MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Mr WILKIE (Clark) (15:12): In Australia, the most likely perpetrator of sexual abuse against an adolescent is an adolescent boy. Let that sink in. That single fact should stop this parliament in its tracks, but, instead, many are still debating whether this problem is even serious enough to warrant action.
Heavens—some boys and men, echoed by leaders and commentators in our community, even believe that gender equality has gone too far. Meanwhile, a woman dies every nine days in this country at the hands of a current or former partner. In other words, this problem is not solved and it's not fading away.
Rather, it's getting worse in some of the ways that matter most. For instance, in our schools, teachers are raising the alarm. Indeed, three in four teachers report witnessing or experiencing sexism or misogyny in their own schools.
What's more, within 25 minutes of a young man signing up to a social media platform, he's being fed misogynistic content, and this misogyny does not stay confined to the classroom or the screen. It follows boys into adulthood—into workplaces, relationships and locker rooms. It's not some abstract concept.
The culture of misogyny is the soil that violence grows in. In my home state of Tasmania, 672 people have applied for the leaving violence program payment since it began last year. Almost 90 per cent of them were women.
This is undoubtedly an important investment to support victims-survivors, but it's also a reminder that prevention and early intervention must remain a priority, which they too often aren't. If they were, we'd see attitudes improve. Instead, some harmful attitudes are becoming more entrenched.
We are failing our young people on both sides of this equation. Women and children overwhelmingly bear the consequences of violence. That is unacceptable.
But the men who perpetrate it are also being failed. They're rarely held to account or given the tools to build healthy, respectful relationships. In Tasmania, there are 400 identified serial family-violence offenders, yet the program built for them has an 18 to 24 month waiting list in the south of the state.
Meanwhile, the state government cuts resources to a justice system already notorious for retraumatising victims-survivors. Nationally, it's no better. In New South Wales, six victims-survivors are turned away from homelessness services each day.
In Victoria, almost 4,000 people a year seeking family violence support get none at all. In the ACT, the crisis service can only answer half its calls. I recently met with a group of mothers who shared their experience of surviving domestic violence with me.
I was especially disturbed to hear how difficult it is for the young children who have witnessed violence to access the specialist support they so desperately need, with waiting lists running to three years, even though, according to the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, with proper support and safety measures, children and young people can heal and recover from the impacts of family violence.
Too many Tasmanian children are being denied that chance. This is deeply disturbing, because research shows that children who witness violence against their mother are 2½ times more likely to become victims of intimate partner domestic violence themselves. Moreover, witnessing domestic violence as a young person is the highest risk factor associated with going on to perpetrate violence in adult relationships.
Under the existing arrangements, 23,000 people across the country who need sexual violence support aren't currently receiving it. What are we going to do about it? There's no shortage of solutions from those on the front lines.
What has been lacking is adequate stable funding. For instance, frontline sexual assault services suggest they need $240 million a year, an increase of $80 million. What's more, in this year's federal budget, the government committed a meagre $308 million over five years.
That's just $61 million a year to address family, domestic and sexual violence. Compare this to the $2.5 billion the federal and New South Wales governments jointly committed to save an aluminium smelter in Tomago, and that puts the government's priorities into perspective. We must do more, all of us in every way.
We must support programs that promote healthy masculinity and respectful relationships for boys and men before the harm is done, and we must adequately fund support services for women and children when they need it most, because every day of delay is another day someone is turned away, waitlisted or, far too often, killed.