Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Chair of the Finance and Public Administration References, I present the final report of the committee's inquiry into domestic violence in Australia together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

This inquiry was referred to the committee on 26 June last year. The committee received 165 public submissions as well as confidential submissions and held seven public hearings to take evidence from witnesses.

In Australia, between 2008 and 2010 the statistics show that nearly one woman every week was killed by their current or former partner. In 2015, the statistics to date show that this number is increasing with two Australian women killed by domestic violence each week.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics, in its most recent Personal Safety Survey, found that almost one in five Australian women have experienced violence at the hands of a partner since the age of 15. Women from some communities experience higher rates of violence than the national average. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women face far greater risks of being affected by violence. Women with a disability and women from some culturally and linguistically diverse communities are also particularly vulnerable to domestic and family violence. It is these unacceptable rates of domestic and family violence which makes this one of the most important s al issues facing Australia today.

Domestic and family violence comes at a great personal cost to victims and their families. The committee heard time and time again over the course of this inquiry that domestic and family violence has severe and persistent effects on the physical and mental health of victims in the short term as well as their long-term wellbeing and the health of their families.

A study by VicHealth found that domestic and family violence is responsible for more preventable ill health in Victorian women under the age of 45 than any other of the well-known risk factors, including high blood pressure, obesity and smoking.

Domestic and family violence impacts on children—nationally, one in four children are exposed to family violence. Victoria Police data shows that, in a third of family incidents reported to police, children have been present. But children do not need to be physically present to suffer the negative consequences of violence—living in an environment where violence is the norm is extremely damaging. Victims of domestic and family violence also suffer financially, particularly in terms of maintaining employment and having access to suitable accommodation.

The number and severity of incidents of domestic and family violence also have broader economic costs for the community. A KPMG study commissioned by the Commonwealth found in 2009 that the annual cost of domestic violence is around $13.6 billion every year, and that this will rise to $15.6 billion by 2022, if steps are not taken.

It is clear that the Commonwealth government should do all it can to address the terrible effects of domestic and family violence. However, this report recognises that there is no single solution that will stop domestic and family violence overnight. Rather, it is a complex problem that requires a long-term, strategic approach by all levels of government and the Australian community more generally.

The government's strategic policy in this areas is the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children. While many witnesses and submitters spoke favourably about the national plan, they considered it could be improved.

The committee agrees that the national and long-term approach adopted by this plan has great potential to reduce domestic and family violence. It also offers an ideal opportunity for the Commonwealth to take a leadership role, especially considering how much of the front-line services are delivered by the states and territories. Because of this, the committee has recommended that the Commonwealth government strengthen its leadership role in tackling domestic and family violence. It should look to improve its consultation with the domestic violence sector, particularly to inform the development of future phases of the national plan.

The committee also recommends that the Commonwealth government table, through the Prime Minister, an annual report to parliament on what progress has been made in the effort to tackle domestic and family violence so that progress and next steps are made clear to the sector and the wider Australian community. This recommendation is also to ensure that efforts to address domestic violence remain on the national agenda for the long term.

A clear theme of evidence was that better data about domestic and family violence is needed. What is particularly concerning is that, as this committee heard repeatedly, domestic and family violence may be underreported and many more victims may not be coming forward to get the help they need.

Therefore the report recommends a number of improvements be made to the collection of data by the government, including looking to refine the Personal Safety Survey to understand the effects of domestic violence in particular communities. This report also sees an opportunity for the Commonwealth to facilitate data collection through the National Data Collection and Reporting Framework.

The committee also considers that Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety, ANROWS, is central to using any data collected by Australian governments about domestic and family violence. It is important that ANROWS receives funding until at least 2022, to match the time frame of the national plan and to inform its ongoing development.

The committee also considered how the Commonwealth could work through COAG to coordinate and support a national approach to domestic violence. The committee believe that the Commonwealth should investigate ways to encourage appropriate leave being provided to victims of domestic violence so that they can start to get their lives back on track.

Investment in primary prevention initiatives is a key strategy over the long term to build awareness and to bring about attitudinal and behavioural change. General public awareness campaigns are important for primary prevention as are more targeted campaigns to address the needs of particular groups such as new migrants and Indigenous communities. The National Primary Prevention Framework by Our Watch will be a welcome step to improve national coordination and dissemination of information in this important area.

Working with young people is another important area to embed long-term societal change and to establish healthy relationships. The committee strongly supports the respectful relationships programs and the incorporation of respectful relationships into the national curriculum.

