Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

One woman a week in Australia is murdered by a current or former male partner according to the Bureau of Statistics, and Aboriginal women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised and 10 times more likely to be murdered in a violent assault. I know this also firsthand from seeing it across the communities of the Northern Territory and listening to the women in the Northern Territory who speak often about their situation and the helplessness and the hopelessness that they feel in trying to remove themselves from those situations. We have terrific workers in our women's shelters and safe houses in our communities and, in particular, in our towns of Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine and Darwin. I've spoken here on many occasions about the concerns those shelters have about continued funding support for the families—for the women and the children—who come looking for safety and looking for a way forward where they can be financially capable of standing alone with their children without being in a violent home life or with a violent partner.

We know that there is more to this than funding, but I have to address the fact that there has been so much cut in the area of the services to our families—certainly across the Northern Territory, but I'm acutely aware of those same calls being echoed right across the country, including by organisations like the working women's centres in Australia. Many organisations have been shut down or defunded. We have a wonderful Working Women's Centre in the Northern Territory that's struggling. They're able to support and talk and listen to these women who come forward wanting to be financially stable and financially independent to be able to remove themselves from situations that are enormously violent for them and their children.

But there has to be an understanding. I know we say—and I've heard this a few times today—that we shouldn't politicise these events. I think we also have to be very realistic in understanding that, when you remove certain abilities for workers in those women's shelters, legal services and working women's centres, it has a profound and direct impact on the lives of Australian families who are in vulnerable positions. Putting your head in the sand and saying that that is not the answer is not the way to go—it really isn't. There has to be an injection of incredible amounts of support and resourcing for all of these Australians who work so hard to assist those families. Whether they're working, as I've said, in the working women's centres, in the women's legal services or in the Aboriginal community controlled organisations, they are critical at the front line of assisting our families who desperately need support and help.

I, like everyone else in this country, was horrified to see what happened in Brisbane last week, and I certainly extend my condolences to the family of Hannah Clarke and her children. It was indeed an act of horrendous violence. But I've also seen similar acts on my families in the gulf region. I can stand here and say that nearly every second woman in my family has experienced some form of violence, and we live with it. We try to support each other. I have an aunty who was in a coma for six to eight months, just trying to recover from incredible abuse. She came through, but she lost a foot and some toes on the other foot, and she can hardly move her arm. So we look at what kind of support she can get with prosthetics to assist her in being able to continue to live in Borroloola, but it's hard.

That's the physical trauma. What about the emotional, spiritual and psychological trauma that a lot of these women do not have the chance to even talk through? They don't have a chance. We need these mental health workers. We need these counsellors. Certainly for First Nations women, we need them to be culturally appropriate services that can be spoken in language and can be in an environment where these women can talk about what has happened to them so that they can then share those stories, so that it can help our younger women, wherever they are, to stand up and know that there is support out there, not just in their families but also in the services that governments at every level—state, territory and local governments and this federal government—must be providing to our Australians who are enormously vulnerable in this position.

I've been to the Darwin Aboriginal & Islander Women's Shelter and seen the amazing work of people like Regina Bennett, who runs that organisation on the smell of an oily rag, really. The dedication and the loyalty of people like her and her team to ensure that they are there for these women is outstanding. I commend people like Regina and others who are working in our safe houses across the Northern Territory and right across Australia. What I'm saying here is not just isolated to the Territory. I know that there are services in every state and territory whose employees try to work with vulnerable families. You think you can take that money from this bucket here and put it over there and that should be okay, but it's not okay. There is a correlation between when you remove resourcing and when these organisations step up and say: 'This is going to dramatically impact us. We're going to lose a counsellor. We're going to lose a mental health worker. We're going to lose an Aboriginal interpreter.' That has a direct impact on these families.

Late last year, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, we heard that the Morrison government told the National Family Violence Prevention Legal Services Forum that its $244,000 a year funding would not be renewed past June 2020. That forum is critical in bringing Indigenous women's voices to the table when family violence policies and approaches are being discussed. The amount of money the government is cutting is minuscule in terms of what the government can afford. The government goes to the Tindal air base and says, 'Here's a billion dollars for the Air Force,' yet it removes $244,000 which impacts on the women in the Katherine region. It just doesn't make sense. That's where you—the government senators and the government members—have to see that there is a direct correlation between those decisions. The forum had a meeting with the Minister for Indigenous Australians earlier this month, but, despite making sympathetic noises, the minister was unable to give the forum any assistance or any assurance that they would be able to operate into the future. They're asking for $244,000 a year. Instead, the minister has told the sector, already thinly resourced and outstretched, to engage in a co-design process. But the sector is very strongly of the view: why redesign something they know already works?

I'll give you an idea of how this government's cuts will impact services on the ground in the NT. The National Family Violence Prevention Legal Services Forum supports small, culturally appropriate Indigenous frontline services to ensure their experiences and views are reflected in national discussions. So, if you're going to remove it, you're saying to the women of the Northern Territory that, in this instance, their voices don't matter, but you're also saying to the vulnerable women right across Australia that it's not a priority. Listening to Senator Cormann and other senators speak today, I know that you know it's important. I'm just asking you to recognise that, when you make those decisions of funding, it does have a profound and direct impact on our families across Australia when these organisations either are so underresourced or have to close shop. It's not good enough.