Wednesday, 19 February 2020

Ministers statements: family violence

Ms WILLIAMS (Dandenong—Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Women, Minister for Youth) (11:19): Today I rise to update the house on the Andrews Labor government’s unwavering commitment to rebuilding Victoria’s family violence system. When we came to government we said we would hold a Royal Commission into Family Violence, and we did. As we all know, the royal commission recommended complex whole-of-government reform, and we have not and will not shy away from that. We are prepared to do the hard yards because the lives of women and children depend on it. We cannot and will not stop this work until we end the tragic statistic of a woman a week dying at the hands of her partner or former partner. We cannot stop and will not stop until we no longer have a need for there to be a Minister for Prevention of Family Violence.

We were handed 227 recommendations, and we have so far implemented 143 of those with the rest well and truly underway, each of these recommendations being a building block for long-term change. With $2.9 billion invested so far, we have established five Orange Doors with a further 12 on the way. We have established a new information sharing regime, delivered more police and child protection workers and new specialist family violence courts, and have started the very critical work of changing the underlying attitudes that we know lead to violence.

Our Respect Women: Call it Out campaign has reached millions of Victorians and draws attention to the importance of calling out bad attitudes towards women. On that I would like to pay my respects to the member for Eastern Metropolitan Region in the other place who is due to give her valedictory speech this evening. I have been given a lot of cause to talk about gender equality in this place in my time here, and I am very proud to serve in a government with 48 per cent women and a gender-equal cabinet. I have great respect for the fact that Ms Wooldridge in the other place has been a vocal advocate for more women to be preselected in the Liberal Party. I hope that her advocacy on this issue will be taken into consideration when her replacement is selected and that new, hopefully female, candidates are given more respect than Ms Wooldridge was given in the preselection for Kew.