Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House:

(1) notes that:

(a) currently in Australia, one woman every 4 days is murdered by her current or former partner and 2.3 million Australian women have experienced violence from an intimate partner;

(b) as of 16 May 2024, at least 28 women have been allegedly murdered by their male partner in Australia;

(c) the rate of women killed by an intimate partner in Australia increased by nearly 30% in 2022-23, compared to the previous year despite the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 being in effect; and

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) an immediate boost of $1 billion in annual funding for frontline services for domestic, family and sexual violence, including crisis services, refuges and emergency housing;

(b) immediately increase funding to Legal Aid by $484 million to allow more women to access the legal help they require and Women's Legal Services Australia by $25 million to allow more women to access the legal help they require;

(c) undertake an immediate national review of sentencing laws, with a special focus on strengthening state and territory level responses with use of AVOs, electronic monitoring of domestic violence and sexual assault offenders, and removal of character references during sentencing in domestic violence cases;

(d) establish a national database to record all those convicted of family, domestic and sexual violence offences;

(e) establish a national mechanism to track family, domestic and sexual violence deaths across all states and territories to identify red flags and risk factors.

(f) Fund community education and prevention work consistently including respectful relationships education to bring about culture change.

I thank the Leader of the House and the opposition for allowing this motion to be moved. I am angry. Australian women are angry. They are frustrated and they are tired. Too many women are being killed by men, by domestic violence from current and former intimate partners. It is a national crisis and it needs an emergency response. Sixty-four women were killed by domestic violence in Australia in 2023. So far in 2024, according to Destroy the Joint, at least 28 women have allegedly been killed by domestic violence. That means on average in Australia one women is murdered by her current or former partner every four days. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are three times more likely to experience violence than non-Indigenous women, 11 more times likely to die due to assault and 34 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of that violence.

When two young men died in New South Wales, the New South Wales government introduced urgent mandatory sentences for one-punch attacks. When it was terrorism, the laws were changed urgently to jail people on apprehended risks of crime. That is the urgency we seek. But when Australian men kill Australian women, the government national plan is to take 10 years. I appreciate there is much sentiment to the work on this, but what we need is a crisis response—this is a crisis situation—a mobilisation of resources, urgent legislation. Business as usual is simply not good enough. This week we have had the handing down of the budget and we cannot have a situation where we move on from that to a situation where there is more of the same. So many services, so many people are desperately looking to this place, to all of us here, to make the change needed, to increase the urgency, to respond to a crisis with that kind of emergency response.

Instead, when another woman becomes a domestic violence statistic, we continue to witness sympathy and handwringing. I'm not saying that is not genuine. But we always talk about it being complex and it will take time, and I don't disagree. The why, the cause, behind this is complex, and culture change will take time. But there are very real levers to keep women safe now that can be pulled immediately and that is what I want to speak about.

We need an urgent injection of funding for legal aid services, for front-line services. We need to urgently look at this problem. Whilst the national cabinet came together, there were many disappointed that there were no urgent immediate actions that we could really grasp and say, 'This will change women's safety now. This will keep women safe. It will keep them alive.'

It is so common that I am sure every member in this place has heard from services in their electorates that they are turning away more and more women every week. This can be stopped and it can be stopped now. We hear repeatedly about court processes that fail. Every time there is an horrific murder, we hear from the investigation that ensues that time and time again the processes have failed. But there is no collation of that and there is no change in the laws. We have not come in here and seen any immediate changes.

Access to legal aid and legal services are essential in interactions with the courts. I know that; I have been there as an advocate—as a barrister. This is a lever that the government can pull now and it could have pulled it in its budget, but it didn't. Many walked away disappointed by that. Urgent additional funding can be allocated now. At the very least, if we aren't going to change the laws and the sentencing laws immediately, and get the states to agree to do that, then we should equip them with legal aid—with some advice—so they can at least engage with the legal system and get it to work to its best advantage. These changes can be made now, they can be done quickly and they can save women's lives.

While I have been in this place we've had condolences and we've had moments where everyone is sorry and commits to work and do better. But what we need to do urgently is to challenge the laws which are failing to keep women safe and to make that urgent injection of funding. What else is the government, is the parliament, here for but to keep the community safe? It's ultimately that social licence—the absolute commitment. It's why there is so much support for huge spends on the defence budget; it's because we agree as a society that we keep our community safe. But women within our community are not safe; we are not safe within it.

So I'm calling on the federal government to commit an extra billion dollars a year to frontline services—to commit to long-term funding of those services to ensure they stop turning women away and that they have sufficient space, beds, crisis services, community education and ongoing consistent prevention work. It's why I was so disappointed and frustrated with the budget: there was nothing new announced. Whilst I welcome the small support that there is for individual women who can access the Staying Home Leaving Violence support, more is needed.

Domestic violence is estimated to cost the economy some one to two per cent of GDP. In the words of Dr Angela Jackson, that gives us a measure of the sense of urgency and of the scale of the response that we should be committing to to ensure we are saving that money—saving that lost GDP—by investing in the services that will produce the outcomes we want. One to two per cent of GDP is $50-odd billion which we are losing because of this scourge. We can save that money by putting the kind of money that's needed into frontline services and legal aid. That sense of urgency is what we are calling for.

