MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS

Senator WATERS (Queensland—Leader of the Australian Greens) (17:58): I rise to speak to the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner's 2026 report to parliament. Recent headlines make this issue seem particularly timely, but domestic, family and sexual violence is a problem all the time, not just when it's in the media spotlight. I thank the commissioner, Micaela Cronin, and her team for their work in this traumatic space.

In particular, I would like to acknowledge Holly Supple-Gurruwiwi, co-chair of the commission's Lived Experience Advisory Council, for her poignant words in the report. She says: From a First Nations worldview, knowledge carries responsibility. … … … We carry responsibility to those beside us. We create better conditions for those who come after us.

This report, and many before it, gives us knowledge that carries a responsibility. At least 35 women have been killed by violence already this year. That's according to a volunteer organisation, Counting Dead Women, because this government doesn't keep the statistics.

At least 39,758 women were sexually assaulted in Australia last year. Women living with disability are still three times more likely to experience domestic, family or sexual violence. First Nations women are still 27 times more likely to be hospitalised by assault.

We owe it to all of these women and children to act urgently. We owe it to all of the victims-survivors and the experts who've contributed to numerous inquiries, reliving their trauma in the hopes that their experience would cause some action and would shape reforms. Responsibility means properly funding the long, slow, hard work of changing attitudes and behaviour and the workforce needed to do that work.

We need to engage with men and boys about violence prevention strategies, about healthy masculinity, about consent and about respect and to build skills for better communication and for healthy relationships. We need to tackle the ready access to pornography that is normalising violent sexual practices with tragic consequences. Making online spaces and content safer has to be a priority, but it can't happen in isolation from other prevention work and from a dedicated and well-funded crisis response.

I welcome the commissioner's recognition that we need to invest in the conditions that enable safety and recovery. Housing and economic security are women's safety issues. If women and children can't afford to leave and have nowhere to go, then they can't escape violence.

They have to choose between violence and homelessness. Every year, nearly 12,000 women and children are turned away from short-term accommodation. Of those who can get in to crisis accommodation, 60 per cent are not able to find stable housing by the time they leave, and that often means returning to a violent perpetrator because they have nowhere else to go.

It would cost around $4.6 billion to build public housing for those 12,000 women and children that are currently missing out. Giving them a place to go would mean giving them an opportunity to escape violence and rebuild their lives. If Labor is actually serious in its commitment to end violence, then it needs to get serious about funding housing.

We know that too many women and children are left in poverty because of financial abuse from current or former partners. I welcome this morning's announcement of reforms to prevent weaponisation of the child support system—long overdue but welcome reforms—and I welcome the moves today to allow limited debts to be excused. This is a good first step, but more is needed.

Waivers for all debts accrued through financial abuse, penalties for financial advisers who are complicit in that abuse and funding for specialist financial abuse support services—that's what we need to see. I agree with the commissioner that we need to invest in prevention and early intervention programs. A headline in the ABC this afternoon says: Plibersek says she wants to see greater investment in violence prevention.

Great. You're the government. Dedicate the funds to that very purpose.

Prevention funding can't come at the expense of crisis-funding responses. Every week, 225 women are turned away from crisis accommodation. Women's legal services are turning away 52,000 people a year because they can't keep up with demand.

Funding to 1800RESPECT, while welcome, just creates more referrals to specialist sexual violence services who are already full. The waitlist keeps getting longer. Women are forced to wait for months for expert sexual violence support at a time when they need that support the most.

Every barrier and every delay is traumatic and makes women feel less safe. We don't even know the scale of the unmet need on the front line because the work to gather that data is still not done. I have been asking for 10 years in Senate estimates for that work to be done.

The AIHW's pilot study, which was reluctantly commenced, is now years overdue and was recently extended again. We already know, though, that the crisis response sector is at breaking point, and the government needs to step up. Of course we should be working towards a future free from violence.

In the meantime, we cannot let women and children experiencing violence right now fall through the cracks. The commissioner's report talks about the need for hope, and, in the House, the minister talked about the need for belief. We need hope and belief, but they don't pay the bills.

Hope and belief won't keep services doors open or build the workforce needed to address the scale of the crisis. Hope and belief won't build homes. It takes long-term secure funding, and until this government stumps up the cash and holds state governments to account, things are not going to get better.

But there is some cause for hope. I want to acknowledge Our Ways Strong Together, the First Nations led national body working to end violence against Aboriginal women and children. First Nations women know what needs to happen in their communities.

The national plan is a transformational first step in empowering them to get on and do it. We need to make sure they're given the funding support that they need and a workforce development strategy to build the capacity of Aboriginal controlled organisations to lead on actions to protect women and children. There is always hope because of the people who work across this sector.

Every day, I am deeply grateful and actually in awe of the staff who give their all for women and children in crisis and create the conditions for an Australia without violence.