Page 713 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 19 March 2019
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Safety audits were undertaken at a number of major events across the ACT, including this year’s Summernats, the National Multicultural Festival, Enlighten and Floriade. As long as I am Minister for Women, I will keep ensuring that engagement with privately run events like the Summernats is carried out each year to make sure that they are safer and more enjoyable for women and girls.
The ACT government this year also continued its efforts to improve responses and support for women and children impacted by domestic and family and intimate partner violence. The family safety hub was officially launched in May 2018 and has already started its work, which is to facilitate the development of new and innovative solutions aimed at addressing the needs of individuals impacted by domestic and family violence. The family safety hub will improve outcomes for women and girls in the ACT through enhancing existing service capability to ensure that vulnerable women and children have access to the supports they need when they need them.
The ACT government has implemented an initiative to support those who are not eligible for Medicare and who are victims of family and domestic and sexual violence to have access to full medical care, including pathology, diagnostic, pharmaceutical and outpatient services in ACT public hospitals free of charge.
Across government a family and domestic violence community of practice is now established to encourage and support ACT government directorates and agencies to engage in workplace programs on the prevention of violence against women and build respectful and gender equitable cultures. The ACT government front-line worker training strategy was developed in 2018 in support of the ACT government’s response to family violence. Through this work all ACT public service staff will be required to complete foundational training, which will be made available in the first half of 2019, with more detailed training to be made available to front-line staff.
The ACT government is committed to supporting people to have equitable access to secure homes that are appropriate, affordable and meet their needs and circumstances. As lower income earners who retire with less superannuation, women are particularly vulnerable to housing stress and homelessness. The ACT government has committed $6.524 million in the 2018-19 budget to provide more front-line homelessness services. Over $1.7 million of this funding was allocated to establish a new homeless service for older women, and dedicated funding was also provided to organisations who support women and children. This funding complements the funding to front-line crisis services such as the Domestic Violence Crisis Service and the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre by increasing accommodation and support for women who are fleeing violent relationships.
In closing, I thank all of those in the ACT community and the government who are working with us to achieve more for women and girls. We have a long way to go to influence and change the unconscious bias and behaviours that exist in our society that ultimately serve to disadvantage and hurt women and girls. We have a long way to go in changing the story for women and girls to ensure that they have the freedom of safety and security over their personal wellbeing and that they can reach their potential in their professional lives.
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