I welcome that everyone is noting that in this debate, but we then need to see progress. So many NGOs desperately want to see that action from the government. It is fantastic to see bipartisan support in acknowledging the scale of the problem but we now need to move to that step change. We've seen positive developments this week in New South Wales. They are now committed to fully funding Staying Home Leaving Violence across the state. This program has been shown to work but it hasn't been delivered in every LGA. Of course the northern beaches completely missed out, but that is now going to change. Warringah will be included and it will save women's lives. In Warringah, northern beaches women's shelters are currently turning away approximately 25 women each month because they're full. They have applied for more funding to ensure they can grow their facilities under the Safer Place program, but they have been rejected because they don't fit within the bureaucratic boundaries and guidelines within that program. They are funded to help 208 women a year, and last year they helped some 836. So we need to get past the bureaucratic system that's preventing them from being able to provide more.

The Safe Places Inclusion Round is a great initiative, but it's useless if it doesn't deliver the funding. So I call on everyone in this place: please, let's move to save women's lives.

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

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion from the member for Warringah. This budget was the moment for comprehensive and properly funded measures to prevent violence against women—for words to turn into meaningful action and for the scale of the investment to reflect the national emergency. But I'm afraid that, despite the horror of the last three months and despite the national protests that followed the spate of murders, this budget didn't deliver enough for women and their children. Where was the money for frontline family, domestic and sexual violence services? The sector is outraged and rightly so.

Women's legal services turn away an estimated 1,000 women a week, 52,000 every year, due to lack of capacity. Sexual violence trauma counselling services have dire waiting lists around the country, with many victims-survivors having to wait months. Critical men's-behaviour-change services that can break the cycle of violence desperately need funding to keep their doors open. Frontline services need sustainable, consistent and certain investment now, not in the future—now. Buck-passing between state and federal governments must stop. This is the moment for cohesive action. We can no longer say this is too hard.

Desperate women and children who need support to leave violent men are not getting the help that they need, and as a result they're trapped in abusive relationships. Think for a moment, if you haven't been in that situation, of how terrifying their daily lives must be. And, for those who do leave, it's dire. Each night more than 200 women and children are being sent to motels across Victoria because there aren't enough crisis accommodation places available. When victims-survivors are placed in motels there's no onsite security, monitoring or support, and motels carry significant risks for victims-survivors, including suicidality and easy access for perpetrators. Several women in this situation have taken their own lives this year in Melbourne. Women and children escaping violence need 24/7 wraparound support, not a lonely and life-threatening motel room.

The government talks a lot about gender-responsive budgeting. Well, right now we have a gender based violence national emergency. On average in Australia right now, a woman is killed by an intimate partner every four days, while one in three women has experienced physical violence since the age of 15. So far, in 2024, it's Hannah McGuire, Molly Ticehurst, Rebecca Young—and on and on and on it goes. The Australian Institute of Criminology report released a couple of weeks ago showed that the rate of women killed by an intimate partner in Australia is up 28 per cent. Coercive control, using technology as a weapon, trackers in teddy bears, hidden cameras in fridges, abuse via bank transfers—all are tactics used by perpetrators. Imagine, for a moment, going to the fridge to take out the milk and getting a message on the smart screen that says, 'I'm watching you.' Imagine, for a moment, logging into your bank account and seeing a series of 1c transactions with messages: 'I know where the kids are. This is happening.'

As Dr Angela Jackson, National Chair of the Women in Economics Network, told the National Press Club recently, the budget should have anticipated rising family and domestic violence—rising, worsening. Where was this anticipation in the budget? Where was the understanding of the link between women's economic insecurity and women's safety? Financial insecurity is a factor in perpetuating violence. Around one in five women return to violent partners because they have no financial support or nowhere to go. From the government, the $5,000 to leave is welcome, but in isolation it simply won't be enough.

More than 200 women leaders wrote to the Prime Minister in the lead-up to the budget, urging him to provide economic security for women leaving violence by raising the rate of JobSeeker. This did not happen, even with unemployment benefits in Australia half the OECD average. The government has increased Commonwealth rent assistance by 10 per cent, but this is only $11 a week for a single mother with one or two children. The government expanded eligibility for the single parenting payment in the last May budget, but this payment remains wholly inadequate to ensure single parents and their children do not live in poverty. Where was the recognition of how perpetrators are weaponising the system, how the justice system is used against women and how AVOs are failing? The Women's Economic Equality Taskforce and the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee report both recommended delinking child support from family payments. This is a tool of financial abuse.

I'm disappointed that the government hasn't yet invested in proper data collection for family homicides. To better identify risk, we need consolidated data to identify red flags that are being missed in the system. Data is critical in driving down men's violence against women.

There were some gains for women in this budget: $1 billion for crisis and transitional accommodation for women and children escaping violence. But frontline services are asking: when and where will these houses be available? The Treasurer spoke about unavoidable spending in his budget speech. Well, women's safety should have been unavoidable spending. The federal government has the levers to pull to change the lives of women and children affected by family and domestic violence.

