Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Waters. I think all of us in this chamber understand that family and domestic violence destroys lives. All of us in this chamber understand that violence against women is a national crisis. I would hope that all of us in this chamber—rather than partisanship—would be working towards how we diminish and end this scourge which has blighted the lives of so many people for so many decades.

I think you know that the government have been working with the states and territories to end violence in a generation, and we are accelerating efforts to meet that goal. I would hope that you would know that the prevention of violence against women has been a priority of this government since we took office. But we do know there is so much more to do. We need to focus on prevention and we need to focus on perpetrators, and this important work will take time, determination and a relentless focus on preventing violence and helping survivors. None of us can rest until we see a cessation of the violence, which is such a crisis for so many people in this country.

To date, the government has invested in record levels to support the national plan. We've also expanded the single parenting payment. We've invested in housing to help women and children leaving violence. We've acted to make the family law system safer for women and children. We've made major changes to the Sex Discrimination Act to prevent sexual harassment. We've taken long overdue action against sexual assault on campus. We've commenced the ALRC review to strengthen justice responses to sexual violence. We've made new commitments, a new permanent leaving violence payment of $925 million, a billion dollars— (Time expired)