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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-10-26 Daily Xml
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Domestic Violence

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding regional women. Can the minister provide an update to the council about how the Marshall Liberal government continues to provide support to women facing domestic violence in our regions.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:37): I thank the honourable member for her question. Indeed, there have been a number of initiatives that have taken place under this government, which are improving our services and responses to assist women and children in particular to escape from dangerous situations.

In terms of our Committed to Safety strategy, we do know that progress has been made in delivering on a range of areas, including expanding the Women's Information Service through children's centres in metropolitan as well as regional areas, improving perpetrator referral pathways, developing a safety-first response to women and children escaping violence, implementing the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, reforms under the Attorney-General particularly which created a standalone offence of strangulation, and developing online tools for risk assessments to improve the capacity of the sector to assess situations and also to respond.

In particular, in regional areas one of our responses has been the implementation of safety hubs. It was my great pleasure recently, along with the Assistant Minister for Domestic and Family Violence Prevention, Carolyn Power, to open the most recent safety hub in Whyalla, which is being hosted by Centacare Catholic Country SA. I pay particular acknowledgement to that organisation, which, along with a range of our non-government services, provides a lot of supports for vulnerable people in a range of cohorts across our regions.

On Friday, I was able to join the official launch of The Haven-Whyalla, which is a very similar model to a range that we have already opened. The Office for Women has done extensive consultation with local service providers and the local community to determine what the best model should be going forward. This model is similar to others in that a range of volunteers have been sought. A call was put out. I think 21 responded and 15 completed the very intensive training and have been recruited through the Women's Information Service.

That service is going to, along with the other Havens, be a fantastic place for people to enter in a very discreet way to seek assistance from people who are able to help them. One of the particular benefits of using volunteers is that they are often not constrained by time in the same way that employed workers are. As I think all members would appreciate, often when people are going to seek information—particularly for the first time and disclose—it can be a very difficult time for them so they need to be able to have a safe place where they can share that information and get assistance.

We have also developed partnerships with Good Shepherd family domestic violence no interest loans and they have been able to support women to access vital financial assistance and to connect to a range of services that will be able to assist them. We wish The Haven-Whyalla the very best in terms of changing lives in the future.

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