I note the Prime Minister says this is personal. It is personal—for many women and children. For those watching today: I see you. Those I know, those I don't know: I see you. I hope and expect that the government and the opposition will support this motion and, in noting it, that they will now act with bipartisan urgency. The family home is the most dangerous place for an Australian woman, and surely that is a national emergency.

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the motion by the member for Warringah. I know her commitment and everyone's commitment to ending violence against women and children. I know that all members in this House agree that family, domestic and sexual violence destroys lives and that any life lost to gender based violence is one too many. We know the impact of this violence extends throughout communities. It is a national crisis, and indeed it has been for some time, and it must end.

The safety of women and children experiencing violence is a priority for the Albanese Labor government, and it has been since day one. Indeed, all Australian governments are united in our shared goal to end family, domestic and sexual violence in a generation. We're all committed to our work under the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children, which has been bolstered by our investment of more than $3.4 billion so far. We must acknowledge in this debate also that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are disproportionately impacted by domestic, family and sexual violence. It's important that we all acknowledge that.

Tuesday night's budget, as we heard, will deliver $925.2 million over five years to provide financial support and support services for victims-survivors leaving a violent intimate partner relationship, by permanently establishing the Leaving Violence Program. Victims-survivors will now have the certainty of knowing that, if they need it, there will be a safety net where they can access up to $5,000 in financial support as well as safety planning, risk assessment and referrals to support pathways. The budget includes a new decision to direct a billion dollars of funding towards crisis and transitional accommodation for women and children fleeing domestic violence. This decision will supplement the more than $9 billion five-year National Agreement on Social Housing and Homelessness. We are also investing heavily in improving information sharing and policing through the National Criminal Intelligence System, building an evidence base on the perpetration of family, domestic and sexual violence. We're injecting urgent funding into the legal assistance sector and investing in women's economic equality by paying superannuation on government funded paid parental leave.

This is all on top of the significant work that our government has led over the past two years. It includes reforms to family law, justice responses to sexual violence, national principles to address coercive control and the appointment of the first ever Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner, Micaela Cronin, who is ensuring that the voices of victims-survivors, their lived experience, is at the heart of advice to government.

Of course, I'm very proud that one of the first bills we passed in this parliament legislated 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave for all employees. Across previous budgets we've boosted funding to frontline services. This has included delivering funding to the states and territories for frontline workers and restoring funding for services which were running out. We continue to deliver more safe places for women and children experiencing family, domestic and sexual violence, which will assist more than 2,800 women and children each year with an additional 720 new places available under the next round. We're putting the focus on perpetrators by developing a national risk assessment framework, as well as trialling new perpetrator interventions. These are just some of the many actions our government has taken.

We all know there is more to do. We all acknowledge that. All of us, as governments at all levels, need to do more—and the community as well. Governments, the community and business need to work together to end violence against women and children, and we must all continue to make that commitment. We have demonstrated our commitment as a government over these last two years, which sees our record investment in women's safety go to $3.4 billion. We take this very seriously.

In late April, we saw thousands across the country march at rallies against gender based violence. I attended the rally on the Gold Coast and spoke about the government's actions. I outlined our record funding and our commitment to ending violence against women and children in a generation. I also spoke about my time as a former frontline police officer, in which I attended literally hundreds of situations involving domestic violence. I have stood in the lounge rooms and kitchens and seen firsthand the destruction this causes for women and children.

For anyone listening today or watching, if you need help, call 000 if it's life-threatening, or please call 1800RESPECT—that's 1800737732—for support. The fact is one life lost is too many, and the deaths of women at the hands of men have to end.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Janice Walker; Alison Robinson; Nerol Doble; Alana Martin; Keira Marshall; Bonnie Lee Anderson; Donna Baraket; a 26-year-old Western Australian woman; Amarjit Kaur Sardar; Rebecca Young; Min 'Sue' Cho; Natasha Nibizi; Joanne Perry; a 60-year-old New South Wales woman; Chaithanya 'Swetha' Madhagani; a 66-year-old Western Australian woman; Hannah McGuire; Molly Ticehurst; Emma Bates; Erica Hay; Yolonda Mumbulla; and Joan Mary Drane—these are the names of women who have been killed at the hands of their partners this year already. It is a national tragedy.

As I move around the country meeting with community groups, support services and small-business owners, the domestic violence crisis is what women are raising with me, more than anything else, as one of Australia's biggest issues. The sector is experiencing double or even triple the need for client support. This is a good sign, as women are feeling supported to come forward and seek assistance. However, we need more support workers on the ground in our regions helping women detach safely from men who use family violence. Improving the safety of women and girls is above politics. Too many women have been killed as a result of violence in 2024. The numbers are going in the wrong direction, and immediate action is required.

Unfortunately, governments alone cannot fix this crisis. A lot is about culture and education. But, to the extent that governments can contribute to the solution, they must pull on every lever. It requires all levels of governments to continue to work together, because, from bail laws to federally funded support programs, the policy levers span across Commonwealth and state lines. The coalition has repeatedly committed to working with the government to combat the scourge of domestic violence in Australia. Every woman who has lost their life deserves this, and every single family member or friend who has lost a loved one needs to know that they're not alone.

