Page 700 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 17 March 2015
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funding cuts that have been made by the federal government. Let me be categorical: we want to see that funding restored. We do not want to see funding cuts in this space. In fact, we support a funding increase. It is not a bottomless pit. We have to make sure that the funding is coordinated and that it is judicious, but we want to make sure that we see additional funding. Certainly, the roundtable would hopefully give us a view of where that funding can have its best effect.
I support the funding that was announced the other day by the government—very timely, as it was described—shortly after I had announced the need for further action and a roundtable. There is no doubt that funding is an issue when it comes to resourcing. This government, the ACT government, shut the ACT women’s referral centre. That was a very important centre.
As Mr Corbell alluded to, this is not a society where we have domestic violence isolated in a single suburb. That centre provided very important services for members of our community, particularly women who were suffering from domestic violence, and we heard from a number of them. There were 700 signatures on the petition that came to this place, and Mrs Jones moved a motion. She made a very important speech in this place and highlighted the fact that the closure of the women’s referral centre in the city meant that it became more difficult for women in the city and its surrounds to access those important services. That, by and large, involving a centre that had been open for 35 years, was a financial decision. It was a financial decision, a budgetary decision and a resourcing decision made by the ACT government.
Mrs Jones spoke very eloquently and strongly about the consequences of that decision. Certainly we heard from a number of women who had experienced domestic violence and who said how the closure of the women’s referral centre by the ACT government would impact on them.
Let us make sure, just as we say to the federal government, that we do not put budgetary pressures on our services. Let us not close down services that provide an important place for women to access support regarding domestic violence. Let us make sure that, locally, the ACT government is not guilty of the same crime, so to speak, because, as we know, that closure had a significant impact on women located near the city who were suffering from domestic violence. Mrs Jones made that point.
There are a number of people in the community that the government can speak to—I know that they do—that are engaged in this area. I would like to commend the work done by many of them—too many, probably, to list. I certainly would like to highlight the Domestic Violence Prevention Council and all of its members, led by Marcia Williams, and also, in particular, John Hinchey, the Victims of Crime Commissioner, who has been particularly strong in this area.
As we have seen from the statistics, there has been a spike in calls to the ACT Domestic Violence Crisis Service. The executive director has talked about that jump. That started in November. Some of the statistics are quite disturbing, to be honest. Workers have received 2,529 calls for support. They have helped in 213 crisis interventions with families and police since the start of December. They have helped 84 women apply for court protection orders against violent partners. Staff have had to
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