Wednesday, 15 October 2025

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:39): (1999) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, and the action I seek is for the minister to extend the Safe at Home initiative to the City of Casey. The Victorian government’s Safe at Home initiative is a three-year trial in Geelong to allow victim-survivors of family violence to stay safely in their home and community while perpetrators are removed and given support to change their behaviour. This initiative will also provide a rapid response to families, with wraparound specialist support in housing, employment and child and cultural support. All too often it is the victims of family violence and their children that are forced to leave their home to escape perpetrators. The current system increases the risk of homelessness and social isolation, with victim-survivors forced to change jobs, take children out of schools and leave communities.

We know that family violence is the single largest driver of homelessness for women in Victoria. At a time when housing affordability is at crisis levels, the Safe at Home initiative is critical. I know many would like to see a similar initiative trialled in my region of the south-east. In this year alone almost 7000 family violence incidents have been recorded in the City of Casey. Shamefully, this represents the highest number of reports of any Victorian local government area. While we wait for a three-year trial of the Safe at Home initiative to be completed and to know if it will become permanent or expanded, areas like Casey continue to suffer through a family violence epidemic. Funding an expansion of this initiative to areas of highest need is common sense and recognises that, with an issue like family violence, time is so critical. While I commend the government on trialling innovative and wraparound early intervention support for victim-survivors of family violence, we want to see initiatives like this futureproofed. We need an assurance that these initiatives will be properly funded and quickly scalable to areas of highest demonstrated need as soon as they are successfully proven. So I ask: will the minister extend the Safe at Home initiative to the City of Casey?