Page 3350 - Week 09 - Thursday, 22 August 2019
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MR GENTLEMAN: As I said, they work as a whole team, whether they are working particularly on nominations or working on decisions for DA that need heritage aspects looked at. The extra staff that we have provided for the directorate will help to assist the whole team in dealing with that work.
Domestic and family violence—family safety levy
MS LE COUTEUR: My question is to the Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence and relates to a response that Minister Stephen-Smith provided to questions in question time yesterday, when she indicated that funding for legal aid’s provision of family violence support would come from a different bucket of money. Minister, can you advise us exactly which bucket of money that funding will come from?
MS BERRY: The whole purpose of the family safety levy is to provide funding for innovation, to trial new ways to address this complex and complicated issue of domestic and family violence. Through the review work that has been happening around the implementation of the domestic and family violence levy, a change to the way that legal aid was funded was decided—
Ms Le Couteur: A point of order.
MADAM SPEAKER: Resume your seat, minister.
Ms Le Couteur: I am not asking what the family safety levy is for. We have been through that at length. I am asking: where is this bucket of money?
MADAM SPEAKER: Minister, to that point of the question.
MS BERRY: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Yes, we have been through the domestic and family violence levy at length, and it is important to note that that was where the funding for legal aid was originally sourced from. The decision has been made that that will not be the funding source for legal aid in the future, and the government will make a decision on that in due course.
MS LE COUTEUR: I note that my original question was not answered. I note the prioritisation of innovative projects to be funded by the family safety levy, but can you advise us what will happen if one of these innovative programs has been evaluated and found to be effective? Does that mean it will then be regarded as no longer innovative so it will not be funded by the levy?
MS BERRY: The funding that is decided on—where the levy goes towards innovation—is done in co-design with the domestic and family violence sector on working out different ways to challenge new ideas to address this situation. Some of those new ideas, such as the justice health partnership which is currently occurring in health settings and community and family centres to provide access to legal support and legal advice in a safe place for women and children, are a way that we can pilot how that works within our own health settings, within our child and family centres,
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