Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) 25 November 2020 marked the United Nations' International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, beginning the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence;

(b) approximately 45 Australian women have been murdered in a domestic violence homicide this year;

(c) one in three Australian women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence perpetrated by a man since the age of 15; and

(d) the COVID-19 pandemic has seen an escalation of domestic abuse, with more women accessing online services, and more men seeking support for abusive behaviour;

(2) commends the work of the family, domestic and sexual violence sector, which continues to deliver vital services to men, women and children amidst the pandemic;

(3) acknowledges that many family violence organisations are struggling to meet the demand for services—yet the Government has provided no additional funding in the budget; and

(4) urges the Government to:

(a) listen to the family violence sector and respond to their calls for more support to help women and children flee violence; and

(b) ensure the full resources of Government are used to eliminate family violence from our community.

Each year, from the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November until world Human Rights Day on 10 December are the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. This year, advocates from more than 6,000 organisations across 187 nations are leading their communities in calling for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls. It is to our great national shame that, more than two decades after the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, one Australian woman is still being brutally murdered by a current or former partner each and every week.

This year I was pleased to participate in the launch of the 16 days of activism in Newcastle, in Civic Park, at a public vigil. I'd like to thank the University of Newcastle's Gender Research Network for taking the lead, and I'd also like to recognise the tireless work of all our community based organisations that give so much of themselves to support women and children fleeing violence, despite a desperate lack of resources. I'd particularly like to acknowledge the important contributions of Nova For Women and Children, Jenny's Place and Warlga Ngurra in Newcastle. Each and every day you are on the front line of this diabolical scourge, giving women the support, advice and assistance they need to stay safe and to take what are often the hardest of steps to leave a violent relationship safely. And I know that 2020 has been harder than ever, with more and more women seeking your help. While most of us were confined to our homes for safety, many women found that home is, in fact, the least safe place to be. It's clear that there can be no greater priority for our national leaders than to ensure that all women and children are safe in their homes, at school or at work or whenever they go in the world.

I have raised this exact point in parliament many, many times. Indeed, in one of my first speeches for this 46th Parliament I called on the government to make the reduction of gendered violence a key metric by which we should be judged. Regretfully, while the Morrison government has committed some funding and there have been some promising words, there is still an unconscionable gap between the government's rhetoric and its actions. In fact, only last week it progressed a reckless plan to effectively abolish the Family Court. This was despite repeated warnings from across the community and legal sectors that this will leave women and children fleeing violence without critical support at one of the most vulnerable times in their lives. Similarly, while the Prime Minister has regularly asserted his wish to do everything possible to address family and domestic violence, this was not reflected in the federal budget—far from it. Indeed, the budget made a $1 million cut from the government's antidomestic violence education program in Australian schools, Respect Matters.

Let's be clear: until the government properly invests in the critical frontline services, commits to genuine reforms and provides proper support structures, women are going to struggle to get the support they need to escape violence and build independent lives. There is much that needs to be done. Of course it is about providing more for the frontline services charged with helping women to flee violent situations, but it's also about proper funding of our courts and our community legal services. It's about investing in social and affordable housing. It's about raising JobKeeper to a liveable rate and investing more in Centrelink's face-to-face service delivery, not shutting down offices, as the Morrison government plans to do in Newcastle. And it's about ensuring that all other community services have the funding they need to deliver what our community needs them to do.

The Morrison government also needs to back Labor's call for 10 days of paid domestic violence leave, which will give women the security to flee violence and get back on their feet. You could start today by supporting the private member's bill that Labor has introduced this morning. Regrettably, the Morrison government is short on all these measures. That's why 16 Days of Activism is so important, but we mustn't stop there. Each and every day we must demand that the full resources of government are used to ensure that women and children are safe and supported. It's time to act. It's time to end this national scourge.

Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Many of us in Queensland and, in fact, in Australia will remember where we were when news broke that Brisbane resident Hannah Clarke and her three children were brutally murdered in a suburban Brisbane street earlier this year. The loss of human life was shocking, and I believe it has started to make more of our fellow Australians aware that domestic, family and sexual violence is a growing issue throughout our communities. The story of Hannah Clarke and her three children is by no means an isolated one. Sadly, as this House's committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs has heard during our ongoing inquiry into this issue, domestic and family violence is endemic in Australia. Every day, 12 Australian women are hospitalised because of domestic and family violence, and every nine days a woman is killed by her current or former partner. Unfortunately, I don't think we've seen the extent of it yet. Lockdowns have increased stress in many intimate relationships while making it more difficult than ever for family violence to be reported. It is possible, perhaps likely, that these figures will increase when the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic become clear.

