Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Today is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Sadly, this year we have already seen 50 women killed by violence. The statistic that I think we all know is that one woman a week is killed by violence each year, and yet we are not quite at the end of the year and we are already at 50, so those statistics are getting worse. We know that the reporting is increasing, but we also know that the incidence of violence itself is also increasing. This is a national emergency, and I am proud that this chamber has been discussing these issues for several years now. Much like what the previous speaker, Senator Henderson, said, while we have had inquiries in the House, we have also had inquiries here in the Senate. Those inquiries have led to powerful recommendations, but those recommendations have not been acted upon.

For the last 12 months, I have been moving a motion in each sitting chunk noting the number of women killed by violence. The motion has passed each time, which I am pleased about, but the motion has called for action from government, and that action has not happened. The motion that we have passed as a chamber each sitting chunk for the last year has called on the government to recognise that domestic violence and family violence is the true national security crisis, and it has called for adequate funding for frontline response services. Each time I raise this issue, the government trumpet their—what I consider to be—inadequate contribution to those frontline services. I remember that in the 2014 budget this government proposed cutting those frontline services. In concert with the women's sector and a few other people in this place, there was a campaign to stop that funding cut. We eventually succeeded. But this is the same government that wanted to cut frontline services. We had to fight to simply keep that funding at the same level when what is needed is a massive increase in funding.

We are still seeing beds full, and women and children turned away or put up in hotels, where they do not have the support and folk around them who are trained to help them. We are still seeing phone calls go unanswered because those often not-for-profit services simply do not have the funds to put on the staff to deal with this increase in demand. It is nice that we are getting some lip-service, but it is not enough; $340 million is nowhere near enough. We need a $5 billion commitment so that no woman or child is turned away when they seek help, so that all of those services can actually provide the help that people fleeing violence need and, crucially, so that those prevention programs can be properly invested in.

I am off to an Our Watch launch shortly. They have been doing magnificent work on primary prevention—on cultural and attitudinal change. We know what needs to happen, but that is long, slow, very important and complex work. There is no long-term funding for them. There is no long-term funding for any of that primary prevention work. It is haphazard and it is a pittance. The government occasionally give lip-service to this issue, but they are still not doing what is necessary to tackle this absolute national security crisis.

We have called on them to implement all of those recommendations from that 2015 report. Likewise, there were some useful recommendations in the House's report. Again, much of those have not been touched. We have called on the government to have paid leave for workers when they are fleeing domestic violence. Women and children should not have to choose between paying the bills and being safe. They cannot afford to have five days of unpaid leave. We had a whole inquiry about that, but it, sadly, fell on deaf ears. We have these kinds of days, and it is about time the government took the action that is needed to keep women, children and other sufferers of domestic and family violence safe.