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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-09-22 Daily Xml
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Domestic and Family Violence

The Hon. J.S. LEE (15:19): My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding measures to address domestic and family violence. Can the minister please provide an update to the council about how the Marshall Liberal government is delivering extra funding to support South Australians experiencing or at risk of domestic and family violence during the COVID pandemic?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:20): I thank the honourable member for her question and for her ongoing interest in this area. I think I outlined previously that the women's safety ministers met earlier this year—being all the ministers from jurisdictions—with the commonwealth to determine a package going forward. The total quantum was $150 million nationally, and it's being delivered in a range of tranches to enable services to be able to respond to the pandemic.

Indeed, during the height of restrictions in South Australia we noted that there was not the same level of contact with specialist services but now that restrictions have been lifted the services are telling us that the complexity of people who are making calls to their services has increased, as has the level of violence. In relation to the original tranche of funding we were able to establish new services for perpetrators via the 24-hour line Men's Referral Service in partnership with local services Kornar Winmill Yunti and Community Transitions through OARS. The advice I have received is that there have been 122 contacts in total to these services since implementation.

There is some funding for brokerage for those women who are experiencing domestic and family violence which allows a great deal of flexibility in the response, and there has been an allocation of $1 million. A total of 340 brokerage packages have been distributed to South Australia to date, I am advised. Given that those packages can also be used to provide priority perpetrator services to allow individual support packages to provide wraparound services, this allows the possibility of removing men from the home into temporary crisis accommodation which is something that we have been trialling. A lot of other jurisdictions are very interested in what the outcomes will be going forward.

We have also had communications to focus both on potential victims to let them know that services were available and how they could contact them, as well as a particular campaign that has been focused on perpetrators to let them know about these particular services that are available and that their behaviour is inappropriate and constitutes domestic violence. What we do know from a lot of our work with the community is that there are times when both victims and perpetrators do not recognise what is taking place. Through COVID we have also increased the use of technology and there has been funding which has enabled WebChat functions and that has been very well used.

There is an additional $2.4 million being delivered through this financial year particularly targeting priority communities that have increased vulnerabilities which includes people of Aboriginal backgrounds, people living in regional or remote South Australia, people identifying as LGBTIQA+, culturally and linguistically diverse people, and women with disabilities. Some funding is being made available for financial planning and counselling programs to assist women who have lost work through COVID-19, and fast-tracking of additional safety hubs.

I have spoken before about the safety hubs in South Australia. We are working towards establishing one at Gawler, Mount Barker and Port Augusta, and additional safety hubs at Whyalla and Limestone Coast. Those services are particularly useful for people in the community who need to connect with services, often for the first time, and we look forward to continuing to assist people through this challenging time.

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