However, contrary to the suggestion by the member for Newcastle, the Morrison government has taken a strong position on reducing family, domestic and sexual violence and is continuing to provide record levels of support to keep women and children safe at home, at work, on the streets and online. In March 2020 the government committed $150 million to respond to expected increases in DV during COVID. This is in addition to the $340 million allocated by this government in the Fourth Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. The 2020 federal budget included, for the first time, ongoing funding for 1800RESPECT as well as additional funding for the Help is Here campaign until 2021. It also allocated $4.8 million for the Family Violence and Cross-Examination of Parties Scheme. Most recently, the government brought forward legislation that has enabled the $13½ million pilot program to enhance the protections afforded in the Family Court system called the Lighthouse Project. This will identify at-risk families early, provide them with specialist support and fast-track their cases, with appropriate security arrangements in place.

However, there's always much more to be done. The inquiry—of which I'm chair, with the member for Newcastle as deputy chair, and I want to thank her for bringing this important motion on today—has heard evidence from representatives of law enforcement, peak bodies working in communities, Indigenous Australians, aged-care representatives and members of the LGBTI+ community, all of whom work directly with perpetrators, victims and their families who've experienced this kind of violence. Without pre-empting the findings of our committee's inquiry, I can say that many have shared their concerns that unless we drive change at a community level we will continue to see rates of violence increasing.

All forms of domestic and family violence have their genesis in a lack of respect for one's partner or former partner. Many witnesses who gave evidence to the inquiry were able to speak to the effectiveness of perpetrator programs and the benefits of community awareness programs, like No Wrong Door, Breaking the Silence, Change the Story, NO MORE and Stop it at the Start. However, real change in attitudes and behaviours will come at the grassroots and in families—inn homes. I believe we need to identify the influences in our schools, community organisations, sporting clubs and workplaces that can lead the way in reinforcing the message that violence is never acceptable. Undoubtedly, positive role models who can lead by example will be a vital step in the journey forward. If we can encourage our young people from an early age to develop healthy relationships, I believe that will be a terrific start.

Our committee's report will help shape the next National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. This presents a crucial opportunity to reform our approach to family, domestic and sexual violence, and to identify levers and entry points we can use to eliminate this violence from our community. I know that the government understands the crucial importance of coordinated action and the focus we need on preventative measures. I encourage the government to take note of our committee's report, when it's presented, and ensure the next national plan has a long-term vision to shape and change behaviours and attitudes so that we can ensure, each year, that fewer women and their children experience violence.

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to commend the member for Newcastle on raising this motion in the House, talking about the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. This is something that I have been really aware of and interested in, broadly, since 2008. To be truthful, I didn't have much idea of White Ribbon, which we know originated in Canada and was originally a vehicle for men to stand up and say, 'No more; we do not want gendered violence; we do not want violence against women.' Men wanted to be able to stand up and say, 'We want to stand together as a brotherhood of nonviolent, peaceful men in the world.' I want to commend all the good blokes who make the pledge for White Ribbon, who are really good people and want the violence, broadly against women, to stop. We know there are male victims but we also know the statistics overwhelmingly show that women are victims of domestic violence. So, again, to the men who take the pledge, to the good blokes: thank you, because when women are safer and girls are safer then everybody is safer in our world.

I first came to be heavily involved in White Ribbon when I worked as a radio broadcaster doing talkback. I would very occasionally get a call from someone who, in a very coded way, was reaching out for assistance, for help, and was just trying to signal that all was not well in their world. I became particularly attuned to what that meant for those people, in those times, and I would always refer them to services such as Port Stephens family services like Interrelate or Jenny's Place. There were a raft of services in our area that did incredible work. They provided that first point of call when someone was in a position where they felt that things weren't as they should be in a normal, healthy, happy relationship in a domestic situation.

