Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—on 25 November 1990, Marc Dutroux walked into a classroom at Ecole Polytechnique, Montreal, Canada. He divided the women and men into two groups and proceeded to shoot dead six women. He then stalked the corridors murdering eight more women before turning his gun on himself.

Shocked by the viciousness of this assault, and the deep and disturbing hatred of women it displayed, a group of Canadian men were moved the following year to speak out and show their opposition to violence against women by wearing a white ribbon. From that modest beginning in 1991, White Ribbon Day has grown to a worldwide movement of men who are ‘not violent, not silent’. In 1999, the United Nations General Assembly declared 25 November the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and the white ribbon has become the symbol of that day.

All Australians have the right to live safe and free from violence, at home and in our community. It is important to work to reduce all types of violence, no matter whom it affects. Domestic violence and sexual assault are two of the most prevalent types of violence and need targeted approaches to change not just attitudes but behaviour. One in three Australian women will report being a victim of physical violence and almost one in five will report being a victim of sexual violence in their lifetime.

Violence against women comes at an enormous economic cost. Recent research shows that each year violence against women costs the nation $13.6 billion. This figure is expected to rise to $15.6 billion by 2021. That economic cost in medical and legal services, time off work and lost productivity is enormous. Incalculable is the emotional damage that cascades down the generations. Domestic violence kills more women under 45 than any other recognised health risk and destroys family and community life. Last month, I received a letter from a woman who told me about the fear that she lives with every day from a verbally aggressive and controlling husband. This woman wrote:

I started off by telling you that I am an intelligent woman. I have two university degrees, I’m confident in myself and secure financially on my own, but I cannot leave this marriage because of the fear. I am so afraid that he will do something to my girls to get back at me and so I stay. I am so afraid that he will somehow get equal time with them and put their lives at risk due to the drinking and reckless behaviour and so I stay. He has a firearm and a dagger and I am so afraid that one day he might be so drunk or so angry that he might just use one on me and so I stay. I feel that by staying I can at least fight and protect my children like any mother would.

We see today the power of the decision of that first group of Canadian men to take a stand against violence against women. Many government and opposition MPs and senators have today taken the opportunity today to stand up and be counted—to swear never to commit violence against women, never to excuse violence against women, and never to remain silent about violence against women. It was wonderful to see the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition come together today and for the Leader of the Opposition to take the oath and for the Prime Minister to restate his commitment to this oath.

Over the last decade, the White Ribbon Foundation in Australia has grown from being a small network of concerned men into a major national organisation with the support of men from sport, politics, business, government and local communities everywhere. I have met with White Ribbon ambassadors and supporters from all over the country—outstanding people like Graham Hoad, Kevin Zibell and Chris Carpenter from the Ballarat White Ribbon Day committee who have been working with local sporting groups and at community events in their region to get the word out that violence against women is not acceptable.

Australians—men and women—are clear that they think violence against women is unacceptable. The latest data shows that 98 per cent of Australians recognise that domestic violence is a crime. Yet, while attitudes have improved, the prevalence of violence continues to be unacceptably high. Even with all our efforts, reports of domestic violence and sexual assault are likely to increase in coming years as women who would once have been part of the silent majority who never report their assault come forward as their confidence in our judicial, policing and support systems improve.

Data from the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics Personal Safety Survey shows that for those women who experienced physical assault in the previous 12 months:

• 31 per cent were attacked by a current or former male partner,
• 28 per cent were attacked by a male family member or friend, and
• 15 per cent were attacked by a male stranger.

The 2006-07 National Homicide Monitoring Program annual report found that of the 81 female victims of homicide in that year, 41 died at the hands of their intimate partner—just over half.

There is a very different pattern for male victims of violence. The Personal Safety Survey tells us that 65 per cent of assaults on men were committed by male strangers. Of the 185 male murder victims in 2006-07 year, 13 per cent died at the hands of their intimate partner.

Violence against women is preventable and while governments and the community have made gains over time in addressing violence against women, clearly there is more to do. In April this year, the Australian government formally accepted Time for action, the major report of the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, a non-government advisory body. Time for action contains recommendations designed to tackle the unacceptable levels of sexual assault and domestic and family violence in Australia. In direct response to Time for action, the Australian government immediately invested $42 million to fund a new package of actions to reduce violence against women.

