FAMILY AND DOMESTIC
VIOLENCE — SERVICE DELIVERY
935. Ms
A. SANDERSON to the Minister for Prevention of Family and Domestic
Violence:
I
refer to the McGowan Labor government's significant investment in
services and initiatives to support victims of family and domestic violence. Can the minister update the house on how
this government's unprecedented investment in services and its
record legislative reform are helping to protect vulnerable Western Australians,
particularly as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic?
Ms S.F.
McGURK replied:
I would like to thank the member for
this question and also for her ongoing support and interest in addressing these
complex issues. Unfortunately, as many members would know, it was only two
years ago that the member had a horror family homicide in her electorate, in
what was a terrible year for family-related violence in this state.
There is a lot to do, as we have
said many times. I look forward next week—on 25 November—to
marking the beginning of our annual campaign 16 Days in WA to Stop Violence
Against Women. We have been running that campaign since we came to government
in 2017 and it is about drawing attention to the many impacts of violence
against women and to what we can all do to make sure that we play a role in
stopping that violence. If women and children are not safe in their homes, in
their most trusted relationships, in their workplaces and online, the impacts can be severe. One in five women in WA report
having experienced partner violence since the age of 15. One in five—that is the highest figure in the country. There
is no mistaking this problem for our state. That is why 16 Days in WA is
such an important campaign. It is about encouraging leaders, whether they be
state, regional or local, and from all sectors and all industries, to be part
of the conversation about what we can all do, individually and collectively, to
end violence against women. The campaign is about changing the conditions that
allow victim blaming to occur. Unfortunately, views such as ''Why doesn't
she just leave?'' or ''She must have provoked him'' can
stop survivors coming forward for help and support, and are still prevalent in
our society.
The McGowan government's
action and investment in prevention of domestic violence is clear. I am proud
to say that when it comes to providing help and support to respond to and to
reduce domestic violence, our government's record speaks for itself. We
have responded with practical support and assistance to victims. Prior to the
COVID pandemic, we had committed over $53 million of additional funding to new
measures including two new women's refuges,
establishing two one-stop family domestic hubs, introducing a pets in crisis
program with the RSPCA, setting up family and domestic violence
screening during pregnancy checks, training about domestic violence for police officers, reinstating funding for financial
counselling services and establishing a second residential men's
behaviour change program known as Breathing Space.
In July, as a result of the COVID-19
pandemic, we announced a number of additional measures to deliver increased
support to the tune of $23 million as part of our recovery plan to keep the
state safe and strong. That includes $8.6 million for additional domestic
violence outreach workers in refuges around the state; $6.7 million to bolster
17 family and domestic violence response teams, with additional community
people placed within those response teams;
more than $100 000 to go to a job retraining pilot for women in refuges; and
more than $1 million for two years of
counselling, advocacy and support services. We have also boosted the capacity
of the new refuges so that there will be an additional $4 million to double the
number of families who are able to be supported through those refuges.
Of course, with the
assistance of the Attorney General, we have extensive family violence law
reform, including the new criminal offences of suffocation,
strangulation and persistent family violence; improving access to restraining
orders, which includes being able to lodge those applications online; enabling
the court to declare a person a serial family violence offender—this
declaration is the first of its kind in Australia—and the trialling of
a GPS tracking system for family and
domestic violence offenders. The two-year trial involves GPS tracking of up to
100 high-risk offenders who have breached a family violence restraining
order and committed a further act of violence.
Finally, we have changed the Residential Tenancies Act to
better meet the needs of tenants who are survivors of family and domestic
violence. They can now choose to stay or leave their tenancies and, if needed,
make their rental homes safer, including lock changes and other security
upgrades.
When it comes to stopping
family violence, there is always more to done, but I am proud to be a part of
the McGowan Labor government which
takes this issue seriously and has followed up that commitment with concrete
action for reform.