The committee welcomes the work being undertaken by COAG to make perpetrators more accountable and has recommended that this work consider the particular needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and LGBTI perpetrators as well as those in regional areas.

There is excellent work being done in jurisdictions and the committee has recommended the establishment of a subcommittee of first ministers to enable jurisdictions to share the results of trials and to coordinate best policy practice and service responses to domestic violence over time.

The legal system is another area that victims of domestic and family violence have to navigate and the committee heard it is not easy for them. The committee welcome the announcement that a national family bench book will be developed but believe that targeted training and evaluation of family consultants who write family reports would also help, as well as specific training for judicial officers.

Throughout the inquiry the availability of housing was raised as a critical issue affecting victims of domestic and family violence, whether they chose to leave the family home or remain at home. A recommendation in this area is for the Commonwealth government, through COAG, to facilitate the evaluation of existing legal measures and support programs that facilitate the removal of perpetrators from the family home.

Affordable housing can play a central role in helping victims of domestic violence to get their lives back on track over the longer term. The committee has recommended that the Commonwealth government take a leadership role in the provision of affordable housing solutions to meet the long-term needs of those made homeless by domestic violence.

The committee also acknowledges the need for victims to receive longer-term support—wraparound services including financial and trauma counselling, and specialised services to address the needs of particular communities. Given the long-term effort required to address domestic and family violence, the committee sees value in governments funding relevant services using a multiyear approach to reduce the level of uncertainty and to allow adequate future planning in the sector.

I wish to thank all the individuals and organisations that gave their time to make submissions and to speak to the committee at the public hearings. The stories and experiences that you have shared demonstrated to the committee the seriousness and magnitude of the challenge we face in reducing domestic and family violence in Australia. Through your involvement, we have become more familiar with the incredible work being done on the front line of the sector, as well as the skill, dedication and commitment of its workers.

I pay tribute to the Australian of the Year, Rosie Batty, who has been such a powerful and extraordinary advocate for victims of domestic violence and for the people working to assist them, and who generously assisted the committee with its work.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge and commend the work of my colleagues who participated in this inquiry. I would like to note especially the work done by my predecessor as chair, Senator the Hon Kate Lundy, who retired from the Senate in March this year.

I would also like to note the hard work done by all committee members over the course of this inquiry. I particularly express my appreciation to my colleagues for their efforts to reach agreement on the recommendations, and I acknowledge the broad support across the parliament to work together.

I hope that this report, when read in conjunction with other reports, provides some assistance in current policy discussions and debates over how best to respond to one of our country's greatest challenges. I commend the report to the Senate.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I address the substance of the report, I would like to offer a few personal reflections on the inquiry, which I was very pleased to be a part of. The conclusion I came to is that domestic violence affects all Australians in some way, shape or form—as victims, perpetrators, friends or family members or simply because we are all part of a land where domestic violence appears to be a blight on so many in our community.

It is quite harrowing for someone like myself to listen to the evidence that we listened to. It would soften even the hardest heart. It is really quite alarming to think that these things are going on in our communities, often under our very noses and often unnoticed or hidden away. So it was a very confronting inquiry for me. It was very illuminative and informative, and I am very grateful to have been involved in it.

I want to comment briefly on my colleagues who participated in the inquiry. Firstly, Senator Gallagher worked very, very hard to make this a bipartisan report in the main. I will come to why it is not entirely bipartisan shortly. I think there is a profound difference between the tone of the interim report and the tone of the final report. This issue should be above partisan politics. I make no bones about that. It is something that both sides of politics want to work hard to fix, to atone for previous wrongs and to make the future much, much brighter. In that respect, I think we have come to a pretty good conclusion in this report. So I thank Senator Gallagher for working hard in that respect.

I also would like to pay credit to Senator Moore. It was so clear to me that Senator Moore had a very deep, longstanding and passionate interest in this area. A lot of us can say that about a lot of areas but this was something that really shone through with Senator Moore. I just want to say 'thank you' to her for the work that she put in during the inquiry, and I thank her for standing strong in the face of what I thought was a great calumny. That is all I will say in that respect.

The report is broadly bipartisan. There are a couple of departures, and I do regret we could not reach agreement there. But I perfectly understand that this is the way of politics. There are only two little things. The first is in recommendation 1 in our additional comments. The committee recommendation was perhaps a more prescriptive recommendation, whereas the government senators thought that there is some flexibility within working arrangements and that employers and employees can consider specific leave rather than having the Commonwealth mandate that. The second one was effectively one of administration. The government's position was that the information is already available in various positions and the committee wanted it to be consolidated into another one. They are, in the scheme of things, minor and I am sorry that I had to put in the additional comments; nonetheless, they are there.