In 2010 I expect to launch a new national domestic violence and sexual assault telephone and online crisis service. While existing telephone services have helped many people, the Commonwealth is working with the states and territories and the non-government sector to improve and expand the reach of telephone counselling and add online counselling for those who prefer this type of communication. We have also announced $17 million for a behaviour-change campaign to reduce violence against women. We know that most Australians understand that violence against women is a crime. Organisations such as the White Ribbon Foundation have raised awareness in the community and helped developed a strong consensus in Australians. The next step is focus on changing behaviours, actually stopping the violence, or preventing young people from ever using or accepting violence in their intimate relationships.

Our efforts to change violent behaviours have to, in some respects, mirror our efforts to change attitudes to, and incidence of, drink driving. Drink driving kills and maims. As a community we decided to save lives by banning drink driving. We sent a strong message as a community that this behaviour is completely unacceptable. It took a few years before this really sank in, but the days of crawling out of the club and into the car are mostly, thankfully, behind us. That is because people were educated about the harmful effects of drink driving, but also because our policing and our laws sent a strong message that if you do this crime you will be caught and you will be prosecuted. If someone gets caught, we should throw the book at them. Using the public health model that has been successful in reducing drink driving, road deaths have fallen by two-thirds since the late seventies, even though the number of cars on the road has doubled. The NSW police minister believes random breath testing has saved about 20,000 lives in NSW since its introduction.

Similarly with domestic violence and sexual assault, we should throw the book at perpetrators of this crime. But just as importantly we should use persuasion, education, legislation and even incarceration to prevent these crimes from occurring in the first place or re-occurring. Over the next five years we will invest $9.1 million in respectful relationships education.

Children model their behaviour on their family and their peer group. Most young people are fortunate to come from homes where they see respect and love. Most young people want that in their own lives. Respectful relationships education in schools and other settings can give young people the communication skills they need to establish good friendships that evolve as they get older into the skills for loving, caring, equal relationships.

Using peer groups to re-enforce the importance of healthy relationships is particularly powerful with teenagers. Anyone who has had a teenager—or remembers what it was like to be one—will know how important it is to develop a peer group consensus about what types of behaviours are acceptable. That means running programs in schools and places such as youth centres that build the skills young people will draw on all their lives.

Promising respectful relationships programs are currently being tested at 56 sites across Australia at a cost of $2.1 million. The programs currently have participants in most states and territories, and these include NRL youth elite players, university students and school students.

In South Australia, for example, we are funding the evaluation of the Keeping Safe curriculum. This is an excellent curriculum that has strong support but has never been formally evaluated. Anecdotal feedback is that Keeping Safe supports and develops children’s skills to help a friend or tell an adult if they are faced with a problem. In fact I visited a school that had this in the curriculum and it was amazing to see those kids and the way they communicated and supported each other. Students learn that how to recognise abuse, that abuse is wrong, that victims are not to blame and there is action that can be taken to stop violence.

• We will continue to work with sporting codes like the National Rugby League to implement respectful relationships programs. These men are role models and need the skills to conduct respectful relationships with women and one another. In Queensland, for example, the Sex and Ethics program with NRL elite youth uses previous National Rugby League players as educators.

In September the Prime Minister announced a further $1.1 million would be spent on the next round of respectful relationship programs starting next year. This testing phase is designed to give us the information we need to roll out the most successful programs more broadly. We need to build on what works to change attitudes, but, more importantly, to change behaviours. We know that education is important, but legal sanction for wrong behaviour is also critical to our success. We need strong laws and effective policing to prevent and punish violence against women.

The government has been working with the states and territories through the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General to address legal recommendations in Time for action, including:

• working toward a national scheme for the registration of domestic and family violence orders;
• improving the uptake of coronial recommendations; and
• identifying the most effective methods to investigate and prosecute sexual assault cases.

Developing a national approach to the registration of domestic violence orders will provide greater protection for women. Many women do not realise they need to register their orders when they move interstate. Yet is it all too easy for men to follow their ex-partners and continue to perpetrate violence. We have asked the Australian Law Reform Commission to work with state and territory law reform commissions to examine the interrelationship of federal and state and territory laws that relate to the safety of women and their children.

As well as providing funding for the immediate package of measures, in the last budget the government committed an additional $195 million over four years to address violence. Of this investment:

• $72 million is being provided for continued funding of the Women’s Program in my portfolio;
• $19.5 million will continue our commitment to training rural and remote practice nurses and Aboriginal health workers;
• An estimated $64 million has been allocated for funding family violence programs in Indigenous communities across the country. Some examples include things like an early intervention and prevention of violence focus through work with men like the Spirited Men’s Project in Murray Bridge in South Australia. Others target Indigenous men leaving correctional services such as the Cross Border NPY Lands Program. These programs address the underlying causes of violence such as drug and alcohol use and the effects of grief and trauma.
• $4 million is provided for the Support for Victims of Trafficking Program.

