FAMILY AND DOMESTIC
VIOLENCE — FUNDING
488. Mrs L.M. HARVEY to the Premier:
How does the Premier respond to
serious issues raised by the not-for-profit sector, and to quote from an email
we have received, that ''from 1 July, over 1 200 women, children and men
who experience or perpetrate family and domestic violence will no longer
receive critical frontline FDV services as a consequence of the negotiation of
new service contracts, with insufficient funding''?
Mr M. McGOWAN
replied:
The opposition raised this before
question time. I thought that the Minister for Prevention of Family and
Domestic Violence did an outstanding job answering all the questions that were
asked. I took note of what she had to say. I must say that the government has
done an enormous amount to deal with this issue over its time in office. I want
to take the Leader of the Opposition through it because I think this answers
the question she just asked me.
Since coming to government, we have
invested an additional amount of more than $53 million in protecting the
victims of family and domestic violence, including $11.7 million for family and
domestic violence one-stop-shops; $8.25 million
for additional women's refuges; $7.5 million for additional financial
counselling services; $2.6 million for Breathing Space establishments
for male perpetrators, which obviously assists in getting the perpetrator away from the home; $2.1 million for a specialist
domestic violence unit in the Western Australia Police Force; $1.7 million
for culturally appropriate services for
victims; and a range of other services around regional Western Australia in particular.
The Family Violence Legislation
Reform Bill, which is currently before the Legislative Council, contains some
of the most important amendments to the law surrounding this area ever passed
by the Western Australian Parliament. Hopefully, we will get it through the
Legislative Council. If the Leader of the Opposition can assist us with that, it would be helpful. That legislation allows
offenders to be subject to electronic monitoring; makes it easier to apply
for a violence restraining order; creates an offence for breaching a family
violence restraining order; creates new offences
for non-fatal strangulation and persistent family violence; provides new
aggravated penalties for family violence; introduces new serial family violence
offender declarations and jury directions to counter stereotypes, myths and
misconceptions on family and domestic violence; and allows evidence of FDV to
be introduced into criminal trials. Our Residential Tenancies Legislation
Amendment (Family Violence) Bill supports the victims of family and domestic
violence to get out of tenancies, and is supported by the Real Estate Institute
of Western Australia. Our Criminal Law Amendment (Intimate Images) Bill—so-called
revenge porn laws—was passed by Parliament last year. It is a huge suite of measures on family and domestic violence.
When we think about all of them together, combined with the pets-in-crisis
initiative, the fact that we have a dedicated minister, the 16 Days in WA to
Stop Violence against Women campaign and the additional money for women's
refuges, we can see that the government has put in place a huge suite of
initiatives to deal with family and domestic violence. We are proud of the fact
that all those things have been put in place during the course of this
government. There has not been a government in living memory that has put as
much emphasis on preventing family and domestic violence in Western Australia.