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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-06-17 Daily Xml
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WOMEN AND CHILDREN, SAFETY

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:05): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question about the state government's commitment to ensuring the safety of Australian women and children.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.D. Lawson interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Hunter has leave, not the Hon. Mr Lawson.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Like the federal government, the state government is committed to ensuring the safety of Australian women and children now and for future generations. Will the minister provide information on programs that are aimed at reducing violence against women and children?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister Assisting the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Energy) (15:05): I am very pleased to say that last week I was invited to the launch of the evaluation of South Australia's Keeping Safe program, which was jointly launched by the Minister for Education and Children's Services (Hon. Jane Lomax-Smith) and the federal Minister for the Status of Women (Hon. Tanya Plibersek).

South Australia's Keeping Safe program addresses the issues of protective behaviours and child protection education for all children and young people in the broader context of respectful relationships. The program has been recognised as a best practice model and is most impressive. We were able to sit in on part of the specific lessons for children, and they dealt with things such as issues of personal space and being made to feel aware of feelings of discomfort about breaching one's sense of personal space as a warning sign. They were quite amazing things. Unfortunately, they are not the sorts of lessons that were available in our classrooms when we were at school.

The National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children is charged with national action to help Australian women live free of violence and within respectful relationships and safe communities. The council has produced Time for Action: TheNational Council's Plan for Australia to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, 2009-21. South Australia made a significant contribution to this work through Ms Vanessa Swan, Director of Yarrow Place Rape and Sexual Assault Service, who was the representative from South Australia. She did a most amazing job, and I thank her for her very important contribution.

Through its new Respectful Relationships program, the Australian government is investing $9.1 million over five years to test and evaluate best practice respectful relationships education programs with school-aged young people across the country, and it aims to educate and provide skills to young people to build and maintain respectful relationships for life. Its purpose in funding an evaluation of the DECS Keeping Safe child protection curriculum is to test a small number of respectful relationship violence prevention education programs to see whether they work in a range of environments, to grow the capacity of those environments to run their own successful programs and then to evaluate those programs. This has been done with a view to rolling out the Keeping Safe child protection curriculum to other states and territories. So, South Australia should be very proud of the program that we have established here.

The report also complements the work of the Office for Women and the Women's Safety Strategy. Key initiatives currently being undertaken through the Women's Safety Strategy include family safety frameworks (which we have talked about before in this place), reform of rape and sexual assault and domestic violence legislation and, of course, the development of a community awareness campaign. Again, that is also based on respectful relationships and focused, in particular, on young adults and teenagers.

Violence against women requires a range of responses, and the prevention of violence against women and children requires strong leadership and the commitment of both government and the community. The South Australian government is committed to ensuring the safety of all women and children and, through the Women's Safety Strategy, we are taking a comprehensive and coordinated approach and providing that leadership.

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