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

It has been a horrific start to the year. In just 12 weeks in 2024, at least 15 women have been killed by partners in domestic and family violence, many in most tragic circumstances: run over by a sugar cane slasher, strangled, beaten, burned, stabbed—just too dreadful for words. Imagine living it day in, day out. Every day, every person matters in domestic and family violence. In addition to the dead women, at least 20 children will never again have the privilege of sharing their lives with their loved ones.

The Northern Territory has some of the highest rates of domestic and family violence in the world. The family violence related assault rate in the Territory is three times that of the national average. In five years, family related offences have risen by nearly 40 per cent in Western Australia. Queensland police have experienced increased rates, receiving more than 171,000 family and domestic violence reports last year. In my home state of South Australia, family and domestic abuse related crime rose by 12 per cent. But what can't be forgotten is that this is only the tip of the iceberg.

During the past four weeks, I've met with many family and domestic violence frontline workers and organisations. At round tables at the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria and in Adelaide and in meetings in Canberra and Melbourne, the story is one of exasperation and frustration. The vital services talk of too much talk, too many announcements, not enough action and not enough impact. All are singing from the same tragic song sheet. Services are stretched to their limits. For example, new data collected by the 13 women's legal services nationally has found that 1,018 attempts to receive assistance were turned away during a five-day period. That translates to the guesstimate of more than 52,000 being turned away each year. There's no excuse for domestic violence, but it is known that financial distress, tied to the cost of living, is a driver. Help phone lines and text message services report increased calls for help. Services are frustrated by short-term funding trial programs that show promise but are not continued. The sector is under siege. It simply can't keep up with demand.

Meanwhile, it's a turtle pace from the Albanese government. It's in charge of the Treasury. It is the relevant minister that runs the department responsible. The minister and the department release the funds to the states and territories, and ultimately it is the minister that is accountable for outcomes. An announcement is not an outcome. It was quite some time ago that Minister Rishworth and Prime Minister Albanese announced the rollout of workers for critical frontline services. Way back, while on the election hustings, the Labor government promised 500 new frontline workers for the community services and family domestic violence sector. It featured in the October 2022 budget. Schedules were signed by mid-2023, yet it took around eight months for two workers—just two workers!—to be in place. Despite more than 50 women being killed in intimate partner violence in 2023 and escalating rates of domestic and family violence in every corner of our nation, only two of those 500 workers had been confirmed as being employed by the time of the February estimates hearings.

It was only through Senate estimates processes that the truth of the woeful progress on delivery was exposed—the same Senate estimates where answers to hundreds of questions from the previous estimates were provided nine minutes before the next estimates. So much for transparency—another broken promise! In the following weeks, Minister Rishworth was quoted as saying that 17 full-time-equivalent workers had been hired—17 out of 500. That's not progress. It's a fail. Still, that is better than two out of 500, which came out in the Senate estimates in late February.

There's no excuse for violence. There is no excuse for Prime Minister Albanese standing in the parliament on 27 November saying that he had taken immediate action. That was simply not true. In this place, every single one of us is on a unity ticket on the need to address domestic and family violence in all its forms. We all want the national plan and the two action plans to end violence against women and their children and the actions that support men, women and children to prevent, intervene, respond, recover and heal to make progress. The sector has said what needs to be done. The Albanese government has the roadmap and simply needs to get on with it—no excuses, no delay. Just get on with it. You have the roadmap.