I think that's the other great travesty about domestic violence: it's more often than not perpetrated by someone who also purports to love that person. That is one of the great scourges of it. I used my radio program over the years to shine a light on domestic violence, and one of the ones that really stuck with me was when I spent some time talking on the radio with a constable, Shelley, out of Cowra. She was a police officer. I think it was around 2008 that we chatted. She came home, a year or two before that, to find that her father had bludgeoned her mother to death and then had murdered her two children. She had, in fact, escaped domestic violence and gone home to live with her parents, because, as a police officer, she needed child care when she was on duty. He had also drowned the dog. I know this is very graphic, but I'm telling you this because these things are happening in our community. She was a police officer, and she fended him off. When she got home from duty, he went to attack her with an axe—she fended him off. This was her own father. He went to prison and subsequently murdered a cellmate.

I'm not using this to try to be dramatic, but I'm just saying these things happen in our community. The more we can do to put in place proper programs—once upon a time we turned our eyes away from domestic violence and said, 'Look, it's none of my business.' It is all of our business, particularly at the highest levels of government, if we do not have the systems in place to properly support people so that they can stay at home and stay safe. I can't stand the question, 'Why didn't she leave?' 'Why should she have to leave?' is the question I ask. People deserve to be safe in their own homes. As a broader community, we have an obligation to ensure that the system doesn't fail people. As legislators, we have a legal responsibility to ensure that people are safe in their community, that they have somewhere to turn and that the brilliant organisations that are supporting them are resourced enough to do the job that they need to do. They are overwhelmed.

Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Violence against women is a global problem, occurring in a wide range of circumstances that include crime, wars and, sadly, in homes across the world and across our great country. Obviously, they're all complex areas that require a multitude of responses. Before I highlight some of the Morrison government measures, I think it's important to outline a productive approach to domestic violence solutions. My view is that there are a number of barriers to progress that no longer can be ignored. They include virtue signalling in place of meaningful action, ambiguous or misleading language in describing the problem and policy responses, and unnecessary politics around this issue. It's important that we address these three barriers, otherwise we'll all continue to be frustrated with progress and, more importantly, we will fail to achieve better outcomes for victims.

With regard to virtue signalling, we must understand the difference between raising awareness to build consensus for action and engaging in the completely ineffective virtue signalling that sometimes leads many to declare their position on domestic violence rather than making a meaningful contribution to preventing it or addressing its consequences. I could use my own experience growing up in an environment where domestic violence was the norm in many households. I could approach this debate from my own mother's point of view as a victim, but instead I prefer to focus on solutions and resist playing the very emotive blame game. Whether in this place or in our institutions, businesses, community groups, families or homes, simply declaring that you are against domestic violence is just not enough. It merely puts you in step with the decent norms across Australia. We must all hold ourselves to a higher standard that says violence, bullying and/or controlling behaviours towards women and children—or anyone, for that matter—are just not acceptable, and they must stop.

Many Australians and organisations already share my preference for meaningful action. Given the privacy sensitivities, the general public are often not aware of contributions to prevent, intervene in or ameliorate the effects of domestic violence. I'd like to commend the actions of one such business. Last week, in my office, we assisted a constituent suffering through a domestic violence situation—we try to help as many people as we can. While it's not appropriate to publicly describe the exact circumstances, I can say this: Suncorp Bank promptly assisted the woman in a manner that improved her safety and made her feel supported, and I acknowledge their efforts. When the private and public sectors, and individuals, take well-considered, appropriate action with their behaviours, we can move forward powerfully as a society.

With regard to the language that we use to describe problems and solutions, we should be clear, we should be accurate and we should be just. I worry that terms like 'gender based violence' sometimes have a minimising effect. Equally we must be careful of our choice of words for the victim's sake. If someone has been violently assaulted, we should say exactly that. If there's a family in distress with a high level of verbally abusive behaviour, we should say so because, if we fail to differentiate what's actually going on, even though this could be confronting for some, we are unlikely to get any of the intervention measures right.

With regard to unnecessary politics, we must resist the manner in which commentators and others—many of them in left-wing style—conflate issues to pursue their broad agenda throughout our society. I think a much better approach is a liberal one, which is to take each victim, offender or other person involved as an individual and for individuals to take responsibility for their actions. We need only to improve it further by individuals treating all individuals with respect and having systems that allow for that.

