James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion and thank the member for moving the motion and giving us the opportunity to address this very important issue in our country. Family and domestic violence is absolutely abhorrent. The statistics are terrible. The mover mentioned one of those statistics, which probably is the worst, that every 10 days someone loses their life at the hands of a current or former partner in this nation. That is absolutely atrocious, and we should take every opportunity in this place to do anything we can to assist to change that statistic for the better. I fear that, although we do have good data in this area in modern times, this is a problem that goes back throughout the history of humankind. It's good that we at least live in an era where we discuss this topic much more than we did in decades gone by. Whilst it is absolutely horrendous to see coverage of these matters in the media and to see the pain, torment and abuse, physical and emotional, that people are going through in a family and domestic circumstance, at least by hearing about it we are aware of it much more than we were in the past, and it motivates us to look for every opportunity imaginable to alleviate it and to protect people that are in that terrible circumstance. The principle of paid family and domestic violence leave is one that I support and that I'm sure everyone in this parliament supports comprehensively.

Clearly, there has been an evolution in this policy area. It was back in 2018 that the former government moved amendments to the Fair Work Act under the National Employment Standards to bring in unpaid family and domestic violence leave. That was in similar circumstances to where we are right now, where there was a Fair Work Commission decision, which was relevant to people on an award. With the making of that decision, from an equity point of view it would have been ridiculous that the principle of leave for family and domestic violence would only be relevant to the type of employment condition that you were engaged on—that is, being on an award rather than those that perhaps were employed under collective bargaining. The principle shouldn't be different for anyone. The previous coalition government therefore legislated in late 2018. Equally, we had a decision of the Fair Work Commission in May of this year to extend that, to evolve that further, to bring in place now, instead of unpaid leave for five days, paid leave for 10 days. My understanding of the bill that the government has introduced will do much like what we did back in 2018 and take a Fair Work Commission decision and ensure that it applies to everyone, not just those that the Fair Work Commission is in a position to provide that entitlement to. When the bill comes before the House again, and once we've had the opportunity to do appropriate consultation and understand all the detail, I look forward to us engaging in that legislative reform.

But this motion certainly gives us a chance to reinforce how significant and important it is to be discussing this issue. Although it is sometimes emotional and painful, because we're talking about people that are in a terrible circumstance in their domestic environment and we're talking about statistics that we want to change for the better, this is an area which does give us an opportunity to keep progressing the way in which we can support people that are in such a terrible circumstance to get out of that circumstance. It is in the broader area of financial support that we need to do more for victims in this area, because all of us as members of parliament have particular interactions with constituents who have been or are in a circumstance where they can't escape their situation for financial reasons. Providing people with the ability to take leave without a financial penalty on them or any other employment penalty because of the conditions that they're employed under, and correcting it for those that do not have this right, is a very important thing to do. It's one of many things that I'm sure we'll be looking to do into the future. This is a clear opportunity for us, and I look forward to seeing it become a reality very shortly.

See this speech in context