Ministerial Statement

Gender-Based Violence, National Cabinet

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:06): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: The prevalence of gender-based violence in our community is unacceptable. For many people, it is difficult to fathom, but the hard truth is one woman a week in Australia is murdered by her current or former partner. Tragically, there have been 28 women murdered so far this year across Australia, which is clearly unacceptable, and it does represent a national crisis. While there are already national efforts underway for implementation of a National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children, it is clear the commonwealth, states and territories need to collectively build on the considerable work already underway to end gender-based violence.

This morning, national cabinet met virtually to discuss the national crisis. National cabinet agreed to a number of priorities for all our governments, building on efforts underway under the national plan, including:

strengthening accountability and consequences for perpetrators, including early intervention with high risk perpetrators and serial offenders and best practice justice responses that support people who have experienced violence;

strengthening and building on prevention work through targeted, evidence-based approaches; and

maintaining a focus on missing and murdered First Nations women and children and the impact of domestic and family violence in First Nations communities.

National cabinet noted the importance of housing reforms in supporting women and children escaping violence and agreed to strengthen prevention efforts through targeted, evidence-based approaches, to be informed by an expert-led rapid view of those best practice approaches.

The Prime Minister advised first ministers today that the commonwealth will invest $925 million over five years to deliver a 'leaving violence payment' to help people experiencing intimate partner violence with the cost of leaving that relationship. This acknowledges that financial insecurity is closely linked to violence and can prevent women leaving a violent relationship.

The commonwealth will also deliver a range of new measures to tackle factors that exacerbate violence against women, such as violent online pornography and misogynistic content targeting children and young people. Such measures will include additional funding for the eSafety Commission to pilot age assurance technologies.

First ministers agreed that system responses need to be strengthened with a focus on high-risk perpetrators and serial offenders to prevent homicides. To progress this, a range of cross-jurisdictional work will be undertaken to report back to national cabinet later this year including:

tasking police ministers and attorneys-general with the development of options for improving police responses to high risk and serial perpetrators;

improving information sharing about perpetrators across systems and jurisdictions; and

exploring opportunities to strengthen national consistency and drive best practice approaches across jurisdictions including relating to risk assessment and responses to sexual assault, with this work to be led by Victoria and South Australia.

South Australia is already taking a significant step to ensure we have the full evidence base to drive the most effective change through our Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence. We have appointed respected South Australian advocate, author, former diplomat and senator, Natasha Stott Despoja AO to lead the royal commission.

The royal commission adds to the considerable suite of legislative matters, policies and reforms already implemented by my government to tackle domestic, family and sexual violence. This includes landmark laws aimed at better protecting domestic and family violence survivors, which passed parliament only this week.

These laws ensure defendants granted bail on a charge of breaching a domestic violence related intervention order by either threatening or committing a violent act would be subject to mandatory strict conditions of home detention and electronic monitoring. These laws are a significant step forward in addressing domestic and family violence and helping victims feel safe. We will continue to implement such measures including through the introduction of legislation to criminalise coercive control, an insidious and far too often invisible form of domestic and family violence.

Through our national efforts, strengthened by agreement at national cabinet today, as well as the numerous measures being implemented at a state level, my government is committed to do all we can to end gender-based violence and to act with urgency. Outside of efforts in national cabinet, every male in the community should consider their opportunity to be a role model to what respectful relationships look like to end the scourge of gender-based violence.