But it's also vital that, when governments make commitments to the women of Australia, they deliver on them. The Albanese Labor government committed 500 frontline service and community workers to support people experiencing family and domestic violence. This was a commitment that was funded back in October 2022. To date, we're yet to see enough of these critical community workers on the ground, particularly in rural and regional communities. The sector is experiencing double or even triple the need for client support, and some areas are yet to see any extra workers on the ground. Senator Liddle, in the other place, uncovered that only two family and domestic violence workers had been employed by February 2024. Minister Rishworth responded in March, saying that actually 17 full-time-equivalent workers were in place. The latest figure is around the 40 mark. Senator Liddle has since discovered that some of these workers are not new. The money has gone to turning part-time contracts to full-time, and paperwork has gone out in some states only in the last week or two. Where policies are announced, the Prime Minister must also prioritise the delivery, so I am respectfully asking the Prime Minister to please urgently prioritise the 500 community workers that were promised and budgeted for in the October 2022 budget.

I support members bringing attention to this issue at every opportunity and I commend those involved in today's motion. There should be and there will be many more. If I reflect on my 20-odd years in this place, we have become very good at breaking the silence but not at breaking the cycle. As I and many women and men stood at rallies around the country recently, hearing the voices of the women who stepped forward on that day to recount the heartbreaking stories that have become all too familiar, one thing that really struck me was that, in every woman's case, their family and community knew exactly what needed to happen to keep that woman alive, and those actions were not taken. But in every case, families and communities could relay the chain of events, the series of occurrences, where the intervention should have happened.

I know we have all talked about our strong records. The coalition delivered $3.4 billion in 2022-23 and $2.1 billion, including $1.3 billion to drive women's safety, in the subsequent budget. But we all know that more always needs to be done.

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've had many constituents in Curtin meet with me or write to me about their personal experiences with violence against women. The thing that strikes me every time is how these women are having to fight against an entire system. From the YouTube personalities modelling misogyny to violent porn, to the social stigma of being a victim of violence, to the lack of adequate funding for services, to the lack of alternative housing options, to the weaponisation of the justice, child-support and Family Court systems and the poverty that follows, the chips are stacked. I worked in community services and saw the way that front-line services can only support a fraction of the women who come to them. In one rural town, one of our services could accommodate five women with their children escaping violence. They had 100 people on their books needing support. So far this year in WA there have been 3,300 breaches of family violence restraining orders. Anecdotally, so many women ask: what is the point of getting a restraining order?

For me, like so many others, this issue is personal. Last year my sister was attacked with an axe by a man known to her. The restraining order she had against him had no effect at all. He very nearly killed her, and I am now seeing the ongoing consequences of that violence in my own family. Her situation was not domestic violence but it was gendered violence. In domestic violence so often women suffer in silence because they know the system can't protect them, and this topic is shrouded in shame. When you look at this complete picture it is hard to believe the words we hear in this House today, that we all care about this issue and we want change. What is missing is a sense of urgency. Actions will speak louder than the words we hear today.

This motion includes a list of actions that the experts are saying are needed: more funding for front-line services and Legal Aid, a review of sentencing laws, a database of offenders, and community education and prevention work to bring cultural change. Some of these actions can happen this year. Some will take longer. But they all must start this year. We can't accept that this is good enough.

Every Australian needs to ask themselves how they can contribute to changing the narrative and shaping the future. This is everyone's problem. I'm grateful for this motion and I deeply hope that this motion can translate into action, from all levels of government, from our sporting clubs, schools, community groups, families, and individuals. I commend this motion to the House.

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

I thank the member for Warringah for bringing this motion to the House tonight. Everyone who is going to speak on it and the many who won't get a chance to speak on it yet are determined, as am I, to see the end of violence against women and children in our nation. There's not a woman I know who isn't frustrated, who isn't angry, who doesn't want to see an end to male violence in this country.

Many of us, and I'm not exceptional in this regard, have stood in this parliament each and every year for more than 10 years, calling out every woman that has been killed in this country. It's the toughest speech I ever give in this place. So there are no bones about the determination of this government, Australia's first-ever majority female government, to see an end to male violence in Australia and to see an end to violence against women and children within a generation. No government in Australia has ever had that ambition.

I know that we are joined by everybody in that ambition, and for that I think we should all be very grateful, because it will take the most determined effort of every single person in this parliament, every single person in our communities and every single person in our workplaces to turn what has been a shocking trajectory in this country. There is nobody here who would want to not shine a very big light on the seriousness of violence in this country. I think the ongoing consequences—the devastating, cumulative and long-lasting consequences—of this violence are something we all need to be very, very mindful of.

There is no short-term fix for this, and I think anybody who's worked in the sector knows that. There are very few women in this House who are not either a direct survivor of violence or, as we've heard in many stories, very closely connected to it, so we carry that scar. We wear that every day in this chamber, and it is a heavy burden. It is a heavy burden that all women in Australia have carried for far too long, in my view. I really do look forward to seeing many more men stand up and join us, because it's going to take the most enormous change in male culture in this country to turn this right around, and I welcome the leadership from this government in doing that.

