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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-09-18 Daily Xml
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Domestic and Family Violence

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:50): My question is directed to the Minister for Human Services about the government's engagement process for domestic violence stakeholders. Can the minister please update the chamber on how the government is progressing in its election commitment to host domestic violence stakeholder round tables with communities around South Australia?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:50): I thank the honourable member for her question and for her ongoing interest in this issue. Of course, we are very pleased that $11.9 million was provided in the budget in a commitment to our election promises, probably one of the largest injections of funding for domestic and family violence services in some 10 or 20 years. That funding has been highly welcomed within the sector.

On the Friday just past the Assistant Minister for Family and Domestic Violence Prevention, Ms Carolyn Power, and I attended Mount Gambier for a further round table in the regions. This was the second of the regional round tables, and we are due to do two more, one in Whyalla and one in Port Lincoln in October and November, I think. Stakeholders included Centacare, the Australian Migrant Resource Centre, the Department for Correctional Services, the Southern Community Justice Centre, the Women's and Children's Health Network, SAPOL, Education, the South-East Regional Community Health Service, the Limestone Coast Community Justice Centre, the South Australian Housing Authority, the University of South Australia, Pangula Mannamurna, the Limestone Coast Family Violence Action Group, the City of Mount Gambier, and the Limestone Coast Community Services Round Table.

The round table was facilitated by Selina Green of ABC radio in the South-East. We had three sessions, which focused on different sections of the policy and the funding, on infrastructure and support, service response and protection. We had one particular session that was devoted to the safety hubs, something initiated by the Women's Safety Services located at Mile End under the leadership of Maria Hagias, in particular, and a range of those service providers. There are now four metropolitan services that have been amalgamated together with a range of other service providers, including CALD services, the crisis line, and so forth. That provides a collegiate response for service providers to manage a range of issues that may potentially arise for people fleeing domestic violence.

We are very interested in how safety hubs may be applied in two regional areas. There are several models that may work. One is that where there is no FTE—there may be a range of 0.3s, 0.2s, etc.—in a particular region, they may be co-located within a particular service under one roof, and that would enable them to provide greater outreach. We are also interested in looking at community leaders who may be located within smaller districts and provide services in that way. We also talked about the disclosure scheme, which is, I think, of great interest to people—that starts on 2 October—and all the other particular services and aspects within the budget I have spoken about before.

The regions really appreciate the fact that we've been going out on the ground, meeting with them face-to-face and spending time discussing how the services may be shaped by them with their particular input. Every region is different and, as we often do as a Liberal government, we have the hashtag #regionsmatter which we are very sincere about—

An honourable member: Oh yeah.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: Well, the South-East are no fans of the Labor Party, let me tell you, after the way they have been treated with the forests and a whole range of issues. They are absolutely delighted.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: The truth hurts, doesn't it? They are absolutely delighted that there has been a change of government which is genuinely listening to people, spending time with people in the regions and helping to shape these issues going forward. I'm really pleased with how these consultations have been going and I'm looking forward to the other two that we will be doing later on this year.

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