In relation to meaningful action on domestic violence, I acknowledge and support the work of both the Attorney-General and the Minister for Women, including measures to enhance domestic violence protections for Family Court users. A local positive action example in my electorate is in Southport: Men of Business, or the MOB Academy. I commend Marco Renai, for founding MOB, and I commend all those involved in taking early positive action by mentoring young boys to be fine, respectful and aware young men. National positive action is the government's significant and ongoing investment in addressing domestic violence, including a $150 million COVID-19 domestic violence support package. Let's tell the positive stories about respect for women and action by this government and by organisations like Suncorp and MOB Academy that are making a difference. That way, we replicate the positive progress and avoid the blame game that has gone on for too long.

Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One in three women in Australia have experienced physical or sexual violence from a cohabiting partner. I rise to support the member for Newcastle's motion with all the strength I possess because 45 Australian women have been murdered by domestic violence in this year alone. And I support the member for Newcastle's motion because the COVID pandemic has aggravated an already sickening situation. And I support the member for Newcastle's motion because something needs to be done now. I thank and commend the member for shining a light on an issue of national disgrace—an issue of crisis upon which this House has too often been silent.

The scourge of domestic violence in this country calls for real leadership. Regular acknowledgments of particular tragedies is simply not good enough, but that is what has been offered by the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government over the past seven years. In the midst of a year when experts called for heightened vigilance, the Morrison government quietly slashed more than $1 million from the school based anti domestic violence education program Respect Matters. In the 2020-21 budget, this government halved its funding commitment to this vital program, cutting almost $1½ million across the forward estimates. Cultural change is hard won in the best conditions. It cannot and will not be won without real commitment from the federal government. Cultural change requires brave and uncompromising leadership, and it requires brave and uncompromising leadership every day—not just a headline after another case of catastrophic violence. Too many women and children have been left broken, scarred and abandoned because of this inaction. Instead, we need to press a national conversation, and that conversation must not discriminate based on culture, creed or geography because domestic violence does not.

Our message needs to be simple and clear: we value women, we value children, we as a parliament value women and children, we as a nation value women and children, and we will do whatever we can to protect those who are suffering from this scourge. The safety of these people, particularly women and children, is everyone's business inside and outside this House, and everyone has a role to play. When I was mayor at the Surf Coast Shire, we introduced groundbreaking 10 days of family violence leave. This leave enables women to escape a violent situation and protect their children from such exposure. Importantly, it enables women to maintain a job, a wage, their superannuation and a sense of normality. It is the position of our party, and I thank the shadow minister for families and social services for earlier today introducing her private member's bill which seeks to secure 10 days of family violence leave for everyone.

Family violence organisations do an unconceivably difficult and vital job. Every year domestic services demand reaches epidemic levels. 1800RESPECT alone provided 20,000 services in the 12 months to 30 June. This represents a 65 per cent increase in service provisions from the previous year. It is the responsibility of this House to equip family violence workers to do their job effectively. Too many family violence organisations are struggling to meet the demand for their services, yet the Morrison government failed to provide additional funding in the budget and now they're hoping to cut the Family Court—another step in the wrong direction. Indeed, it has cut additional funding where it is most needed.

This government needs to listen to the family violence sector. That sector has called in a singular chorus for more support—more support to help women escape violence; more support to help children escape violence; and more support to end violence. I support the member for Newcastle's motion and I thank her for it. Thank you.

Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I consider myself very lucky. During my younger years, and more particularly during my teenage years, my father would say to me quite often, 'You always treat women with respect. Women are not objects, and you never raise a hand to a woman.' Remarkably, yesterday I was sitting at lunch with my 13-year-old boy, who's going on 18, and I heard myself saying to him, 'You must respect women. Women are not objects, and you never raise a hand to a woman.' And it starts at home. You can have all the funding in the world—and we have to have all the funding in the world for this very issue—but respect for women starts at home. I'll do the same with my boys through their teenage years and I hope, just like my father, that they turn out to be gentlemen.

As a police officer in a country town for a number of years, I saw domestic violence firsthand and I saw it at its ugliest. However, what I also saw were victims who had the strength and courage to report it, to stand up to those monsters, those bullies, because the fear of that was quite often more than the fear that they were experiencing when they were being assaulted. The fear was: 'What am I going to do if I can't support the kids? What will happen if I report this? What will happen if I go to court?' It's the fear of the unknown. But that courage for them to stand up was remarkable as was the courage, dedication and determination of those working in domestic violence services who were quite often people who had suffered at the hands of a male partner. They were there for those victims when they needed it. They were there 24/7 providing those services, providing advice, providing accommodation often at their own expense.

