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

I welcome those words from the senators who have spoken so far. I also welcome the fact that we are having this debate in the Senate, as they did in the House yesterday. It's appropriate. I thank the government for that.

Tomorrow marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. It also marks the start of the 16 days of activism to end gendered violence globally. As with all international days, it is a reason to pause and reflect, but that cannot be the sum total of our attention on this issue.

Globally one in three women have experienced physical or sexual abuse in their lifetime. Of those women only one in 10 go to the police for help. Of those who go to the police for help, many never have their complaints taken seriously and properly investigated or their abusers charged, and even fewer than that manage to secure a prosecution.

These statistics are shockingly familiar in Australia. We can't claim to be doing any better than our neighbours. We can't pretend that sexism and disrespect don't underline the culture in many workplaces, clubs and homes in our country. In Australia, one in three women have experienced physical or sexual violence since they were 15. On average, one woman is killed by a current or former partner every nine days.

This year 40 women have been killed. When we used to have motions I used to recognise the names of the women who had been killed since the last motion. Unfortunately, we've lost the procedural ability to recognise those women, but we won't forget them. We know the figure is at 40 because a volunteer organisation tracks them, not because we have a national toll of women killed, which is something that the Greens have pushed for for years and still think would be a very meritorious idea.

I also want to note that First Nations women experience significantly higher rates of violence throughout their lives and reiterate our support for a standalone national plan to end violence against First Nations women and children that is designed, implemented and evaluated by First Nations women and community controlled organisations. First Nations women know what needs to be done to end violence in their communities, and they need to be empowered to take action. My colleague Senator Cox will speak about the importance of that work in her contribution. She is currently with another colleague, Senator Thorpe, at an event to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the establishment of the inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and the appalling fact that a lot of violence against First Nations women goes unreported.

The last few years in particular have laid bare the pervasive nature of gendered violence across Australia. Brave young women have come forward and forced this conversation onto the national agenda. We've all talked about it many times, but despite this, on a lot of metrics, the first national plan to reduce violence against women and their children failed. Violence against women remains shockingly high. Sexual assault amongst people under 25 has actually increased. Things need to change. I'm very pleased that the second national plan commits to ending gendered violence within a generation. It's an ambitious goal, but it's critical that we all work together to make that happen. We can't just keep coming back and making speeches about how things need to change. Things actually need to change. Many, often survivors themselves, work behind the scenes to support survivors to get justice or just peace and safety to rebuild their lives. We owe it to those women to do everything we can to end gendered violence now.

Stopping this violence starts with believing and listening to survivors and learning from their experience so that others don't have to suffer the same harm. The victim-survivor statement in the national plan is a powerful call to action, to listen, to hear, to act, and the new Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner, Micaela Cronin, has been tasked with ensuring that all actions are grounded in the experience of victims-survivors. It is tough and critical work. We need survivor-centred essential services that understand and respect survivor experiences and don't compound trauma when help is sought. This requires specialist services that understand the specific needs of First Nations women, young women, older women, disabled women, LGBTIQ+ women and women from culturally diverse backgrounds.

Stopping violence against women will take systemic action to tackle root causes, transform harmful social norms and empower women and girls. Gender inequality and gender stereotypes foster disrespect. All of the evidence confirms a correlation between rigid gender stereotypes and rates of violence, so small things like calling out casual sexism will actually help to drive the cultural change that, ultimately, will stop so many women being killed.

Individuals must be held to account, but we have to go beyond individual behaviours, and we have to consider the broader social, political and economic factors that drive violence against women. We must promote the equal distribution of power, resources and opportunities between men and women. We know that you can't be what you can't see and that workplaces like ours should be showing leadership in the representation of women in decision-making roles. We do okay in the Senate, but our friends in the House have a long way to go to reach gender parity.

Critically, stopping gendered violence requires properly funding the organisations that do the work on the front lines of this epidemic. In estimates a few weeks ago we learned that the government doesn't have any data on unmet need, but I hear from services on a very regular basis that every day they have to turn women away from shelters, from calls to support services and from legal services because they don't have enough funding to help everyone who reaches out for help. The sector have repeatedly said that it will take an investment of $1 billion a year to make sure that they're able to help everyone who reaches out for that help. That's the absolute minimum that women should expect from their government, but the government delivered less than half of that amount in the recent budget. What a tragic missed opportunity.

We need to also fund prevention programs. Respectful relationships curriculum needs to be embedded from early education onward. Targeted prevention programs, workplace training to make sure employers can identify and act on abusive behaviour—we must effectively engage men and boys in that prevention work. Some positive men's behaviour change programs were funded in the budget, and we welcome that. Men need to take responsibility, and they need to be better.

We also need proper investment in housing, in crisis accommodation, in transitional housing and in long-term affordable housing options. No woman should have to choose between violence and homelessness, yet that is the consistent evidence that we have received from frontline organisations for years. It's particularly acute for older women. No-one should be turned away because a shelter doesn't have enough beds, but, unless women are confident they've got somewhere to go, too many will stay in dangerous situations. Delays in accessing crisis or social housing can literally cost women their lives. The recent budget allocation of $100 million for 720 homes for DV survivors is a drop in the ocean of what is required.

We also desperately need to lift income support and raise wages so that women have the financial security they need to get free, to seek help, to stay safe and to leave if they need to. We know that it can take 140 hours and at least $18,000, on average, to escape an abusive relationship. That's something that women on low incomes or in insecure work simply don't have. We strongly welcome the introduction of paid family and domestic violence leave just a few weeks ago. That's an important safety net, but more needs to be done. The government's escaping violence payments, which are designed to provide emergency funding to help women escape abuse, are oversubscribed. Women are having to wait 28 business days to access funds. I'm sorry, but that's not good enough.

We need to recognise and understand the insidious forms of violence and abuse, including coercive control and financial abuse. We know that up to 70,000 women were coerced into withdrawing their super early during COVID. Earlier this week, the Centre for Women's Economic Safety shone a light on the role that banks could play in ensuring that financial products like credit cards, mortgage payments and bank transfer descriptions can't be weaponised. We call on the banking industry to do that voluntarily and, if they won't, for government to work to regulate.

We need to address the culture in our policing and legal systems, which have let women down time and time again. The review of the culture within the Queensland Police Service released this week is devastating but, sadly, deeply unsurprising reading. It can't be a mystery to anyone why so many women choose not to report. We need holistic, expert wraparound services and alternative pathways for reporting and addressing violence. We need to understand the experience of victims-survivors who say that the legal process was re-traumatising, and we need to listen to them about what needs to change.

Last night I attended an Our Watch event, and I want to acknowledge the work that they do as the premier experts on prevention. They're an incredible resource, and I urge everyone in this place to take a look at their resources. As for workplaces, I look forward to discussing Respect@Work tonight. I will conclude by saying ending violence against women and children is a job for all of us. We've all got to make this happen within this generation, if not before.