Because domestic and family violence is the principal cause of homelessness among women and children, the government’s $7.7 billion investment in long-term housing projects and homelessness prevention will help thousands of victims of violence live safely in new emergency accommodation, or long term in social housing. Obviously many victims of violence prefer to stay safely in the family home if they can, particularly to minimise disruption to children, so state and territory governments are also working to implement ‘Safe At Home’ programs like those in Tasmania, the northern suburbs of Melbourne and in the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support’s electorate at Bega .This is being picked up across the nation.

The Safe At Home measures and emergency accommodation are mostly covered in the detailed implementation plans for the Homelessness National Partnership Agreement. Under this partnership, the Australian government will provide $550 million over five years, to be matched by the states and territories, to deliver a new range of services to meet the white paper goals. This total of $1.1 billion for homelessness services and specialist accommodation allows us to take a new approach to homelessness focusing on preventing homelessness and reducing the duration and impact of homelessness and it will have a significant effect on the 50 000 or so women and children who seek help from Supported Accommodation Assistance Program services each year. Examples of measures in the implementation plans include:

• In New South Wales, over 200 more women and children experiencing domestic and family violence will get help to stabilise their housing in the Illawarra, Western Sydney and Hunter areas through rental subsidies and access to long-term accommodation and support.
• In Victoria, each year a total of 500 children younger than 12 will get specialist help to maintain contact with school and to overcome the trauma of homelessness.
• In Western Australia, women and children who are experiencing domestic and family violence will get help to stay in their housing, where it is safe for them to do so.
• In Tasmania, five new facilities for homeless people will be built over the next two years.
• In the last two years my colleague the Attorney General has provided an additional $54 million for Legal Aid, Community Legal Centres and Aboriginal Legal Services. These services provide front-line assistance to separating families to help them resolve their disputes, including assistance for women and children.

I am pleased to report to the House that my state and territory colleagues have embraced the need to act to tackle domestic violence and sexual assault. A number have made significant investments in recent years and developed state based plans to tackle violence. The Victorian government has invested over $140 million since 2005 on family violence and sexual assault reform, including, for example, systemic review for family violence deaths driven by the state Coroner. Multidisciplinary centres, piloted in two locations, are an innovative way of responding to sexual offences for adults and children.

In Rockhampton in Queensland, as part of the Queensland government’s recently announced strategy to reduce family violence, they are trialling an enhanced integrated response model for domestic and family violence. This provides case management services for individuals and families, an integrated specialised court program and enhanced legal services.

To ensure that our individual efforts are amplified by cooperation, COAG established a ministerial council in July 2009 to take Time for action to its next step: a National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children that all states and territories, as well as the Commonwealth, can sign up to.

Membership of the council includes ministers from different portfolios that have an impact on violence, including housing, community services, women, policing, health, education and Attorneys-General. I would particularly like to acknowledge the work of my co-chair, Attorney General the Hon. Robert McClelland. The Attorney-General is a White Ribbon Ambassador who is using his extensive influence and expertise to push legal improvements for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

Our efforts to combat violence have borne fruit in many respects. Community attitudes towards violence have improved. Although too many Australian women experience violence, I have great hope for the future. I believe change is possible. We have already put behind us the notion that domestic violence is private; none of our business.

A few months ago I was talking to school leaders at St Mary’s Cathedral school in my electorate. Because it was so topical at the time, I asked the young men what they thought of the allegations that a group of footballers had raped a woman while on tour in New Zealand. Every single one of those young men was able to see the situation from that girl’s point of view. They made comments like: ‘She must have been terrified,’ and ‘She’s the same age as our friends, and I can imagine how scared she must have been.’ Not one of those boys excused the behaviour of the footballers, although some said it was unfair that one had borne the public shame while his team mates had got off scot-free.

The ability of those young men to imagine sexual assault from the victim’s point of view, and their clear moral code, gave me great hope. I meet men like that—White Ribbon Ambassadors and supporters chief among them—all over the country. Change is possible, but it will take all of us working together, men and women. Congratulations to all the men who showed that leadership today by wearing the white ribbon and by swearing not to commit, condone or be silent about violence against women.

