Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Stewart for the question and for her ongoing commitment to driving gender equality—indeed, all of the members of the government Senate team in doing that work. Too many women live in fear, and too many lives have been stolen. Too many women live with ongoing trauma from their experience of violence in this country. It's not just about women's safety and wellbeing; gender based violence stands in the way of women achieving their potential, including their economic potential.

This is why ending gender based violence has been such a priority for the Albanese Labor government. Last Friday, National Cabinet did agree to a $4.7 billion package that harnesses important opportunities to work together to prevent violence and, importantly, to support and provide certainty to community based legal services. This important package brings together efforts and funding to deliver much needed support for frontline specialists and legal services in responding to gender based violence and better innovative approaches to better identify and respond to high-risk perpetrators to stop violence escalating, and it addresses the roles that systems and harmful industries play in exacerbating violence.

The package includes a range of measures including $3.9 million for a new national access to justice partnership and a critical $800 million funding uplift, with a focus on uplifting legal services responding to gender based violence. For the first time, we will provide ongoing funding certainty beyond the five-year agreement so that that sector does have that certainty that has been so badly needed. This is new money. The former government, of course, had left a funding cliff, with no funding for these critical services beyond the mid-2025s. We've addressed that cliff and uplifted the funding. We've also agreed to a new national partnership agreement on family, domestic and sexual violence responses.