Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

It is an extraordinarily important issue and one which we know that we must continue to address as we work towards developing the next National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. Since the first plan was implemented, in 2010, our understanding of what violence is and how it manifests has certainly grown. New and emerging forms of domestic violence—things like coercive control, financial abuse, technology facilitated abuse—are absolutely insidious and make it near impossible, in some circumstances, for women to gather the resources to make the decision to actually leave an abusive relationship. These barriers to leaving an abusive relationship are exactly what the escaping violence payment is making sure we address. Importantly, as I said, the payment is not means-tested in the traditional sense. We want to make sure it's available to every women no matter where she comes from, because we know it's not uncommon for bank accounts to be frozen or credit cards to be cut off. It doesn't matter what size the house the woman comes from; she needs our support— (Time expired)