I thank those people who are strong enough, those women who are strong enough, to stand up and report the violence. I thank those people who work in the services providing that support for the victims and I thank the member for Newcastle for bringing this motion today to acknowledge the recent International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. I spent the day in Coffs Harbour and was part of the Coffs Harbour SAY NO TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE campaign. Domestic violence is everybody's business and, as I said, it starts at home. Our community threw its full support behind the SAY NO TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE campaign that day.

We, as a government, have committed to ending and preventing violence against women and their children and we'll continue to work with the states and territories and communities to identify how to work towards this important goal. It is completely unacceptable that one in four women experience violence by an intimate partner and this year, on average, one woman has died each week. It is preventable, and we need to work together to end domestic violence.

I helped launch the Coffs Coast SAY NO TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE campaign on 24 November, the day before International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. I want to mention all the stakeholders. All the members in the House know that campaigns are always more successful when they are grassroots campaigns—and this certainly was. The 16-day Coffs Coast SAY NO TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE campaign was led by NSW Police and local domestic and family violence specialist services such as Warrina. It had the support of the Coffs Coast Committee against Domestic and Family Violence. It also had support from the Coffs Harbour and District Local Aboriginal Land Council. On that day, as individuals and as organisations, we all agreed to call out domestic and family violence. We stood as a community and resolutely said no. I thank them for their efforts.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Newcastle for bringing this issue to the House. I also thank every member in this House who has spoken on this very important issue and for the contributions they have made on this motion today. I would like to note that a group called Parliamentarians for Action to Reduce Violence against Women and Children has been started. The three conveners of that group are me, the member for Reid and Senator Larissa Waters. We launched that group on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, with Our Watch. That day marked the beginning of 16 days of activism. As other members here today have noted, 16 days is simply not enough. In too many parts of the world, and for too long, being born a girl means that you start life at a disadvantage and that you carry that disadvantage with you throughout life—economic disadvantage, social disadvantage, lack of access to education, and being subject to barbaric practices such as female genital mutilation, forced marriage, violence and slavery.

In Australia, we are not immune. So far this year, 45 women have been murdered by a partner or former partner, and one Australian woman in three has experienced physical or sexual violence by the time they are just 15. Women in Australia have a lot to be thankful for, but we cannot celebrate our success in this country in terms of gender equality simply because there are more of us here in the House—especially not when many of our sisters, mothers, aunties and daughters are still suffering the sting of inequality. We can make a difference, but not through words and platitudes. We need action. As a start, we need to recognise that violence, and violence against women, is not always physical. Psychological abuse in the form of coercive control has a lasting impact. Manipulation, surveillance, isolation, degradation, humiliation and threats are all part of coercive control behaviours.

Coercive control is seen as a predictor of violence, but for several reasons it is often missed. The first reason is that, in a relationship where one party is the perpetrator, coercive control becomes normalised, it becomes part of that relationship. We need to raise awareness and education about what constitutes a healthy relationship and why coercive control behaviours are not normal. The second reason is that coercive control is not a crime. It is not against the law in Australia for a male to consistently belittle his partner, to control her finances, to control her movements, to trap her in the home, to keep her from seeing family and friends, to threaten her, to hold her in fear and to chip away at her every single day until there is nothing left of the woman that she was.

Criminalising coercive behaviour, as they have in other countries like Scotland, where the domestic violence act now recognises a course of conduct offence, is a start. It is perhaps the most important start because it signifies political will to take proactive steps towards addressing violence against women and against children. But it can never be the whole solution. We need education and we need to reach those women who are most isolated and, frankly, least likely to know or care about what goes on in this place. We need to reach women who don't turn on the TV and watch parliamentary proceedings. We need to reach women who are just trying to survive another day without getting beaten, punched, kicked or put down. We can't do that from here. We need to resource and fund those who can, the frontline workers and services who have access to some of the most isolated women. We can stand here—I can stand here—and speak about this issue every day for hours, but that's not enough. I know that. I urge everybody here to continue to do more, to start by listening and consulting those who have experienced domestic violence, and I say to them, 'Your voice matters.'

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.