The Respect Matters program will be lost to that cohort of young men as they go out into society and, sadly, young women will be the real losers from the minister's unnecessary delay in rolling out this important program.

In 2020, women right across the pandemic world have become more vulnerable to all forms of gender based violence due to the COVID-19 health pandemic. It even has a name. It's called 'the shadow pandemic'. Data released from the United Nations Population Fund predicts that, for every three months the lockdowns continue, an additional 15 million cases of domestic violence will occur worldwide. Not only has the frequency of domestic violence increased; so has the severity of the violence. For children who have been locked in their homes and have witnessed family violence without the security of their usual routines and safe places to go to, this year will have been more frightening and more lonely and will have left real scars—physical and mental.

There has never been a more important time to deliver a program about respect and how to recognise family violence. I therefore ask the minister: why is the Respect Matters program not available to schools now? When will the Respect Matters program be made available to schools? Is the minister developing any other policies to address the fallout from the shadow of the pandemic on students who have been homeschooled this year?

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