Members statements
Family violence
Mr ONDARCHIE (Northern Metropolitan) (10:12): On Tuesday, 15 February, I was honoured to convene a forum in Melbourne’s north about family violence, and I pay tribute to the BAPS Swaminarayan Hindu temple in Mill Park for hosting us that night. It was to have a discussion about the prevalence of family violence in multicultural communities in Melbourne’s outer suburbs. We had a range of speakers, ranging from people from the local council; the honourable Bruce Atkinson, who spoke about his experience with multicultural communities—in fact it was his idea to have this forum; speakers from the Victoria Police family violence unit from the uniformed branch of Mill Park police; a very articulate and senior lady from the Indian community who spoke to us about challenges within multicultural communities and family violence; and the honourable Georgie Crozier as Shadow Minister for Health, who addressed the meeting about health and mental health. At this time I pay tribute to Emma Kealy, the Shadow Minister for Prevention of Family Violence and Shadow Minister for Women, for her initiative. A family violence lawyer spoke to the group too about his experience with his clients.
All in all it was an open forum where people got to talk about the challenges experienced particularly amongst women in our multicultural communities. We must do more to help protect and support our women, particularly our women of other cultures, so they can feel safe, they feel open to talk and they feel open to seek help. We have to do something about the family violence that is not talked about in multicultural communities.