E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Topics: Safe Places; Family and Domestic Violence; Senator Fatima Payman, Nuclear energy, the Cashless Debit Card
TAILEAH WATSON, SHELTER MANAGER, YUMBA-META: It is an honour to have Minister Rishworth here with us today. We’ve just been discussing how our domestic and family violence programs have some barriers in the Townsville community. So we are hoping that this partnership, with this funding for additional transitional housing, will help our clients. We see our barriers that we've come up against as you know, people with disabilities, the cultural and linguistically diverse community and our First Nations clients. We're hoping that this housing can help lots of different families, especially families with older children that need further domestic and family violence support.
AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: It is wonderful to be here at Yumba-Meta to announce that they have been successful, along with 18 other locations across Australia, for funding of close to $100 million to build more emergency accommodation for women and children escaping family and domestic violence. This money will be critical to building close to 720 Safe Places right around the country and 50 right here at this site. This is a really important partnership that the Commonwealth Government has made with not-for-profit organisations right around the country. But some of the really key elements of this funding has been tied to making sure that firstly, there's a focus in areas of unmet need, and secondly, that it is more accessible and inclusive. I've heard here that some women have been turned away because their disability has meant that there hasn't been an appropriate accommodation for them. So the plans that Yumba-Meta have put to the Commonwealth, and we will fund, include gold standard disability access. That means people won't be turned away as a result of their disability. Importantly, the new design has been as a result of careful discussion with the community that will allow for boys over the age of 12 to be also accommodated and particularly for culturally and linguistically diverse women to also have a safe place. This has been, I know, in the making here for 16 years about how better to respond to the community. And I'm so pleased that we are able to partner with Yumba-Meta to deliver this. This program is one of the many initiatives the Commonwealth Government's taken to tackling family and domestic violence. Our cumulative investment is close to $3.4 billion and emergency accommodation is just one part of this.
JOURNALIST: A simple one. How will this place help DV survivor victims?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: This build will provide an extra 50 safe places for women needing to leave a violent situation and find a safe place to go. So firstly, there's the bricks and mortar and the shelter, but also, as I heard from some of the caseworkers here. Importantly, the casework that goes along with these Safe Places delivered by not-for-profit organisations is so important. It is about helping someone stabilise their life and then move on too, whether that’s transitional accommodation, whether it's permanent accommodation, back to community at some times, but ultimately a safe place to be. So it is a critically important part of the puzzle in ensuring that people that are escaping family and domestic violence have a safe place to go.
JOURNALIST: Minister, Fatima Payman will speak at a Young Labor Left New South Wales event next week. Are you concerned that some young Labor members are standing with Payman on her Palestine position and do you see this as a problem going forward? Is it inappropriate for an independent to be speaking at a Labor event?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, who Young Labor invite to speak is entirely a matter for them. But what I would say on Labor's position when it comes to Palestine, is we have taken a very principled position. We have called for a ceasefire. We've called for progress on a two-state solution that ensures secure borders and secure peaceful arrangements for both Israel and Palestine. We've urged humanitarian aid make its way to Palestine. We've had a very principled position where we've said that every innocent life matters. And so I am proud of the position that we've taken because it's been a principled one hasn't been one about politics. It's been a principled position. And that that stands on its own for everyone to see.
JOURNALIST: Other than emergency housing, what are you guys doing or planning to do to help DV victims?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: There’s many actions we are taking to support and end family and domestic violence. They really fall into four categories. We need to look at prevention, we need to look at early intervention, we need to look at response and we need to look at healing and recovery. Just in the Budget we announced close to a billion dollars to make permanent the Leaving Violence Payment. That is a program that supports women and children, anyone actually escaping family and domestic violence, to get a both casework support as well as financial assistance to potentially set up a new home. That work is been done currently by Uniting Communities, that work was due to end, we've now put that in permanently. We've also said that we do need to focus on perpetrators, the focus can always just be on victim-survivors. This is a message that we've heard loud and clear that we do need to hold perpetrators to account. So we are working with states and territories to look at innovative perpetrator models, men's healing camps particularly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We're looking at a nationally consistent perpetrator risk assessment model, training for frontline workers, particularly in areas of medical and police to identify the signs and intervene early. We've got, as I say, close to $3.4 billion of initiatives in the Budget, but there's other things we can do as well. For example, we legislated 10 days of Family and Domestic Violence Leave so no one has to choose between their job and leaving a violent relationship. So we're looking across the board, it's outlined in our National Plan, but it is a partnership. It's a partnership with states and territories. It's also a partnership with communities and of course, calling out the signs of domestic and family violence early and identifying it is really important. And that's why our DV Alert Training, which is available to help businesses and other organisations also play their role in stopping family and domestic violence.
JOURNALIST: How many people will this facility here support?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: There is a lot of people being assisted already, I think it was 48 in the current arrangements, but there will be 50 safe places available as a result of this new build. And as this is a temporary accommodation, it could potentially help more than 200 people and that's women and children, escaping family domestic violence into the future. Obviously people need a different amount of time to stabilise, sometimes it's a short stay, sometimes it's longer, up to three months, but this will have a huge impact on so many women and children.
JOURNALIST: Different one, experts say Australia can clear the required legal barriers to have nuclear up and running by 2025 or 2035. Do you think that's a possible timeline?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, firstly, there's not only the legal barriers, there's how to build the thing. Of course, this is not the right energy solution for Australia. When you look at the energy needs now, we need investment in our energy sector now. We need an investment pipeline that delivers. We cannot bet the house on risky, expensive nuclear energy that could be delivered in over a decade, two decades time. This is not a solution for Australia. We have a solution that is less costly, and actually can be delivered right now. So this is a fantasy of the Opposition. We've seen around the country, plans being delayed and even scuttled when it comes to nuclear reactors. We don't know how much it's going to cost taxpayers. We don't know how much it's going to push up energy prices from the Coalition. We do know from independent analysis that it's eight times the amount that renewables cost so this is not the right solution for Australia. It's a risky gamble that's just going to push up power prices.
JOURNALIST: Minister, would you say your Government's policy on the Cashless Debit Card has failed and needs to be brought back on an involuntary basis given a review found reports of alcohol abuse and gambling had increased in most areas where the card was formally used? What needs to be done from here?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, firstly, I would say the report that you're referring to had anecdotal comments that showed mixed views and it was done over 12-months ago. What I would point you to in the report is that it was clear that no causal link could be drawn as a result of the changes that we made from removing the compulsory cashless debit card that affected disability support pensioners and affected carers, and didn't help people actually manage their money. So what we moved to was a voluntary Income Management program. We will continue to work with communities around what actually makes a difference. We know that in many rural and regional communities there are intergenerational problems and we need to actually invest in the things that work. And that is what we've been doing. We've been investing in a range of jobs programs. We've been investing in a range of youth programs depending on the needs of the different sites. So I would draw your attention to the mixed views, the anecdotal comments really, that are in that report, recognising that it's over 12 months old and that we're getting on with the job of investing in the things that work. Finally, I would say the report itself said that no causal link could be made to any anti-social behaviour and the withdrawal of the Cashless Debit Card.
JOURNALIST: Minister why 720 new safe spaces? Is there, I guess, a growing need for these sorts of services across the country. What made this investment happen?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: To be quite clear, as I said, we're investing across all of the four domains including response and recovery, and that's really where the investment in the Safe Places program came from. But importantly, what became clear is in this round, we particularly looked at organisations that were willing to invest in the gold standard for disability, because we know that some women with disability had been turned away because accommodation wasn't appropriate. We wanted to make sure that this accommodation fitted larger families, for example. The need has been there, for not just the number of places, but the design of the places. And I have to say that the applications that we've seen, including this one here in Townsville, showed a real care for the clients that they look after making sure that the plans met their needs. Not just for the larger families but also disability inclusiveness to make sure that unmet demand was actually addressed. So that is why we've put this in place. The program itself was an investment of $100 million and this will be rolled out over the next three years.
JOURNALIST: How does the program work I guess in terms of someone identifying that they're going to need some support and a safe space to come? How do they, I guess, get in contact with a service and then what does that look like from there as you touched on earlier with length of stay and timeframes?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: You might want to add to this for a local perspective, but it widely differs around the country but if I can leave people with one message: If they are looking to get out of a violent relationship and need advice and direction - please call 1800RESPECT. 1800RESPECT is the national referral helpline. You can also SMS 1800RESPECT – there are different ways people are referred in different places but I might hand it over to Taileah for you to talk about the specifics in this location.
TAILEAH WATSON: In the Townsville region we have a really strong domestic and family violence network. We have North Queensland Domestic Violence Resource Service, we have the Women's Centre and everyone I believe in town is really focused on helping families with domestic and family violence supports. So if anyone does need help, they can reach out to DV Connect and they can receive a referral to a shelter.
JOURNALIST: We understand it's going to be a new facility, not the current one being used here?
TAILEAH WATSON: The investment is to go into new transitional houses, which we see a really big need for as we are in this current housing crisis. We're seeing a lot of people needing to escape violence, but not being able to set themselves up so we're hoping to be that safe place.
JOURNALIST: How proud are you to be able to get this up and running?
TAILEAH WATSON: It is an extremely proud moment for myself but also Yumba-Meta where we've seen over the last couple of years, how many families we've been able to help and we hope to continue to help even more in the future.
JOURNALIST: Did you have that stat on how many you will be able to help in a facility like this?
TAILEAH WATSON: I guess we can't put a number on it. But I know that even in our six-bedroom facility we've helped over 100 people including children just in the last financial year so we hope to help many more.
JOURNALIST: Any other plans for after you get this up and running? Where will you take it? Connecting social groups, things like that?
TAILEAH WATSON: We have a strong network at Yumba-Meta but also within the community. So we all kind of aim to work together for domestic and family violence prevention and safety.
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Thank you.