I recommend this report. It is a very positive step. The contribution from all senators and witnesses was terrific. The witnesses were very courageous and brave to come and tell their personal stories. I echo the sentiments regarding the powerful evidence given by Mrs Rosie Batty. She has turned perhaps one of the most horrific experiences any parent could experience into something that is overwhelmingly positive for the country. It is quite extraordinary and speaks of her courage. I thank senators for their contributions and I thoroughly recommend this report to the Senate.

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

I too rise with great pride to speak to this very important report on violence against women. I am thrilled that more than 12 months on from the establishment of this inquiry, which I am really pleased that we did together as a chamber, that we have now produced a report and an interim report with some very weighty and substantial recommendations. I am pleased that the Senate was able to come to a tripartisan agreement on the report. Whilst the recommendations are not as strong as the Greens would like, and we have made some suggestions for additional recommendations, I look forward to the implementation of these recommendations, given that we have had the government, the opposition and the crossbench, in the form of the Greens, sign onto them.

I want to start by thanking the witnesses who gave their time and shared of themselves to this inquiry with great courage and bravery. I echo the remarks of Senator Bernardi, and this is the first time I have done that, in thanking the witnesses for sharing their deeply personal stories, which were, I agree, harrowing and eye-opening for us in the Senate. To learn just how prevalent this scourge is was truly shocking. To see the issue finally coming out of the shadows and receiving the attention that it so desperately needs both in the media and in this place has been really heartening. That is how we start to fix this problem. It is not by ignoring it or pretending it is private business for behind closed doors; it is by revealing the true extent of these horrific crimes that are being committed, mostly against women and their children—sadly, against one in three women.

This is how we start to deal with this issue, by bringing it out of the shadows. I want to take the step of dedicating the Australian Greens additional comments to Rosie Batty, one of the strongest witnesses we heard from and, clearly, one of the strongest women who has faced horrific circumstances and managed throughout to be a strong and powerful advocate for women facing this terrible scourge. I want to personally thank Rosie, and I know others have as well, for her courage in continuing, in the face of true horror, to be a powerful advocate, to try to fix domestic violence and family violence.

We know that this is a national emergency and should be treated as one. This is a crucial moment. Never before have we had such national attention focused on domestic violence. We have to seize the momentum. In the interim report, which I felt was very strong and which, sadly, the government members did not sign on to, we focused on the funding cuts that have been made to front-line services, to homelessness programs and to community legal centres. I am very disappointed that, after the 2014 budget that made those cuts, much of those were not reversed in the 2015 budget. Some of them were and I commend the government for listening to the community in that regard. Those remaining funding cuts urgently need to be reversed. I take the opportunity in my additional comments for the Greens to reiterate the desperate need for those cuts to be reversed. There were cuts to the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness, to community legal centres, to legal aid and to the family violence prevention legal services, and indeed there is still $44 million from new emergency accommodation that desperately needs to be reversed.

I want to go through the additional recommendations that we made. The first ones are in regard to those funding cuts. We heard from the women who staff the crisis lines who said that they cannot actually answer all the calls that are made. They really feared for the women who have taken the strong step of phoning. If they cannot get through, what does that do to a woman who is seeking help? How far does that set her back? It may have taken an awful amount of courage to even pick up the phone in the first place. We have to make sure all of those phone calls are answered. Likewise, when women arrive at crisis shelters, often with their kids, turning those women away should not be an option in this wealthy nation, in this day and age. We need to provide the funding for those services as a federal government working in partnership with the state government, not passing the buck, saying, 'This isn't our problem; we don't normally fund housing,' but working together to make sure that no woman or child is ever turned away from that crisis accommodation service.

We heard evidence about the gendered nature of this violence and we heard that gender inequality is driving much of the violence that we are now seeing wrought on women and children. Our first recommendation is that the federal government lead a broad and far-reaching program of reform to achieve gender equality in this nation. Yes, we have an awfully long way to go, but we have begun some steps towards equality. We need to close the gender pay gap. We need to boost women's financial independence. We need to address the deficit of women in leadership positions in both government and business. We need to share unpaid caring responsibilities more equally and encourage women into non-traditional industries.

