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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Wong) to a question without notice I asked today relating to funding for family, domestic and sexual violence services.

I asked why the government is still underfunding family, domestic and sexual violence services, and what I received was a list of very welcome but inadequate and insufficient announcements that the government has made. People might realise that National Cabinet, last Friday, announced an amount of funds for family, domestic and sexual violence, but, unfortunately, that amount is still only 78 per cent of what the women's safety sector says it needs to meet demand—and that was on figures from about six years ago; I am convinced that demand will have increased since then, given the important awareness raising and the public discussion we've had around this issue.

Seventy-eight per cent means one in four women may not get the funding and the support they need from frontline services when they reach out for help to flee violence. I asked the government, 'Why are you prohibiting women from getting the support they need when you can find money for nuclear submarines—$368 billion over a decade—and when you can find money for property investor subsidies, which is making the housing crisis worse—$159 billion over 10 years—and when you can find money for fossil fuel subsidies to the tune of $11 billion every single year, yet you can't find 100 per cent of what frontline services say they need to meet demand, to help everyone who reaches out when they're trying to flee violence to stay safe and to start a fresh life?' I didn't get a satisfactory answer, but what I conclude is that that is an indictment on this government's priorities.

On top of the fact that 78 per cent is totally inadequate, money on paper is no guarantee that the services will actually get that money. Previous federal funding under the plan has disappeared into state government administration, with no transparency on where it ends up, and services say they are not getting it. We desperately need more transparency of funding under the national plan.

On that note, it's not clear to me whether there has in fact been a reduction in funding under the national partnership agreement for the money under the national plan that goes to states and territories. Over the five years it's about $70.2 million per year, but existing funding is $79 million per year—so it looks to me like there's actually been a cut of $9 million over the next five years in money going to the states and territories to prevent violence against women and to fund frontline services. I'm going to pursue that in estimates because that would be a complete outrage if that is in fact what the figures suggest.

It's extremely disappointing that National Cabinet kicked the can down the road on alcohol sales. We heard absolutely nothing about gambling advertising; it's been in the papers and in the press for weeks and weeks now, and we are still waiting to hear from the government whether they will do anything at all to ban gambling advertising. We know that gambling and the financial insecurity it causes can be a huge exacerbator of violence. The Albanese government is failing families until it bans gambling advertising.

There are some other positive things in the National Cabinet announcement. But despite the headline on community legal centre funding, it looks like only a fraction of that will be new money that will go to new staff. It will be shared amongst four types of legal assistance providers over five years—so only a fraction will go to community legal centres, yet each week a thousand women are turned away from a legal service because those services don't get enough funding. You could not fund submarines, property investors or fossil fuel subsidies, and you could fully fund women's safety. Please do so.

Question agreed to.