I acknowledge that there are some terrific flags to suggest that we are in a position to really deliver on that ambition of ending violence against women and children in a generation, but it will take determined effort from each and every one of us. There are things that I have campaigned on for more than 10 years of my life that we are only just now dealing with in this parliament: paid domestic and family violence leave; and the fact that we have finally got rid of this outrageous presumption of equal shared parental responsibility in Australian law reform, which put many, many women and kids in danger unnecessarily for a long time. These are important hallmarks.

Making sure that there are adequately funded and supported services is absolutely an essential part of that. Also, the role of this parliament is going to have to be to do the really long, hard yards. No-one is going to be able just to pat themselves on the back at the end of this term and say, 'Job done,' that's for sure. So it is important that we have motions like this. I think it gives us all have an opportunity to recommit ourselves, to refocus and to say that we're not going to let Australian women down again. It is our job to do everything we can here. We should be hauling in every level of government and everybody in our communities to join us in this task, because that's what it will take to turn this around. I really hope that this debate today is an opportunity to see every single person in this parliament reaffirm their commitment to ending violence against women and children, and doing it now.

Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't stand here at the dispatch box and pretend to know how it feels to not be able to go for a walk on your own or walk down an alleyway by yourself, or be under a roof with a partner and not be sure how they're going to react when they come home at the end of the day. I don't pretend to know how that feels at all. What I do know, having been in the role of shadow assistant minister for the prevention of family violence and having travelled around Australia and spoken to the agencies, victims-survivors and police officers, is that we have to—we must—invest in prevention and intervention. We must match dollar for dollar in every single budget until we resolve this critical issue. We have to look at changes in prevention and intervention rather than to response and recovery.

I appreciate this motion on gendered violence, and thank you to the member for Warringah for putting the motion on. I agree with everything that's in there. But much of it is reactionary. It is response and recovery. What I am being told on the ground out there by the agencies—by those who provide the services to victims-survivors, to women and children—is that, until we treat the root problem, this will continue. From when I was a young police officer in Kempsey in 1989 up to my being the member there today, nothing has changed. In fact, domestic violence has only become worse, because we're not treating the root cause.

Let's not make any bones about it: the root cause is men with behavioural issues—broken men. Until we deal with and treat those broken men, this will continue. We've got to invest in men's behavioural programs. I've seen extremely successful ones in Queensland and in Tasmania. This isn't rewarding men for their behaviour. We have to put that mindset aside. It's about trying to change their core. I've seen men who have been offenders and should be punished go back and become presenters on those men's behavioural changes, because what they learnt was so profound. They identified their behaviour, and it broke that generational cycle. We know that young boys who see and experience domestic violence from their fathers or from their mothers' partners are more likely to become offenders when they get older. If we can break that cycle, we can make real change. We also need to insert respectful relationships into the national curriculum—not one day a year, not one day a month; it has to be reading, writing, arithmetic, and respectful relationships.

I had the pleasure and the privilege of speaking to the education minister of Indonesia. He's a tech billionaire, and the president asked him to become education minister. The first thing he did was implement respectful relationships in their curriculum, from kindergarten to year 12. After two years they were seeing, in the classrooms, a change in the way people treated each other—not just boys to girls, but the way children and teenagers treated each other, because it was in the curriculum every week. They're tested on it, and they have to pass that test to matriculate. Just as the support workers say to me: until we implement all of these measures and deal with the root cause, we will eternally be the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Warringah for bringing this important motion into this parliament. It was only this morning that I stood in the Federation Chamber and talked about the ending of violence against women and children, and that that should be a national priority for this country. The levels of domestic, family and sexual violence across the Northern Territory are unacceptably high, particularly in my electorate of Lingiari. In fact, the Northern Territory has some of the highest rates of domestic, family and sexual violence in Australia, if not the world. Women in remote and regional communities in my electorate are 25 times more likely to be hospitalised for domestic violence than women in major cities. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women experience some of the highest rates of physical violence, resulting in injuries that affect brain function and that can cause permanent disability from severe head trauma.

Part of the work that I've been doing as the local member—I spent too many years, and I'm not going to count them, before I came to the federal parliament. I was a member of the Northern Territory parliament for 12 years. I walked in many rallies with people like Rosalie Kunoth-Monks and Alison Anderson. There was a famous woman, Kumarn Rubuntja, who led the way in Alice Springs and who was brutally murdered at the hands of her husband.

Part of what we need to do—and I was listening to the former speaker and listening to you, Deputy Speaker Claydon—is get a shift amongst our men. There has to be a critical shift. I know that, in the regional and remote communities that I visit in my electorate of Lingiari, there is a lot of conversation between the women and the men about the men needing to stand up and change. Recently all the men in the Central Land Council stood up and passed a resolution that violence against their women must end. So Aboriginal men do want to be part of the solution. We have to start bringing them in and allowing them to be that solution so that our young boys and our young men change the way in which they think. They think it's their right to pummel their wives, if not kill them.

When I was elected to the federal parliament, the Northern Territory government at the time was lifting the stronger futures legislation. I talked in my maiden speech about how alcohol is probably the No. 1 factor and cause of a lot of this violence.

