It was a meeting that was organised urgently to address the continued killing of women in Australia, yet the outcomes of Wednesday’s Cabinet Meeting lacked any real sense of urgency needed to seriously address the issue.
The headline promise that emerged was the $925 million investment into leaving violence payments over five years. The program, which is an extension and revamp of an existing Coalition government-supported initiative, supports those leaving violent relationships with a $5,000 payment.
Such payments are vital for giving women the resources they need to make such a move. It needed to be funded and further supported. But other than some improvements in wait times and the potential for further improvements and transparency around why women are being rejected after applying, there is nothing particularly innovative or game-changing in this announcement. The previous government announced $480.1 million for the first version of this program, the Escaping Violence Payment, in 2021.
And while a $925 million figure might seem significant in the domestic and violence space, given just how chronically underfunded this space is, the figure is nothing when compared to other announcements. This week, the Albanese government announced a close to $1 billion investment into quantum computing startup PsiQuantum, sharing the pricetag with the Queensland Government for a startup with clear future promise, but that some might argue is more American than Australian, given just two of the four male co-founders are Australian.
Indeed, a $925 million investment into one aspect of the complex puzzle that is addressing domestic and family violence is simply not enough. As many advocates have said in response, more needs to be done to address perpetrators rather than continuing to put the onus of responsibility on victim-survivors, as well as tp substantially increase funding for existing specialist and family violence services and for serious and immediate commitments to address the supply of affordable housing, with family violence being the leading cause of women’s homelessness in Australia.
More must be done to strengthen current bail laws at the state and territory level, as well as the justice systems across all jurisdictions to ensure perpetrators are better held to account — a move that would be further strengthened by a consistent approach across the country.
While state and territory leaders agreed on an opportunity to “strengthen” such mechanisms, their shared statement following the Cabinet Meeting lacked urgency and direction. Rather, such leaders agreed to report back when they meet again later in the year. Why the wait? While coordinating the schedules of such leaders is obviously difficult (yesterday’s meeting was done virtually), all leaders share a mutual interest in addressing such vital reforms immediately and making their jurisdictions safer for women.
As Independent for Warringah Zali Steggall said in response to the shared statement, the intention to address “system responses to high-risk perpetrators and serial offenders” and improve information sharing between jurisdictions is a welcome step, but ultimately little more than telling states and territories to go and do the work that they should have already done. “National Cabinet has failed to announce urgent, systemic and widespread change required to keep women safe,” she said.
Why are there, as yet, no significant funding commitments to address the needs of services, including emergency support and accommodation, as well as services like Women’s Legal Services Australia — which last year revealed that 1000 women a week are being turned away from accessing help due to a lack of capacity.
CEO of Sydney women’s refuge Women & Children First, Gabrielle Morrissey, said following Wednesday’s meeting that, “nothing proposed today will keep women safer tomorrow, next week or next month”. She described what was offered as merely being a fraction of what’s needed for frontline services, and said caseworkers can already access similar funds to the $5000 escaping violence payments and yet the violence keeps escalating.
Delia Donovan, CEO of Domestic Violence NSW, described the press conference following the meeting as “gut wrenching”, with the Prime Mininster reaffirming his government’s commitment to ending domestic and family violence but then offering no new real solution or funding into the priority areas the sector has asked for investment in.
She’s thankful that the public sector, advocates and the media have called for action, but notes the hope now is that the NSW Government will step up and invest what’s needed via the state’s 2024-25 budget, to be released on 18 June. Domestic Violence NSW has called on the state government to make a series of immediate investments into the sector, including $145 million into services to meet current demands, $80 million to expand specialist services, and $100 million to help “stop the violence before it starts” by funding and implementing the NSW Strategy for the Prevention of Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence 2024-25.
They are also calling for 7500 new social and affordable homes in NSW every year for the next 20 years, an additional 750 transitional homes for an exit pathway out of refuges.
While governments are declaring the violence “must stop”. So far, the actions and mechanisms they can take to help make it stop haven’t come anywhere close to the scale and urgency needed to result in significant improvements.
As Independent for Goldstein Zoe Daniel said in response to the National Cabinet on Wednesday, by the time the leaders meet again in roughly 90 days, 12,000 women will have been turned away from accessing services. And with the current rate of one woman being murdered every four days, another 22 women may be dead.