FAMILY AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE — GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
791. Ms S.E. WINTON to the Minister for Prevention of Family
and Domestic Violence:
I refer to the McGowan Labor
government's unprecedented efforts to combat family and domestic
violence and its commitment to keeping women safe. Noting that it is day 5 of
the 16 Days in WA campaign, can the minister update the house on the
investments this government has made and measures it has implemented to prevent
family and domestic violence in WA?
Ms S.F. McGURK
replied:
I thank the member for the question,
and I also thank all members of this house who are supporting this important campaign. We are in the sixth year of 16 Days in
WA and I hope members agree with me that the campaign is going from
strength to strength, not only with those who have been along for the ride for
the last six years, but also in extending its reach for those who are
interested and understand that if we are going to stop high rates of violence
against women in our community, we all have a role to play—absolutely.
That is what this campaign is about. The tagline
is: ending violence against women—it's everybody's
business. I mean that for all of us here. I mean that in the message we
are giving to employers in terms of these issues that are going on in
workplaces and to community leaders, sporting leaders and family members out
there. It is about how they talk to young people and demonstrate respect for
women in their own lives. As we know, sadly, the place where women are most
likely to be unsafe in our community is actually in their own homes.
On Friday, the 16 Days campaign
kicked off. We had an important early morning event at Optus Stadium. I thank
all those who attended, including the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party. Thank
you for coming, member for Vasse and member for North West Central, and also a number
of government ministers and members as well. That was good.
We also announced the expansion of
our Respectful Relationships training into community and sporting groups. West Coast
Eagles player Tom Barrass spoke very eloquently and powerfully about his work
as a sporting leader in understanding these
issues and calling out bad behaviour. This will be good work. These resources
will be available at a community level for clubs to pick up and take to
understand domestic violence and violence against women in their own
organisations.
This morning we had the Seven West
Media business breakfast. That was really well attended, and I thank the number of ministers who were there. The Premier
was the keynote speaker. Over 400 community and business leaders were
there; it was well attended, so thank you.
We also had the silent
memorial march through the streets of the CBD, and the police minister and I held
the banner as we worked our way
through the city. Again, I thank those members of this chamber who were at that
march; it was very, very powerful. We heard from some of the people who have
been left behind by those who have been killed by domestic violence. It does
cause you to take pause and think about why we are doing this and how domestic
violence presents in many ways, but the worst, of course, is when there is
homicide—death results. It is terrible.
The
Premier made an announcement at the breakfast this morning that there will be
an $11 million boost to domestic violence joint response teams. This
will fund 34 more workers. They are going to be family safety workers who will
be embedded in the joint response team. They will be phased in over the next
couple of years, but over the next 12 months, there will be an initial
investment in 14 of those workers. They do the important work of triaging and
examining the incident reports from police and following up individual cases to
make sure that proper risk assessment is done and contact is made, particularly
with victim–survivors, but also perpetrators. That is on top of $7.7 million
to look at more training and increased capacity of those joint response teams
across the state. We announced 17 of those joint response teams earlier.
That brings the total of new
spending since we came to government to $160 million—in fact, it is
over $160 million of new spending. It is significant. Since coming to
government, state government recurrent funding has gone from $49 million to $89
million a year. That is on top of law reform support for victim–survivors
in residential tenancies.
Mr W.J. Johnston interjected.
Ms S.F. McGURK: Yes; thank
you, minister. Not everyone in this chamber supported it at the time, I am
sorry to say, but it has been supported by
the real estate industry quite powerfully, understanding that it is everyone's
business to support these changes.
Neonatal
screening in the public health system and respectful relationships in schools—a
whole lot of work has been done and continues to be done. We are
determined to do everything we can to arrest high rates of violence against
women in our community. Stopping this violence is everybody's business.