I want to take the time to acknowledge the leadership of the Prime Minister. I don't say this just because I'm on this side. I've had a lot of conversations with the Prime Minister, and I want to acknowledge his leadership. I acknowledge Katy Gallagher, the Minister for Women; and Amanda Rishworth, the Minister for Social Services. I want to quickly acknowledge the work that I'm doing in the Northern Territory with the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Minister Linda Burney; and the Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy. I think one of the speakers talked about the 500 women. We're trying to look at how we can develop health promotion. We need bilingual speakers who can work within this space. That takes time because you've got to be able to recruit the right people. And it's not just women in this space. We don't just need women to be the bilingual speakers to work towards this issue. We have to recruit and try to get some of our men in there.

This is a harrowing motion. I have seen one too many women killed. My own niece was killed at the hands of her husband. She suffered, over three nights of being brutally bashed, before she couldn't take the beating anymore and she died. I think all of us have these stories. They're terrible stories. You're right, Member for Warringah—we've got to get some outcomes out of that. But I am proud to be part of this government, who is doing something, because we can talk about it and we can feel it but we've got to do something about it, and we are.

Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I won't speak for very long. I'm not really prepared for this speech, but I feel compelled to rise again in this place to speak on this issue. I think I have probably spoken on this issue in this place more than any other issue that I have spoken on in this place. But nothing really seems to change. Everybody here I know is really well intentioned. Everybody feels this despair, this desperation to do something about this. But it's not changing, and it's not good intentions that are going to change that. We need to be very intentional about how we are directing our funding. It's not enough for us to go out and say we're investing record funding into addressing this issue if we're just throwing it into the wind. We know that there's more work needed in prevention and there's more work needed in frontline services.

Every time I speak in this place on this issue, I get a flurry of correspondence to my office with more stories—more horrible stories—of the circumstances in which women in our country are living now, every day; there were two yesterday. It is bigger, I think, than we even realise it is. It comes to our attention when women die, but there are women living in extraordinarily horrible situations every single day in this country, and we aren't seeing them. I acknowledge that the government has attempted to address that in this budget with their leaving violence payments. It's not enough, and I don't think it's the right place to direct that funding. That's when women are at the most risk—when they're leaving. And $5,000 is not a lot of help to leave. We're hearing that through our office through the trial of that program. It's difficult to access, eligibility is not straightforward, and people are waiting too long to get that. I acknowledge the work that the government has done since they have come to office on all of the measures that we've heard about. They are good and welcome, but we have to do more.

I am pleading with you as somebody who does have lived experience of this, as I know many others in this place do. It ruins people's lives forever, even if they survive it. Please do everything you can. Do more for frontline services. They have the answers. They're doing the work. But they're doing it on the smell of an oily rag. Please, please do more.

Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too thank the member for Warringah for bringing this very important motion, and I thank all the speakers that we've had here tonight, because it is clear that this is something that this parliament and of course this government does take very seriously. I do want to especially thank the member for Lingiari for bringing the perspective from her electorate and for bringing the perspective of First Nations women to this discussion because it is so clear that we must have First Nations women front and foremost in how we are addressing violence against women in First Nations communities. I pay absolute respect to the work I know you have done over so many years in such a difficult space. So thank you to you.

Violence against women is a national crisis. It is, in fact, our national shame. Like so many Australian women and, I know, women in this place, I am tired, I am angry, I am frustrated. But I am also heartened because I do think what we have at the moment is a government that is prepared to look at this deep and enduring issue at a systemic level, at the type of level where you start to make change, probably not as quickly as we'd like it—definitely not as quickly as we'd like it. We are definitely not shifting everything from 'terrible' to 'done' in five minutes. But this is a government that is prepared to do the work at all levels—prevention—a government that is investing in services, a government that is doing national work on law reform and safety and a government that is doing national work on providing housing and safe places for women and children who need to leave family and domestic violence.

This work hasn't just come out of nowhere. It has in fact been informed by the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children. This plan was informed by victims-survivors. It was informed by the people who have lived experience of this terrible national shame. It was informed by the people who do the frontline work with them. We can't lose hold of all of that good work, because those women, those people, deserve better from us in this place than for us to think that their voices, all that effort they put into that plan, should be swept aside. We've got to stay true to their intent, and we've got to meet the very ambitious goal that this government has set to end violence against women and children in a generation.

As I said, I wish this could happen more quickly than in a generation, but let's be honest: it is generations in the making. I am not the first woman who has stood in this chamber and made this speech. As the Deputy Speaker said earlier, there have been so many women over the years who have called this out, who have called for action. As I said, what I think is different at this stage is that we are getting action at a systemic level.

In many ways I'm one of those who thought this generational shift would have already happened. We saw younger people, particularly younger men, being brought up in a new world where violence against women wasn't being seen as an acceptable thing to do. We thought the gender norms and the disrespect shown to women, which we know contribute to the violence against women, would no longer be seen as acceptable, would no longer be seen as something that you talk about with your mates. I'm really disappointed that does not seem to be the case. From what we've seen we know that so much of that these days does seem to be driven by online behaviour. This is something that governments have to tackle, but it is also something our entire community has to tackle.

