MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle—Deputy Speaker) (11:46): I rise to speak on the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission's yearly report. I want to begin by acknowledging victims-survivors of family and domestic and sexual violence, remembering especially the women and children whose lives have been so tragically taken by senseless acts of violence. I also acknowledge Commissioner Cronin and the commission team and the advocates and organisations who work tirelessly to support victims-survivors and prevent violence.
This report is an important reminder that ending violence against women and children is not a task that can be completed with one law, one program or one announcement. It requires sustained effort and it requires governments to work together. It requires cultural change, and it requires us to listen to the people and organisations who see the reality of this violence every single day.
That is particularly important to me as the member for Newcastle, because, while we rightly talk about national statistics and national policy—that is our role—the impact of family and domestic and sexual violence is felt keenly in communities like mine. It's felt by women who need somewhere safe to go, it's felt by children who are witnessing violence at home, it's felt by frontline workers supporting people through some of the most difficult times of their lives and it's felt by families trying to navigate systems that can sometimes be difficult to understand and even harder to access.
That is why I was pleased to host a Newcastle roundtable to end violence against women and children with the assistant minister, Ged Kearney, last week. The roundtable brought together a group of extraordinary women and organisations from across the region. We were joined by Nova for Women and Children, Family Support Newcastle, Hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network, Got Your Back Sista, the Centre for Women's Health Research, the Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education, Relationships Australia, the Hunter Domestic and Family Violence Consortium, Hunter Women's Centre, Hunter Community Legal Centre, Jenny's Place and the Victims of Crime Assistance League.
These organisations work across different parts of the system, but they share a common goal: keeping women and children safe. Bringing them together was an important opportunity to hear directly about what's happening on the ground. One of the strongest messages was that prevention cannot sit in its own little separate box.
It has to be part of everything we do. Prevention means helping families before they reach crisis point. It means giving children the opportunity to learn what respectful relationships look like.
It means challenging attitudes that excuse controlling or abusive behaviour. It means working with people who use violence to change their behaviours. It means making sure that people know where to turn when something doesn't feel right.
Prevention doesn't mean taking our eye off the services that people already need when they are experiencing violence today. It's not about excusing people for their behaviours either. For someone experiencing violence, a policy that might make a difference five years from now doesn't help them tonight.
They need somewhere safe to go. They need someone to believe in them. They need legal advice, health care, financial support, housing or counselling and they need the services to be able to work together.
That was a very clear message from our Newcastle roundtable. When someone is experiencing family, domestic or sexual violence, their life does not fit neatly into government portfolios. Their housing situation is generally connected to their financial circumstances.
Their financial circumstances will affect their ability to leave. Their health might be affected by the violence. Their children might require support.
They might need legal support at the same time. Yet too often our systems are structured around individual services rather than the whole person. We need to make it easier for people to move between these services.
A victim-survivor should not have to become an expert at navigating government systems simply to get help, and they should not have to tell their story repeatedly because agencies are not communicating with each other. That's where the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission's work is so valuable. It provides an opportunity to look beyond individual programs and ask whether the system is actually keeping people safe.
The government has made significant investments in this area including the permanent Leaving Violence Program, the support for crisis accommodation and housing and the increased support for frontline services. The national risk assessment framework is another important step. When somebody presents to a GP, a police officer, a social worker or another service, we need to make sure that warning signs are recognised and that the response does not depend on which door they happen to walk through first.
We need to look upstream. We need to ask why violence is occurring in the first place and what we can do to stop it. That means challenging gender inequality and attitudes that normalise disrespect.
It means teaching young people about consent and healthy relationships. Increasingly, it means confronting what young people are seeing and learning online. Technology has changed the environment in which our children are growing up.
Young people can encounter misogyny, violent pornography and degrading material with just a few taps on their phone. Parents and teachers are doing their best, but they cannot be expected to carry that responsibility alone. Technology companies also have a great responsibility for the very environments that they are creating.
Government has a responsibility to make sure that those companies meet safety standards, and all of us have a responsibility to have conversations with young people about respect, consent and what a healthy relationship actually looks like. As a government, we're already meeting that with our world-leading social media ban and the incoming digital duty of care laws.
They are really important new measures, and I am very proud that this government has taken on those big battles. Importantly, prevention has to begin early, and we cannot wait for a young person to already be using violence before we decide intervention is necessary. We need to reach boys early.
We need to give them positive role models of masculinity. We need to teach them that strength does not mean control, that consent is fundamental and that respectful boundaries are non-negotiable. We need to make sure that prevention efforts reach all our communities.
That includes listening to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and supporting approaches that reflect experiences and strengths. It means recognising there's no single pathway into violence and no single solution. It means that we make sure that regional communities like Newcastle have access to the same quality of support as the people that live in our capital cities.
There is much work to be done on this front. Governments, of course, play a critical role. We're funding the services.
We're making laws. We regulate systems. We're bringing governments and organisations together.
But we cannot be in every home, in every classroom, in every workplace, in every sporting club, at every minute. That's where the rest of us all come in. We can challenge a joke that isn't funny.
We can take a disclosure seriously. We can teach our children that love is never an excuse for control. We can model respectful relationships.
We can speak up when we see behaviour that crosses a line. We can make sure that the people around us know that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. These may seem like small things, but social change is always small, slow and incremental in Australia.
It happens because people decide that something which was once tolerated is no longer acceptable. We have seen change in Australia before. Family and domestic violence was once routinely dismissed as a private matter never to be discussed in public forums like a parliament.
Today we've got a much stronger understanding about what violence means. It is a matter of public responsibility and a matter of justice. We have to take every step we can to curb this scourge.
Newcastle organisations that I met with last week are already doing this important work. They are up to the task. They are leading important ways in which we connect these services.
There are great models that the rest of the nation can learn from too. Debate adjourned.