Multicultural Women’s Alliance Against Family Violence
Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (13:36): I want to congratulate the Multicultural Women’s Alliance Against Family Violence, who recently hosted an important forum here in Parliament called Conversations on Funding Solutions. The alliance was formed in 2022 in response to the growing need for funding support for culturally diverse communities responding to family violence. Since it began, the alliance has hosted several well-attended forums, grown its membership and formalised its governance arrangements. It is led by a powerful and inspiring group of women from culturally diverse communities who care deeply about protecting their communities from the scourge of family violence. The most recent forum was insightful and revealing. It was attended by representatives from both family violence prevention and support service sectors. The forum addressed the complex nature of funding applications and governance arrangements that often exclude smaller grassroots organisations from accessing funding. Attendees suggested that for a funding model to be successful it needs to have an intergenerational family approach and in-language community awareness and to encourage our young people and those with lived experience to train as advocates and counsellors and, most importantly, fund more specialist culturally responsive services and refuges.
We know this work is critical, because the family violence death toll keeps growing. Tayla Cox and her 11-month-old baby and Gypsy Satterley and two bystanders are just the latest victims across Australia. One woman a week continues to die because of family violence. In their memories, I urge everyone to be a part of ending family violence and join with the work of the alliance and other organisations demonstrating great courage and compassion to create a society free from violence.