I do think there is a particular role for men in this space. There's a role for men to tell their sons that it's not cool to follow that influencer bro on social media, that he's not the guy you look to for information about how you should treat women. There's a role for men to show their sons how they should grow up to respect women and to see power dynamics in the relationships with the women in their lives. That is an area that I know we are tackling as a government, but it is also an area that needs to have particular work done on it right across our community.

I want to also touch on the fact that, for the first time ever, we had a National Cabinet dedicated to this issue. I know that can sound like it doesn't mean much in terms of action, but for the first time the leaders of every state and territory and our national leader got together to talk about this particular issue. It's a start. There's a lot more to do. This government will continue to drive it. I hope the entire parliament works with us.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening, like so many here in this chamber, to support this motion moved by the member for Warringah. I thank her for bringing it forward and I thank every member who has made a contribution; there's not a word I don't agree with. This is a deep and deeply distressing issue.

I want to acknowledge the words of the member for Lingiari, who drew attention to rural and regional issues, and in particular the issues that face our First Nations women and their families. I want to add some more about rural and regional Australia, because it's really important. I absolutely support every part of what the member for Warringah is calling for, but we must always ensure that we are context specific.

I have met, and continue to meet, many frontline services, including people from Women's Health Goulburn North East, Centre Against Violence, the No to Violence group, the Federation for Community Legal Centres and the CWA, as well as the many midwives I know. I also have my own lived experience. I know that if you are a woman experiencing family and domestic violence and you live in the country it's really hard to access services without people finding out. You're likely to know the receptionist at the doctor or the people at the baby health clinic. You are absolutely constrained by the number of services that are even available to you.

There is also the deeply disturbing research that shows that intimate partner violence in rural and urban areas share similar risks, but the outcomes are worse for rural women. It's not a race to the bottom here, but there are rural themes, such as isolation, male bush culture and, tragically, access to guns that demonstrate that we need very specific solutions in regional Australia to combat family violence. I would add to that the research that's demonstrated that, after times of national disaster emergencies such as bushfire and flood, the rates of family and domestic violence increase, and rural women are more exposed to those emergencies, tragically.

The other thing I want to say is that there is compelling research—long-known research now, and this is something I experienced when I was a midwife—showing that pregnant women are more likely to experience family and domestic violence at that period of their lives, for the first time or repeated, than at any other; that screening by midwives is critical; and that there is an intervention point there that we shouldn't miss. We are missing it. When I think about the number of times that there are partners—men—at the antenatal visits with midwives, there's an opportunity for interventions that I think we can do more about as well. Part of that is understanding coercive control. Part of that is understanding anxiety and depression in men.

Again, I would just say to the government and to all my colleagues—all of us who want to do something about this—that we need to be context specific. We need to think about early intervention points. We absolutely need to think about resources and the context in which we apply those resources. I thank the member for Warringah again for bringing this motion.

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with the earlier resolution of the House, I require that debate on the motion be extended until 6.45.

Jodie Belyea (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, thank you to all my colleagues in the room who have shared their stories, their experience and their support.

I am a representative of the government of the day—women and men who have been advocating hard for the support of women and children who have died at the hands of men due to domestic and family violence. I represent the Dunkley women and children impacted by domestic and family violence. Dunkley is a community where domestic and family violence and sexual violence are at the highest rate in Victoria. It is a significant issue, and I'm very conscious, having worked in the sector for Anglicare and Family Life, of the impact that it has on women, men and children and on their capacity to be educated and to participate in life.

I know this well, because I too have experienced domestic, family and sexual violence over 20 years, as a child, a young person and an adult. I know what it is to fear for my life at the hands of a man. My lived experience has meant that I pursued a career of over 30 years in the community sector, working with women, children and men. I pursued this career in the hope of supporting the women, men and children to recover and heal from domestic and family violence. Then I took the plunge and founded the Women's Spirit Project, which has supported women and children—particularly women—to recover and heal from trauma. This project was established in the Dunkley and Flinders local government and electorate areas.

I want to acknowledge the work and the diligence of Minister Rishworth, her team and the people that she has consulted with over the last few years. They have developed a unique 10-year plan—a plan that is the first of its kind and that didn't exist before now. This national first has a range of recommendations, which we are implementing. But there is much, much more that we need to do, and everyone in this chamber knows that and feels that. We need support from each other to be bold and brave and to make changes so that more women, their families and men are supported. We need to be bold as parents and as individuals in how we lead, how we communicate and how we deal with toxic masculinity. We must advocate for changes to media and social media, as we've been starting to do, to reduce the amount of content that our young boys, our young people, our young men are watching and listening to. We also need to call out the perpetrators.

I've been listening in my 11 weeks in this role. I know that there are lots of things that are being actioned and discussed and are in the inboxes of all of you here. I commend the government's investment of $3 billion through the living away from home allowance, because I know that that particular money was not committed by government until recently. The government has committed funding through the budget in a number of other areas which I know are critical to supporting women to recover and heal and to escape from trauma. That includes housing and access to parental payments for family and domestic violence leave.

