Tuesday, 26 November 2024

 Vicki WARD (Eltham – Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Employment) (14:20): In 1858 Boon Wurrung woman Louisa Briggs returned to traditional lands after she and other Aboriginal women were stolen by male sealers decades earlier. These women were used as domestic workers, as sex slaves and as sealers. This story is one of the first recorded of gender-based violence in our state. Last Friday I walked with a record 8500 Victorians in Respect Victoria’s Walk Against Family Violence. We marked the start of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence campaign. Here and around the world voices are saying ‘Enough’. Worldwide a woman is murdered every 10 minutes. I acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of victim-survivors and their families who live and work among us and with us. I acknowledge the incredible family violence workforce, which has increased fivefold since 2014.

Violence has a ripple effect. Its harm spreads across communities. It costs the Victorian economy more than $8.3 billion a year across business, government and families. Government has a leadership role to play, and we are leading Australia in the work we have done and continue to do. Community has a role too. We must bring about change together.

Victoria are being leaders. We have invested over $4 billion in family violence work. This includes the leadership shown by our Premier in announcing the strengthening women’s family safety package earlier this year. In 2018 we started building the Orange Door network, which has provided its service to over half a million victim-survivors. We have built better systems that hold perpetrators in view, we have strengthened risk assessments and we are doing more. We are funding a groundbreaking community saturation model pilot for prevention in Ballarat driven by the primary prevention agency we recreated, Respect Victoria. We are strengthening and expanding Respectful Relationships, and the Premier has appointed the member for Mordialloc as the first ever Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change. We will keep doing this work not just over 16 days but every day.