Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to begin by thanking my friend the member for Newcastle for bringing this important motion to the House and for the time that she gave to remembering the 66 women, by name where possible, who have lost their lives over the last 12 months. This is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and it's heartbreaking that the statistics are even worse this year than they were last year when we spoke about this issue.

I want to thank the formidable frontline workers, researchers and survivors who advocate all the time for improved responses and prevention of violence against women in our communities. I recently was able to take the Minister for Women to one of the universities in my electorate to sit and talk to researchers about how we can shift the dial on this terrible issue. The work is going to be challenging. There is no doubt about that. But I think that there is a really good sense of bipartisanship in this chamber today in terms of the commitment that we're all making to women's safety. Family and domestic violence is indiscriminate. It affects people of every age, cultural background, job type and level of education, and it destroys lives. Every life lost is one too many. To be faced with that awful statistic of 66 lives lost already this year, I think, is a really stark reminder of how much work we all have to do.

Our government is prioritising the elimination of violence against women and children. It has been a priority for us since the day we formed government. In each of our first three budgets, we've invested significant—and, indeed, record—funding for women's safety. Our most recent investments, announced following the second dedicated National Cabinet meeting on gender based violence, brought the figure to $4 billion. Obviously it hasn't eliminated violence against women and children, and we need to be mindful of that, but it has been able to deliver immediate and practical investment to support women and children experiencing violence now by supporting the critically important work of preventing violence and intervening before it escalates and supporting the recovery of victims-survivors.

I think it is really significant that one of the first things our government did upon being elected was to introduce 10 days of paid domestic and family violence leave. I will never forget being in the chamber and seeing all of the victims-survivors and advocates who had fought so long and so hard for this sitting in the gallery listening to the stories of women, knowing that this leave will save lives. It isn't every day that we recognise that what we do has an immediate effect of saving someone's life, but being able to recognise that was a really profound moment. Of course we have so much more to do.

It's important that we be ambitious and that we seek to totally eliminate domestic and gendered violence in our communities within a generation. This is going to be incredibly hard work, but, if we don't set these ambitions for ourselves as governments, then we're not going to work towards trying to achieve them. We know we've got a lot of work to do that crosses a range of different portfolio areas, and I'm really pleased that every single minister takes very seriously the work in their portfolio when it comes to the contribution they can make to eliminating violence against women, whether it is through education, through frontline specialists and legal services or through the provision of health care and housing.

This issue is—as it should be—a priority for our government. We have a lot of work to do collectively in this country to improve the situation. I, for one, stand absolutely committed to ensuring we eliminate violence against women and children within a generation.

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