This is an intricate web of issues to solve. The journey to do that is very extensive, but it is everyone's responsibility. It requires all of us in this space, as I said, to be brave and bold. Yes, there is much, much more to do. Several weeks back, when I walked with many of you here in this chamber, I felt a growing swell of energy and commitment to doing more, as I did in March 2021 when I left here with Peta. I hope that all members of parliament here tonight continue to take the role in leading this change.

Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I stand in support of this motion moved by the member for Waringah, I feel compelled to share some powerful words from a young North Sydney woman that actually wrote to me today. She says, 'I'm writing to you to please advocate on behalf of the people and especially the women of North Sydney, to fight for change in the government's response to gendered violence against women. Thirty-two women have been killed by men's violence this year alone. In 2024, we can and we should expect better. I'm writing to you to ask you to get the government commit to real action to make Australia a safer place for women and girls.

'Immediate action for government could include a sentencing review to ensure accountability and consequences for perpetrators. The next steps would be to target the aggravating factors, like violent online porn and misogynistic social media influences. We need sustainable and consistent investment in frontline services. Long-term cultural change must be our goal. Boys must be taught the difference between healthy masculinity and toxic masculinity. Women cannot protect themselves from murder by men; only men can stop this. Not all men disrespect women, and not all women are disrespected by men, but all violence against women begins with disrespect.

'We cannot allow the next generation of girls to grow up in a climate of fear. I refuse to let that happen as a young woman, and I'm calling on you and our government to act now. We do not have another decade of deaths to deal with.'

I want to acknowledge the words of this young woman. She's 18 and she's called on our government today with a very clear message. She's seen what the centre has been calling for and she knows that throwing money at a broken system and getting stuck in conversations is not going to take us anywhere. The points contained in the motion as moved by the member for Warringah and as seconded by the member for Goldstein will make a difference for women today. They would make a woman safer tomorrow. They're the things we need to prioritise in this place.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Warringah for bringing forward this motion and I thank everyone who has had the opportunity to speak on this already today. Domestic violence affects every single one of us. It affects every single person who is in this chamber right now. It affects people in the gallery. It affects everyone who is outside this place. Whether it has affected you personally, a family member, a friend or an acquaintance, you will know someone who has been a victim of domestic violence. That is a very sad fact, but it is a true fact that domestic violence is something that none of us can escape. We can no longer continue to be silent. Many of us aren't, but we can't, as a whole, continue to be silent. We actually have to stand up and talk about domestic violence, and then we have to turn those words into actions to prevent this insidious crime from continuing right across our nation.

I've spoken to many victims of domestic violence, but, perhaps more importantly, I've listened to them and listened to their stories. It's heartbreaking to listen to what they have experienced and, in many cases, continue to experience. It's hard for a woman to leave a violent situation. Where does she go? It's hard to find somewhere to live. It's hard to be able to afford somewhere to live, if you can, in fact, find something in the first place. It's hard to financially support yourself and your child or children while you try and protect them. It's hard being constantly scared that he will find you, that he will find your children and that he will never ever let up. It's hard to get an AVO. It's even harder to get an AVO and to have it enforced. So, wherever you go, you are constantly looking over your shoulder. You are constantly aware of the situation around you. You're alert. You are constantly conscious of what you wear so that you do not stand out so it's not easy for him to find you. These are the stories of many women who are facing extreme challenges, and I believe very strongly that it's our responsibility to do all that we can to end this violence against women.

If I can very briefly speak about the issue of coercive control, we've heard some of the stories here of the messages that get sent, the deposits that get made to the bank account—'I know where you are. I know where the kids are.' I hear stories of men who are addressing mail to themselves at their partner or their former partner's new place of residence, who are signing them up online so that they get information about expensive houses being sent to them, who go online on Facebook and other social media and talk about how good their life is, how philanthropic their endeavours actually are, while they're not paying child support or they have huge bills for child support back payments that they are not making. The things that they do to these women are, quite frankly, beyond belief, but you have to believe it when you hear it so often.

There are so many things that have been mentioned today that we could and should be doing. We've heard about the need to make sure that there are changes to male behaviours, because, quite frankly, we all understand that this is an issue that is affecting generation after generation. Young boys are seeing their fathers or grandfathers or uncles or a significant male in their life abusing their mother, and that behaviour, over time, becomes normal to that young boy. He thinks that that is normal behaviour. Because of that, he continues to perpetuate the violence against his partners when he is old enough to do so, and that is happening at an increasingly younger age. So much needs to be done, but I would strongly recommend and hope that what we do is look at changing the male behaviours, to stop this action before it even gets started and to do all we can to make sure that no woman in Australia or across the world ever has to stay in a violent relationship.

Question agreed to.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Obviously, I speak for everyone in thanking the member for Warringah for bringing the motion forward, and I thank everybody who has contributed to the discussion. Not unexpectedly, it is the case that there are more members wanting to speak, but we wanted to have carried the resolution tonight. I ask leave of the House to move a motion that the House take note of the resolution that was just carried.

Leave granted.

I table a copy of the motion and I move:

That the House take note of the document.

Debate adjourned.