David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Fair Work Amendment (Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2022. The rate of family and domestic violence in Australia is appalling. So far this year, 41 women and 31 children have been murdered. Countless more have been subjected to other forms of coercive control, injury, physical, emotional and financial abuse. I wish we didn't need this leave but, unfortunately, for now, we do.

It's critical to support people who need time to deal with the effects of experiencing family and domestic violence. Whilst this needs to be part of a much bigger conversation, in our communities, in our society, about family and domestic violence, the way that we are treating each other and the way that men are perpetrating violence against women, in the short term it's clear that we need this support, to allow women to get the support that they need to be able to take time off work to deal with the huge number of challenges that come with going through something like this. I commend the government on bringing forward this bill. It is an important first step.

In wanting to hear from my community, in August I convened a roundtable discussion at the ANU of business, unions, experts in this field, community organisations and frontline service providers to go over the draft legislation. I'd like to thank them for their time, their expertise and their work in this space. The resounding message that came out of it could not have been clearer: they want this legislation passed as soon as possible. The roundtable discussion was a great opportunity to canvas views on a range of suggested amendments to the legislation as well as flagging areas for future work. I recognise and respect the good intentions of Senators Lambie and Tyrrell in moving their amendment around the naming of this leave. This is something that came up, at length, at the roundtable discussion. While there are arguments for and against, the majority view, especially from frontline service providers, was that it is necessary to retain the family and domestic violence name. I have sought and been given assurances from government that they have engaged with payroll service providers to ensure that workers' privacy is protected when accessing this leave. It's crucial that we get this right and ensure that we are protecting women who come forward to access this leave.

Another key piece of feedback that came out of the roundtable was the need to provide training and support for businesses, especially small businesses. I acknowledge just how hard it is to run a small business, particularly in the current climate with the skills and workforce shortages. A lot of small-business owners are putting in massive weeks to plug the shortages and make things work.

It's critical that the government is adequately funding frontline specialists and community organisations—organisations like the Women's Legal Centre and, here in the ACT, the Domestic Violence Crisis Service—who provide essential and, in many cases, life-saving services to those most at risk in our community. Many of them operate on short-term and inadequate funding cycles. To me it's absolutely wild that the DVCS CEO, Sue, is answering calls at 4.30 in the morning and then fronting up to run the show—to undertake advocacy, to deal with the complex and challenging casework and to deal with the myriad other tasks that come with running an organisation like that.

It's great to read that community housing organisations, Indigenous organisations and domestic violence services will receive an extra $560 million over four years in this budget. We need to continue to look at better ways to fund these services and ensure that we are tying it into the broader conversation through our communities across our society about how we drive change and deal with these issues head on.

I also welcome in the recently released National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 the focus on housing. The admirable sentiments set out in this document need to be backed up with urgent investment. I hope we'll be hearing more about that in the budget. The Housing Australia Future Fund, alongside similar social and affordable housing supply measures from state and territory governments, is a good first step, but on its own it is clearly not able to keep up with demand.

Let's ensure that this is the beginning of a new approach to realise the government's commendable aspiration to end family and domestic violence in a generation. It's a very bold target—one we can all agree we should be aiming for. Family and domestic violence leave will help people experiencing violence, but there are the broader issues of how we engage Australians, how we drive societal change when it comes to attitudes towards family and domestic violence and how we provide cost-of-living relief to families, given that we know financial pressures exacerbate this sort of violence in homes across the country.

It's a huge challenge, but we were elected to not just think about this but implement plans. As parliamentarians we should be leading by example when it comes to the culture in our workplaces and in our families and we should be contributing positively to the national conversation. This issue really is a blight on all of us. Australia is not unique; this challenge is shared by communities and societies across the world. It is certainly something we should be taking seriously. I commend the government on this first step, but I acknowledge there is a huge amount more to do in this space.