Wednesday, 12 November 2025

 Natalie HUTCHINS (Sydenham – Minister for Government Services, Minister for Treaty and First Peoples, Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Women) (14:29): I rise to update the house on how the Allan Labor government continues to keep women safe and perpetrators held to account. Project Alexis is a family violence response model that has received an extra boost from this government – $1.5 million, to be exact – and this program places specialist family violence workers alongside police out on the job. It is part of our strengthening women’s safety package.

I recently visited the Prahran police station, alongside the federal minister, Minister Plibersek, to meet with the team delivering this co-responder model. The program embeds two family violence specialist workers with family violence specialist police officers. What they do is work directly with high-risk perpetrators while supporting victim-survivors, including women, children and young people. The model shows how collaboration between police and specialist practitioners can deliver better outcomes in really complex situations with high-risk perpetrators. It currently operates across Prahran, Bayside, Morwell and Wonthaggi stations and will soon expand to two new locations.

This program builds on Labor’s absolute record investment in this state of $4.5 billion for fighting family violence and includes 400 family violence officers, giving Victoria Police the resources they need to tackle family violence at the coalface. Together these initiatives are improving safety, accountability and recovery and are helping to build a Victoria where everyone can live free from violence.