Speech to Bayside Women’s Shelter

I want to acknowledge the work of those of you here who work at Bayside Women’s Shelter, for what you do day in day out. It takes a remarkable amount of dedication and commitment to stand with people in some of their worst days and help see them through to something better. 

It is genuinely a gift that lasts people a lifetime, fuelled by a deep reservoir of hope and optimism – but I know there must be many days when it also feels like you’re running on empty, and it shouldn’t be that way. 

When it comes to speaking about addressing domestic violence in our community, I am acutely aware that a big part of the problem is an all too familiar one:

So many words over the years, and still too little action. 

I am keenly aware of the number of times I have spoken about this crisis.

Of the number of women and children who continue to die at the hands of partners and former partners.

Of the trauma survivors who continue to battle every day.

On average one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner. One in four women have experienced family violence and one in five women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. 

Australian police deal with a domestic violence matter every two minutes - with an estimated 657 domestic violence matters - on average - every single day of the year. 

We also know how violence and the threat of violence affects children. It is trauma that stays with a child for years, and into adulthood. 

But it is not my intention to keep speaking about these stories without also doing something to make sure there are far fewer that demand to be told. 

That is the privilege of government. It is the opportunity to see a wrong and work to put it right. 

When Labor came to government in 2007, we were determined to tackle the epidemic of violence against women and children. 

Kevin Rudd and Tanya Plibersek set up the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children and asked them for recommendations. 

The Council’s recommendation led to the creation of the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children. That plan expires next year. 

We saw the creation of a national hotline – 1800RESPECT, a violence prevention body, Our Watch, and the Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS). 

These years represented one of the most productive and progressive periods for women’s safety policy. 

Labor did not miss the opportunity presented by government in 2007, nor will we in 2022.

Government needs to do more. 

The attempt to make women in crisis drain their own superannuation accounts to be able to escape a violent relationship shows that some just don’t get it. 

On International Women’s Day, the Prime Minister said “I want women to rise, but not at the expense of men.” 

And on the extraordinary day of the March 4 Justice, he didn’t walk the handful of metres from Parliament House to listen to and learn from those women of power and courage. 

He stayed in his office and later gave a speech about how good it was that women could protest in Australia without getting shot.

It remains one of the most out-of-touch things I have ever heard in Parliament.

The fact is, funding for crucial family violence services hasn’t kept pace with the increase in demand from women and children trying to escape violent relationships. 

Almost ten thousand women a year are turned away from shelters, 1 in 3 calls to legal assistance go unanswered and police are called to a domestic violence incidence every two minutes. 

Frontline workers are crying out for back up. 

We need to invest in safe, affordable, and appropriate housing for women and children fleeing violence.

The result is that too many women are faced with the impossible choice of staying in an abusive relationship, or fleeing to face homelessness and poverty. 

While the response of Bayside Women’s Shelter is admirable, it is tragic that frontline organisations find themselves having to raise desperately needed funds through events like this because government funding is inadequate. 

It cannot be that in a country as fortunate as this one, we are unable to find the funds that are needed to keep women and children safe and with a roof over their heads. 

Frontline services across the country cannot be forced to rely on community fundraisers – no matter how well organised and attended they are. 

Resourcing these services is a fundamental obligation of governments. 

And yet, that is exactly what is happening. Even the Government’s own services are failing. 

A recent review of Centrelink services for women experiencing family violence found long wait times, poor decision-making, and few opportunities for women to speak to expert social workers and get support.

Victim-survivors of domestic and sexual violence rely on government services to support them, to keep them safe and to help rebuild their lives. They are being let down, every day.

I said I would not miss the opportunity to set things right in government. 

I don’t imagine our task to be easy, but I know it to be absolutely necessary if we are to create a world in which all Australians can live their fullest lives. 

If we are to put a stop to lives cut so horribly short.

A stop to women and children living in a state of perpetual vigilance.

And a stop to poverty so often being the consequence of escaping violence.

Then we must act with urgency, creativity, and ambition. 

Labor has already announced several policies for women escaping violent situations. Our focus is on providing women with the housing and economic support they need to establish a safe life.

No woman should have to choose between her job and leaving an abusive situation. 

That’s why Australia should have 10 days paid domestic violence leave.

We know that First Nations women are 11 times more likely to die as a result of an assault, than non-Indigenous women. 

First Nations women are hospitalised for family violence at 32 times the rate of non-Indigenous women.

This is why we need a separate national plan for First Nations people to end violence against women and family violence. The plan must be sufficient in scale and ambition and properly resourced to make a difference. 

Racism and gender inequality help drive unacceptably high rates of violence and we cannot ignore them. Ending violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women must be a national priority. 

On any given day, women’s crisis accommodation services across Australia will have to tell women fleeing violence they have no room to house them or their children. They will sleep in their car. Or go back to a dangerous situation.

That’s why, as part of our Housing Australia Future Fund, Labor will allocate an additional 4,000 units of social housing to women and children experiencing family violence and older women on lower incomes.

We will also provide $100 million for crisis and transitional housing for these women. This gives survivors of violence the chance to rebuild their lives. 

As I mentioned earlier, the current national plan to reduce violence against women and their children expires this year. A consultation process is underway to develop a new one.

In developing the new plan, we need to build on what we have learnt about the nature of violence and extend the focus to prevention, early intervention and recovery. 

We also need to use the convening power of the Commonwealth to drive and coordinate change across jurisdictions and portfolios.

And importantly, we must recognise the context in which violence occurs.

Violence against women and their children is a function of inequality. 

Without addressing this – in all of its manifestations, whether it be workplace harassment, inequities in pay or sexism – we will never make lasting progress. 

We should fully embrace the recommendations of the Respect at Work report, including the duty of employers to ensure workplaces are free of sexual harassment. 

We need a government committed to decent pay and job security for women, to their independence in retirement, to properly funding essential services and care, and to safety at work, at home and in our communities.

Thank you again for what you do at Bayside Women’s Shelter, thank you for being here to make sure that work can continue. Your commitment is saving lives, and I’m honoured to stand with you.