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the debate.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Indi speaking in reply to the ministerial statement for a period not exceeding 19 minutes.

Question agreed to.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare, Women and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to rise today, the 25th day of November, which is White Ribbon Day. In 1999 the United Nations declared this day to be the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and a white ribbon became its symbol. It is with some sadness that we do have to repeat statistics about violence against women in Australia, because these statistics are quite shocking. We have heard them but we need to repeat them so that they can enter the national consciousness so people can truly appreciate and understand how serious the problem is. We see one in three Australian women experiencing physical violence in their lifetime and one in five women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime. Even more distressing perhaps is that almost one in four children will witness violence against their mother or stepmother. For children witnessing this sort of violence, we know it does have lifelong harmful effects and impacts on their future relationships.

The consequences of this violence, we know, are not just devastating to the individual, are not just devastating to the children around them, are not just devastating to the family and the extended family, but have very serious economic impacts. Each year it is estimated that violence against women costs $13.6 billion, a figure that unfortunately is expected to rise to $15.6 billion by 2012.

By acknowledging and supporting this day and by wearing a white ribbon, as members of parliament, we show a united front and demonstrate our personal commitment. That is a very powerful symbol to many out there in the community who, in spite of the varied opinions and attitudes they may have toward members of parliament, do look to us to provide some sort of leadership. Our commitment not to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women does give significant encouragement to many organisations out there in every corner of Australia, in capital cities and country towns, who try to raise awareness and discussion about this very important issue. The fact that we here in the parliament, including the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, made these important commitments and took an oath sends a powerful symbol to our community. I think that is very important.

Everyone out there—in every corner of Australia, no matter where they are—must know that violence against women is not acceptable in our society. It is not the answer to any problem. We need to empower women so that they know they do not have to suffer this sort of violence in silence. We need to present a clear message to children about what behaviour is not acceptable, under any circumstances, in our society.

I agree with what the Prime Minister said in his speech to the White Ribbon Foundation on 10 September, that this type of crime needs to have a light shone upon it in order to stamp it out. We know that crime and violence against women blossom in the dark when no one mentions it, or we pretend that it is not happening or that it is a private thing. It is easier for many people who are confronted by someone they know who is a victim of violence to pretend that it is not really that bad, or to pretend it is not happening or even that if enough time goes by the problem will go away. But we know that it does not. This sort of violence will continue to flourish unless men in this country acknowledge publicly that there is never any excuse for violence against women and there is never any excuse for ignoring it if we know it is happening.

Eliminating violence against women is an enormous challenge. It is like eliminating crime or getting rid of drug addiction. There will always be a small element within our community that engages in criminal and harmful behaviour. What is so insidious and upsetting about the incidence of violence against women is the widespread nature of it. Right across Australian society, right across every socioeconomic level, right across every ethnic group and right across every demographic you will find an element of violence against women.

I am surprised that the current government has changed the rhetoric on this issue and has established a national council to reduce violence against women and their children. I do not agree with the government choosing to replace the word ‘eliminate’ with ‘reduce’. It is hardly the language of a zero tolerance approach. I wonder what sort of message this sends to perpetrators—that it is okay if you reduce the beatings from four to two a week or to beat a woman occasionally? I am sure this was not the government’s intention. I am not implying that the Minister for Housing or the Prime Minister are tolerant in any way of this type of violence, but I do think we need to be very careful about the language we use. We need to talk about the elimination—in our language and in our speeches—rather than the reduction of violence. We know that language is an extremely powerful tool. There seems to be some anecdotal evidence that some young people feel, at some level, it is okay to hit a woman, particularly if provoked, and there was a recent study of some teenage boys which I found particularly disturbing.

White Ribbon’s website mentions the recent coverage of celebrity couple Rhianna and Chris Brown. The public response to this story demonstrated how young people still tolerate violence in their relationships, or even place blame on the victim. A US poll showed that nearly half of all respondents aged between 12 and 19 thought Rhianna was responsible for the incident. Research closer to home has shown that 29 per cent of young people believe that most physical violence that occurs in dating is because a partner provoked it. So I think that we do need to be very careful about the messages we send out and the language we use. Let us make it clear that violence against women is just not on. Let us talk about eliminating violence against women, not just reducing it.

This year there is a new and exciting campaign in which men are being asked to swear an oath never to commit, excuse, or stay silent about violence against women. Interested men who may be listening to question time or who may read this speech—or some of my colleagues—may swear this oath on the Net at www.myoath.com.au.

