Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The investment is significant and yet the statistics remain staggering. The Northern Territory Police this week responded to 597—I repeat: 597—domestic and family violence callouts in just seven days, and that number is most definitely underreported. Seventy-nine women are formally recorded as having been killed by a former or current partner in the Northern Territory since the year 2000 and 74 of them were Aboriginal. These are real people, and one of them is my sister.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of additional taxpayer funding are going into the Northern Territory right now to address the ever-increasing statistics in a population of just 247,000. This week the Northern Territory coroner opened an inquiry into why the deaths of four Aboriginal women who endured long-term domestic violence had not been prevented. The coroner highlighted systems that failed not only the victims and their families but the individuals working to help them. Also impacted by this trauma are children—children who are likely, if not already, to be well represented in the youth justice and child protection statistics.

Amidst this crisis the Albanese government has still not delivered the promised 500 much-needed frontline community workers across Australia. Two hundred workers were supposed to be on the ground by the end of June and yet by 30 June there is not likely to be a single new worker.

With the lack of a transition plan with the ending of the cashless debit card, the lifting of alcohol restrictions and hundreds of millions of dollars going into Central Australia, the wellbeing of local children is not being measured to understand the change. There's not nearly enough peer review or independent evaluation of new and existing programs to ensure maximum impact from this investment, and it's well past the time for much-needed further investigation.