Domestic and Family Violence

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:57): My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding domestic and family violence. Can the minister please provide an update to the council about how the Marshall Liberal government is supporting South Australians experiencing domestic and family violence during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:57): I thank the honourable member for her question and for her interest in this area, and acknowledge that other honourable members—I think particularly the Hon. Ms Bonaros—have raised this issue in the context of the COVID pandemic that we are experiencing.

The women's safety ministers council, comprising all safety ministers from around Australia for each jurisdiction, has been actively not just monitoring this pandemic and its impact on domestic and family violence but indeed negotiating a funding package to assist during this challenging time. I have talked previously, when asked about the statistics, about what we know. I also take note that the police commissioner, as one of the very important stakeholders in this space, has publicly commented about the data from the police perspective.

What we do know is that the actual number of calls to the existing hotlines that we have—which now run 24 hours a day, as one of our election funding commitments—hasn't necessarily increased, but that the complexity of the people who are calling and their situations has. So we are very concerned that there are people who are going through some very difficult challenging times.

We were very pleased that the commonwealth government has provided a funding package across all states and territories. The amount made available for South Australia is $2.4 million, which has enabled us to work through Committed to Safety, which is our living document for guiding our domestic and family violence services. That's enabled us to provide some new services to fill some gaps that we haven't provided for before and fund some existing services to deal with any more complex cases or any surges that they may experience—which we may well experience once restrictions are further eased.

We have a $900,000 package, which is specifically to work on those services that work with perpetrators. The Men's Referral line will be receiving money so that South Australian men who use violence can contact that service to seek assistance and then be connected with some of our local DV counselling services. There are additional brokerage packages, which means that the services can provide a range of flexible options that might include counselling for children who are experiencing trauma, financial counselling, safety upgrades and a range of other things.

The Department of Human Services has commenced, and is continuing with, a targeted communication package. We also have additional funding to build capacity of workforce, not just within the specialist sector but for those services such as Lifeline and the Telecross service, which are more focused on the other aspects of the COVID crisis, to enable them to identify people who are calling who are experiencing domestic violence and then to be able to refer them on. We are very pleased that that agreement has been reached and want anybody who is experiencing domestic violence to know that the government is here to support them and that the services are standing by to assist.