Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

USTON (—) (): I stand today very proudly as a member of the coalition team that, when in government, was absolutely committed to improving safety, economic security and health outcomes for Australian women. We know that family, domestic and sexual violence is a complete scourge on Australian society. We in the coalition believe that this is a matter that needs to be tackled without partisanship, because, unless we do so, we can never hope to achieve that goal that is striving towards a zero-violence target, which I think is something that every person in this chamber, in this government and hopefully in this country wants to strive for.

Improving safety for women and their children is obviously something that comes with a price tag. That's why, when in government, we were very pleased to allocate in the 2022-23 budget $1.3 billion to improve outcomes through initiatives in relation to women's safety. This brought the coalition government's commitment to women's safety over the period of the final two years and the first year of the next action plans to $2.5 billion to support the transition towards and implementation of the next action plan. Having been the minister for women's safety, I am really proud to have been part of the development of the next action plan, which we saw as a blueprint towards providing the kinds of commitments that all levels of government, all levels of society, would put towards driving that goal of towards zero.

The reality is that our commitments have to span the life cycle of violence, but also our commitments have to span every person in Australia. It is no use for governments to spend money and it is no use for us to stand here and make commitments unless we can convince every Australian that violence against women and children—in fact, any violence—is absolutely wrong.

To end gendered violence we have to stop it from happening in the first place. That's why measures that go towards organisations such as Our Watch are important. These organisations intrinsically are designed and established to make sure we have campaigns so that we can teach younger Australians about issues such as respect, stopping violence, calling violence out, making sure their behaviours are respectful and making sure we and they are investing in community led initiatives to deal with violence at the front line.

But we also have to realise that in the process of doing this we still have to respond at the other end to those women who are facing violence, and their children, daily. That's why we were pleased to establish the escaping-violence payment, to provide women with up to $5,000 so that when they were escaping violence they had the financial assistance to set up a home and start to establish a life free from violence. So we are very pleased to have been able to stand with Australian women in making sure that we were the first ones to put the largest ever commitment against any violence against women and their children and acknowledge that the new government has continued that investment and that commitment towards zero for Australian women to live a life free of violence.

I'm also pleased to say that we made a very significant commitment in women's health because we believe that the overall wellbeing of women can be underpinned only if women have access to affordable health care to meet their healthcare needs. That's why we put significant funding towards maternal sexual and reproductive health. Most particularly, one area that we were very pleased to have worked in a bipartisan way with the then opposition on was in relation to funding for women affected by endometriosis. I want to give a shout-out to Nicolle Flint, a former Liberal Party member in this place, and Gai Brodtmann, a former Labor Party member in this place. Together, they worked very hard to establish a platform and a plan to respond to endometriosis. When in government, we were pleased to put a $58 million commitment towards that plan, ensuring earlier diagnosis, providing women with access to the right resources to make informed decisions about their health and providing doctors with guidance as to the best treatment to help women living with endometriosis. I want to acknowledge that, when we made the announcement of $58 million, the then opposition and now government said they would honour that commitment. We were delighted.

I was also delighted, earlier this year, to stand next to the Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care when two of the initiatives that were contained in that $58 million were announced as being activated and ongoing. We want to make sure that the remainder of the initiatives in that announcement are delivered by this government, but I hope we can continue in a bipartisan way for the sake of Australia's women.