I do applaud the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, who have led by example and sworn the oath. I also applaud the member for Lyne, who recently appealed to male parliamentarians to be outspoken, get active in this campaign or become a White Ribbon ambassador. I congratulate and applaud all those men who have taken up, and those who will take up, the challenge and become White Ribbon ambassadors and those male role models, sportsmen and celebrities who have done so as well. I encourage all of Australia’s 10 million men, whatever their background and whatever their culture, to take up the challenge and swear the oath today to make a commitment to end violence against women.

This oath recognises that strong leadership from men is required to address this serious social issue, as indeed strong male leadership is essential to reform in other areas of society in which women are seeking change and improvement. It also, interestingly enough, underscores the importance of fatherhood and positive male role models for our children. In one of my other capacities, as shadow minister for early childhood education, I know how vitally important the early childhood years are in shaping the values, brains, emotions, character and behaviour of future generations. It is not just about literacy and numeracy or various learning skills; it is about life lessons that young children absorb so completely and that impact on their character for the rest of their life. Respect for women must be part of that early learning experience. As we know—and we see on television the ads about alcohol consumption and its impact on children—children learn by example. I am sure we can all relate as to why we are the way we are and why we do certain things the way we do. We learnt that through the role modelling we had as we were growing up—and children do learn by example. That is why it is incumbent upon every man in Australia to commit to a zero tolerance approach to violence against women. Young children need to learn clearly and unequivocally that hitting a woman is never right and is never justified—no ifs, buts or maybes. I would like to see a time when the big, tough alpha male has absolute respect for the partner, the woman, that he is with, when to be a real man is not to hit a woman, not to treat her like some animal, but to show respect for another human being. In my opinion, that is part of what being a real man is, to be confident enough about the person you are not to have to physically overpower someone who in most cases is not as physically powerful as you.

For boys in particular the best person to learn this from is their father. Many other men can have a role in being models, but the best person to learn from is their father. It is vital for men to step up to the plate and realise the importance of teaching these life lessons to their sons and reinforcing that attitude by their own example. The social capital that men provide to their families really needs to be properly recognised and valued. I do not think we as a community place enough emphasis on the social capital that both men and women provide in their caregiving and family-building roles. We tend to focus on economic productivity and future economic productive units in society, rather than on social capital. That is something that governments at all levels need to work towards.

As we know, there are some cultures in which violence against women is not only condoned but sanctioned by the state. The recent highly publicised situation of a Sudanese woman, journalist Lubna Ahmed Hussein, is a case in point. Ms Hussein was jailed for a day in September for violating Sudan’s clothing decency laws by wearing trousers in public. She had faced a punishment of 40 lashes. She was convicted in July. In September a Sudanese court ordered her to pay a fine instead, while 10 of the other 12 women arrested with her at a Khartoum restaurant on 3 July were lashed. After she refused to pay the fine, Ms Hussein served a one-day jail sentence. This type of attitude towards women must never be allowed to pervade society, and where it does in certain cultural pockets we need to help those in those communities to condemn this sort of behaviour and condemn violence against women in no uncertain terms. We should not have lower standards of acceptable behaviour towards women who happen to belong to a subcultural group within Australian society. I know I will probably get criticism for this sort of comment and someone will try and say, ‘There she goes again, making some cheap, hollow, two-dimensional political point. There she goes again; she’s trying to be racist.’ This is not about race; this is about standards: how we treat all women as human beings. We have seen Aboriginal society suffer because we have had lower standards of care and responsibility towards women and children in Aboriginal societies, because we were too afraid to state the obvious. In the same way we cannot be afraid to state the obvious and to provide protection, leadership and guidance to all women in Australia irrespective of their location and irrespective of their particular ethnic background.

I also take this opportunity, on behalf of the opposition, to commend and thank the many dedicated people at the White Ribbon Foundation who are very passionate about this cause, including White Ribbon Day Ambassador Andrew O’Keefe. I also acknowledge the very hard work and dedication of the members of the National Council to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children, led by Libby Lloyd, a very fine woman indeed. Also at this point I join with the minister in congratulating all the men who have taken the oath so far today and have shown their support by wearing a white ribbon. We must eliminate violence against women and children, not just reduce it. Our goal should be to eliminate violence against women and children and anything else below this standard would be failing in our duties and responsibilities to, and leadership of, the Australian people.