Some of our other specific recommendations went to the funding for respectful relationships programs in schools. This is a commitment that is in the Second National Action Plan to Eliminate Violence Against Women and their Children, but we have not actually seen much follow-through in terms of the money and in terms of including that in the national curriculum. Prevention is, of course, better than cure—that is so obvious as to be trite—and if we do not address the attitudes and the behaviours that are being formed at that very early age then we condemn ourselves to repeat these behaviours. It is a wonderful opportunity to help kids learn about respectful relationships, about the role that they can play and about their own self-worth and self-determination. That is the chance we have to try to fix this problem once and for all. A clear focus on prevention needs to be taken. Instead of that being at the expense of front-line services, we need to grow the pie. We need to fund those front-line services as well, and that is why we have recommended that the federal government conduct a needs assessment of state-staffed crisis lines, which are supplemented by one federal-staffed crisis line, to make sure that all of those calls can be answered.

We have made some extensive recommendations about funding, particularly under the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. We know that those crisis centres are underfunded—they run on the smell of an oily rag—and they are not able to help everyone who needs help. And what then after the initial crisis period? We were told in the inquiry that women are being forced to choose between homelessness and violence. That is not okay. No-one should have to make that choice. In this wealthy nation we need to be able to provide not just crisis accommodation but, in the post-crisis period, affordable housing so that women and children can remain safe and not be forced back into violent homes because they have nowhere else to live.

We have talked about the need for dedicated specialist services for women and children, with long-term funding. We have heard some reports of a worrying trend towards specialist women's services being subsumed into more generalist practices that are larger but are not specially focused on the needs of women and children escaping violence. That is a worrying trend and it means women and children will not be able to get the dedicated specialist support that they need. We are urging the federal government to make sure that those specialist services remain funded with secure long-term funding.

We have also talked about the need to increase funding for legal services. The Productivity Commission in fact recommended a boost of $200 million for legal services, and we would love to see that provided by this federal government. There is a funding cliff in 2017 coming for community legal centres, and that urgently needs to be addressed. On law reform, we talked about the need for proper training for magistrates, for judicial officers and even for family law report writers—who I am sure do their best at their work but do not currently receive specialist training to be able to detect and therefore make appropriate recommendations about situations of family and domestic violence. We heard that that has huge implications for the legal aid provision to those women and children, to the effect that if they challenge those family law reports they then lose their entitlement to legal aid, which effectively shuts them out of the justice system. That is not justice by anyone's definition, so we urgently need to ensure that those judicial officers are properly trained.

The implementation of the national domestic violence order scheme is very welcome but it has taken an awfully long time; it has been five years now. It needs to urgently be implemented. We remain of the view that the Commonwealth should act to give 10 days of paid domestic violence leave to all employees over whom it has jurisdiction so that women and children can attend court appearances, can attend appointments and can find accommodation. We got somewhere towards that in the majority report but the Greens—and I believe we have the support of the opposition in this—are firmly of the view that the Commonwealth needs to act to deliver on that. I conclude my remarks by saying that, when two women a year die at the hands of a partner or former partner, something has to be done. The ball has begun but it is up to us to keep it rolling and to fix those funding cuts and stop this scourge once and for all.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think you can tell from the contributions made by a few of the people who have had the honour to be involved in this committee what an experience we have shared over the last few months. Our chair, Senator Gallagher, has stepped in and been able to report this afternoon on the recommendations and the process which we followed. Like Senator Waters, I am echoing Senator Bernardi, which is one of those special moments—this committee has made some great changes even in that. Senator Bernardi acknowledged the work that Senator Gallagher has done in bringing together a unified report. When you have such an important issue it is always difficult—as you would understand from your own experience, Mr Acting Deputy President—to pull together a range of people and policies in a way that can come up with a strong unity. This is part of the power of this report.

As always in this place I am amazed and humbled by the strength of the people who choose to come and talk with our committees. When we ask them a question, and say that this is something we want to hear about, we are overwhelmed with the response. In this case I urge people who are interested to look at the names of the people who came to our committee and shared with us what they believe is important in our community about the issues around domestic and family violence. Over 165 people and organisations, who have incredible knowledge and commitment over years of service in our community, shared with us what they think has happened, what should happen, their pain and a combination of genuine hope and frustration. There is a real sense of hope at the moment that this is the moment when Australia has acknowledged that there is a genuine issue around family violence in our country. We have always known it has been there, and in fact there have been times when there have been little outbreaks of information or concern. But over the last year or so—and no-one quite knows why—there has been a concentration of commitment in our nation to say, 'We have a problem.' The horror of the problem is clear when we see the statistics—and there are pages of statistics in this report—that talk about the number of women, children and men who are harmed directly, physically and emotionally, and indirectly by this sense of violence in our community. We know we must do something about it. The terms crisis and emergency have been mentioned many times. In this case, one of the things we wanted to do as a committee was acknowledge the work that has been done.

