Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the response by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Senator Watt) to a question asked by Senator McKim, and the response by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to a question asked by Senator Waters.

Here we are again today, talking about rushed, slipshod, xenophobic legislation introduced to fix last week's rushed, slipshod, xenophobic legislation. The Labor Party has clearly learned nothing from last week. Last week they handed over the keys to the bus to Mr Dutton, they handed over the rego papers of the bus to Mr Dutton and they handed over the steering wheel and all of the controls of the bus to Mr Dutton. The Labor Party let Mr Dutton confect a national emergency and put pressure on them, and then we watched the Labor Party engage in a craven surrender and trample refugee rights with hasty and xenophobic legislation. Here we go again. The same thing is going to happen this week.

Today proves beyond doubt that Mr Dutton continues to exert undue influence over refugee legislation, and immigration policy more broadly, from the opposition benches. The Labor Party never learns that when you try to appease people like Mr Dutton they will take everything you have to offer, then take another giant step to the right and go again, and he is going again this week. The Labor Party might as well just make Peter Dutton the minister for home affairs again and be done with it, because that is the level of influence he is exerting over the Labor Party which have now, of course, adopted the Liberals' policy on refugees, stateless people and trampling human rights.

The Labor Party talks a lot about making our communities safe, but in fact, the Labor Party's response to the High Court decision has been far more about making the Labor Party safe from Mr Dutton than it has been about making our communities safe. It's time that we in this parliament worked together to uphold human rights and refugee rights, not trample them.

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

This year already 54 women have been killed by violence, and in just this month of November, in one week, we have seen six women killed—five of them by men they knew. It's clear that men's violence against women and children is an epidemic, and it's past time that government policies reflected this urgency to tackle violence against women and their children. First Nations women, women from culturally diverse backgrounds, women in regional areas, older women, LGBTIQ+ women and women with a disability are even more likely to experience violence.

Saturday 25 November was International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and we're now on day 3 of 16 days of activism on this issue. Every year on that day we all recommit to ending sexual and physical violence against women around the world, but frontline support services are still underfunded and women and children are still being turned away as a result of that underfunding. Enough with the empty promises. Enough with ignoring the impact of financial insecurity and housing stress on women's capacity to leave. Enough with underfunding the services that women reach out to you in a crisis.

The government has said it wants to end violence against women within a generation, but it's not stumping up the money to do that. The total federal funding commitment over the next five years is $2.23 billion. That sounds good until you realise it's less than half of what the women's safety sector have said they need to meet current demand and help everyone who is currently seeking their help, let alone anyone who seeks help in the future.

Labor speaks about difficult choices in the budget. They're spending $313 billion on tax cuts for the very wealthy, but no, they're too poor to afford $1 billion a year for women escaping violence. It's worse than disappointing; it's a betrayal. The housing crisis is felt even more acutely by women and children experiencing family and domestic violence, and women are being forced to choose between abuse and homelessness. Women on low wages or income support are especially vulnerable, yet this government persists in refusing to increase JobSeeker to above the poverty line. You need to not just say the words; you've got to cough up the dough and help fix this.

Question agreed to.