Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews throws down a gauntlet on family violence

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This was published 7 years ago

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews throws down a gauntlet on family violence

By Moo Baulch

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews made a lot of people across Australia smile on Wednesday. Standing alongside his Minister for Women and Prevention of Family Violence, Fiona Richardson, Rosie Batty and family violence sector advocates, he announced that his state government was committing more than half a billion dollars to fix Victoria's broken family violence system. And that's just an initial two-year promise. Both Andrews and Richardson have made it clear this is just the first step in a longer term process to tackle domestic and family violence and to change attitudes towards women.

Less than a fortnight ago, the 2000-plus page, 227-recommendation report from Victoria's royal commission sent a message that if we are serious about addressing the scourge of intimate partner violence, governments must take huge, brave measures to fully fund the range of supports that women, families and communities so desperately need.

Since the royal commission reported, advocates have beenholding their breath to see whether the Victorian government would financially match its strong words on ending the deaths of women and children and their acceptance of all 227 measures.

Daniel's announcement of an immediate injection of $572 million to create new housing and crisis refuges for victim-survivors of violence as well as increasing the capacity of existing specialist services was met with astonishment and relief by advocates and survivors, not just in Victoria and not just in the family violence sector, but across the country in communities, corporates and childcare centres. Dedicated, affordable, long-term housing is a crucial part of the solution. This is the first time we have seen a government recognise the scale of investment required if we are going to address the violence and stop it from harming future generations.

Premier Daniel Andrews with Rosie Batty and Fiona Richardson in March 2016.

Premier Daniel Andrews with Rosie Batty and Fiona Richardson in March 2016.Credit: Eddie Jim

It is significant not just because it is an explicit recognition that family violence sector expertise should be valued, respected and resourced to meet demand, but also because it is the first time a government has recognised it is its responsibility to fix a system that is broken because of successive governments' failure to adequately fund the responses that work.

We've heard a lot of noise about violence against women and children since Luke Batty was brutally murdered by his father in February 2014. Since then his mother, Rosie, has ignited a national conversation that refuses to go away. Seventy-nine women were killed by violence last year. To date this year another 22 women have already been brutally murdered. When Malcolm Turnbull swooped in as the new prime minister in September last year and made his first policy announcement of $100 million largely for new initiatives to prevent and respond to domestic violence, he gave many Australians a renewed sense of hope that this would not just be talk.

For many of us in the sector, the more significant shift was in the language Turnbull used to describe the causes and effects of domestic and family violence. Our new prime minister told us this was about embedding respect for women in the heart of our culture and addressing violence-supportive attitudes. It was a welcome change and we hoped it would be the first step in a new recognition of the work of the chronically underfunded, stretched service system, matched with commitments to funding perpetrator initiatives, early intervention responses and long-term prevention programs.

Victoria's investment in change is vast in comparison with the federal government's expenditure and that of other states and territories. We've seen substantial cuts over recent times that have affected specialist domestic violence crisis support services, child and family support services, specialist and community legal services, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and other community-controlled services across the nation. We've had services being forced to compete with mainstream and partner services just to be able to deliver a fraction of the support needed by women and children escaping trauma and violence.

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Long-term working relationships have been shattered and countless evidence-based initiatives have been lost because all too often governments like to fund new approaches. What we really need is to fund trauma-specialist, diverse community and culturally appropriate responses as well as trying the new stuff. And we need it to be funded for significant periods of time so that services can try new approaches.

It's now well and truly time for Australian governments to put their money where their mouth is. The Council of Australian Government's report and recommendations were released late on Friday afternoon, the same week as the Victorian royal commission's report. Its recommendations are also significant and represent one part of the solution in terms of agreement between the jurisdictions but we could spend years arguing about who is responsible for what.

Instead Daniel Andrews has thrown down a gauntlet to his state and territory counterparts. He has acknowledged that the cost of family violence to Victoria goes way beyond the $3.1 billion that is estimated.

Ultimately, governments fund what we prioritise as a community. For decades, the domestic and family violence sector has been trying to tell us how bad the problem is and the scale of investment required to meet demand, but much of that has fallen on deaf ears in government.

In 2016 Australians have found a way to voice our collective outrage and grief at the impacts of the violence, and voters care about this issue across traditional party politics. The desire to change our national horror cuts across political divides. This is about human rights, our governments' responsibility to lead the way and an understanding that we all have to be part of the solution. For now we can look to Daniel Andrews and the Victorian government as leaders.

Moo Baulch is the chief executive officer of Domestic Violence NSW

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