We acknowledge that there has been extraordinary work done over many years on the issues in our community. In fact, this report comes down at the same time as governments at the state level, in the Queensland community and in the Victorian community, have committed to their own work in the areas of domestic violence. The royal commission in Victoria has actually given great hope for many people in terms of evidence that is being gathered as we speak on what is happening in the Victorian community, which can also lead to the knowledge that we are gaining. I see our report as one more part of gathering knowledge about what we should do and one more part of a commitment to what we will do in the future—because this is an active report.

The 25 recommendations in this report plus the other recommendations that have come from individuals, added to the recommendations made by the interim report, all lead into a direct action response. The expectation is that people will read and learn and then act. Consistently in the recommendations we talk about building on the foundations that are already in place. The national plan, which we talked about many times, is the infrastructure for how we as a nation can work together to address the issues of violence against women and children. As Senator Gallagher said, there was acknowledgement that this work has been worth while.

In the recommendations we put forward, based on the evidence that came to our committee, we recommended that there needs to be much more coordination of work and sharing of knowledge and ideas. It still frustrates me very much—and this is a comment that we make consistently in this place around a range of issues—that we as a nation seem not to be able to gather our strength to respond to the challenges we face. There is no clearer evidence of that than with the issues of family violence. To me, there does not seem to be much difference in violence in any community in this country. The impact of violence is the same, though we do not know all the causes. I want to quote from ANROWS, which is our national research body. One of our recommendations actually talks about the fact that we need to ensure that there is secure funding into the future so that this effective professional research will continue. ANROWS said:

There is no single cause of domestic violence. It is best understood as a result of the interaction of factors at the individual, family, community and societal levels encompassing, for example, attitudes to women and gender roles within relationships, family and peer support for these attitudes, and social and economic gender inequality in the broader societal context. Alcohol and economic stress can be triggers, or contributing factors, which may exacerbate domestic violence but they are not causes.

We need to know what the causes are and we need to know how to respond to those causes.

Senator Gallagher went through the recommendations on data—and I know that we continually talk about getting effective data to learn and the changes that have to happen. The recommendation I really want to focus on is the recommendation that goes to education in our community and in our schools at every level. We need to ensure that strength is provided to our community through effective education that provides knowledge of how to respond and how to exclude and remove violence in our community. Until we do that, we will always have the vulnerability and the power dynamic where people will be harmed and there will be the turn towards violence to respond to an issue. No-one could listen to the evidence that we received in our inquiry without acknowledging that the pain and damage must stop. In fact, that is a genuine commitment. We need to ensure that in our schools, at every level, young people are given the strength to understand that there does not need to be a resort to violence, with all the implementations and all the follow-up that occurs. We need to get modelling in terms of how truly respectful relationships can be entrenched as the norm.

This report must feed into all the discussions and the contributions that will happen into the future around this issue. We have the central structure. The plan already pulls together states, territories, organisations and advisory groups that have a commitment and an understanding. But that knowledge must be effectively shared and translated into action. In our additional comments we proposed that a summit be held in our country to would allow people to come together with the single focus of looking at family violence in our community. This would not be any kind of contest like, 'My response is better than yours and my experience is stronger than yours and you have to listen to my efforts so that you can learn'; this would be an opportunity for people who have the commitment and knowledge to get together and say, 'We can make a difference and we have the opportunity to do that, fully supported by governments at every level in our nation—state, territory and federal providing that support and showing an openness to listen and to learn. What happens sometimes with government is that there is a tendency to tell the community what should happen rather than listen to the community and translate that into action.

I really hope that people take the opportunity to read the report and to have a look at the submissions, because this report, as good as it is, cannot truly reflect the real experiences and knowledge of the over 160 people and organisations who contributed to this inquiry. We have the chance to continue to work together on this, and I know that this will stay on the agenda so that people will be able to talk to it in the future. I think a challenge that governments can take up is to genuinely commit, as our committee did, to a unified response. If the knowledge and the passion of the people who told us of their experience and gave their advice can be translated into action, we would have the strength, the knowledge and the challenge to say that our nation cannot be traumatised by the horror of family violence into the future. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted.