E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Topics: Rapid Review; National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children
SALLY SPICER, HOST: Hi there. I'm Sally Spicer. I'm a journalist and part of the team behind There's No Place Like Home. This year, we've seen a distressing increase in the number of women being killed by men they knew.
NEWSCLIP: An emergency National Cabinet meeting has been called to tackle the nation's domestic violence crisis, spurring a national campaign for change in a bid to better protect women from domestic violence.
SALLY SPICER: And behind the scenes, discussions are unfolding between the people doing this life saving work about what to do next. It's a delicate and nuanced conversation, one with different approaches and perspectives, but with a shared goal in mind, and it will inform the path this nation takes in our strategies and policies. Joining me today is the Federal Social Services Minister, Amanda Rishworth to discuss a new rapid review into domestic violence and whether the National Plan to End Violence in a generation will work. Minister, thank you for joining us at No Place Like Home. Recently, your government announced an expert panel is going to conduct a rapid review of best practice, prevention approaches for domestic violence. What exactly does that mean?
AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: We developed, in conjunction with states and territories, and importantly, victim survivors, the National Plan, that's the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children in one generation and under that there’s priority actions that we would like to take. Of course, prevention before violence happens is critical to that. What we want to make sure is we are incorporating the best evidence and the best activities to make sure that action comes to life, that we're making sure that we are achieving what we want to achieve. There's a lot already going on, though, and I think that's really important. There’s a lot of prevention activities going on, but things like technology evolve and so we need to make sure that we are agile in our activities and make sure that we're adding, with the states and territories, to what can be achieved.
SALLY SPICER: In 2022 as Social Services Minister you oversaw the release of the second 10-year National Strategy to End Violence Against Women and Children. Can you tell me what is the rapid response expert panel that you've just announced aiming to address, or to build on, or to further, from the National Plan?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: The National Plan is a very strong plan and the key priorities are there, but there's a number of activities that sit under there. We're taking ahead a number of really important activities, like for example, working with adolescent boys that may have been exposed to family domestic violence, and so working with them to stop the cycle. We are, of course having a look at how we support victim-survivors in response and recovery. We're looking at how we might train, for example, religious leaders to have that conversation and to identify and support people that may be in family and domestic violence and have come to them for support. We’re looking at a number of ways that we can enact the National Plan. But of course, you always need to look if you're incorporating the latest action, the latest opportunities, the latest evidence. So, it really is about complementing the activities already underway in the priority areas and under the National Plan.
SALLY SPICER: You mentioned the priorities there, Minister, before we continue, can you remind the audience what the key priorities of the strategy actually are?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: The key priorities really look at making sure we're taking action in four key domains; that's prevention, early intervention, response, and healing and recovery. Those are so important to ensure that we end the cycle.
SALLY SPICER: I'm interested, Minister, you would have seen the Victorian Government has announced a Parliamentary Secretary for Men's Behaviour Change. Is that something that's being considered at a federal level?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, I think if you look at the key element of what that role is meant to do, it is about not making this necessarily a women's problem. It's about getting perpetrators to take accountability. And the Prime Minister himself has been very strong on this. He's been very clear that men need to stand up. But when it comes to ending violence against women and children, for our government, it cuts across so many portfolios, some led by women, some led by men. Whether it is the Attorney General's work he's been doing on family law, whether it's our Communications Minister who's been working on, for example, the age of assurance technology for harmful things online, whether it's myself around perpetrator interventions and rolling them out, or the Minister for Women. I think the key message is that this can't be shouldered and seen just as a women's issue that women need to fix, that it is something that everyone has a role, particularly those who choose to use violence, and particularly perpetrators.
SALLY SPICER: That reminds me of something that your colleague, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Women Katy Gallagher, recently said at an FW event, actually, which was that there was an opportunity at the moment to shift the discussion around women's safety away from women and into how do we stop men perpetrating violence against women. What does that shift actually look like in practice?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: One of the key things I think is really important, is we can look at say, perpetration, in all of those four domains. So when it comes to prevention, for example, it is about tackling some of the harmful attitudes that are affecting the attitudes towards women and misogynistic behaviours. So prevention, primary prevention, in particular, can look like changing the attitudes towards women when we look at more targeted prevention, it might be looking at, as I mentioned, perhaps adolescent boys that have been exposed to violence and particularly family and domestic violence, we know that it is more likely the cycle will continue. So how do we intervene at that point to prevent violence for a specific group of at-risk people. Then when it comes to, of course, more serious perpetration, it does come to justice responses for those that have chosen to use violence that they are held accountable through a justice system response. But there are also ways that, not just government can respond to this, but businesses as one example can as well. We've had increasingly a number of businesses willing to give employees, and I'm talking those that choose to use violence, or recognise they may use violence, leave to go off and complete a behaviour change course - male behaviour change. So it's looking at all those opportunities to try and prevent violence, but also stop it from escalating. But if you have a circumstance where you've got a perpetrator to make sure they're held accountable and reduce the risk for an individual. One of the other ways, I think, is really important. Often there's been a focus on the victim-survivors risk level and of course, that's really important to recognise the risk of the victim-survivor and make sure the right supports are put in place. But we are developing, at the moment, a perpetrator risk model that hopefully can be used nationally to look at the risk of perpetration. So once again, trying to switch the responsibility, trying to be measuring that, but it starts all the way from harmful attitudes and combating misogyny, whether that's in the community or online, or all the way up through to those really strong justice responses that are designed to keep women and children safe.
SALLY SPICER: You just mentioned perpetrator risk. One of the things we keep hearing is that a woman has been killed by a man she knew, and then after she is killed, it comes out that she had an AVO out. She had a protective order. She'd gone to the police and said - this man is a danger to me. This man is a danger to the community. I'm afraid for my life - and then, despite seeking support from that service, she's killed anyway. So, when you're putting something like a perpetrator risk plan together, how do you ensure that the people in those systems that are there to actually action those risks take it seriously, and that we don't have more cases where people have asked for help and then they've been seriously hurt or lost their lives?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: I think that's an incredibly important question and I think one of the challenges in the National Plan is, well, the opportunity, is that first, every state and territory who runs the police and often the court system has signed up to this National Plan. This isn't the Commonwealth's National Plan. It's not the state's National Plan. It's not just victim-survivors’ National Plan. Our National Plan does very much call out systems and how we change systems to better reflect and support victim-survivors. And while this isn't in the area of homicide, one of the changes we've made at the federal level is actually giving Services Australia some latitude about whether you consider someone in a couple or not, because that affects your payment. So there is the ability for Services Australia, if there's family and domestic violence present, to actually treat people as individuals, independently, so that the financial abuse is…the impact or the chances of financial abuse are minimised. So there is a cultural change that needs to happen, that needs strong messaging from government, but it also needs training. It also needs strong practice and guidance. And in fact, justice responses are actually one of the ten key actions that states and territories, along with the Commonwealth, have signed up to. So we do need to see change. It is really upsetting and incredibly disheartening when you see a situation well, when you hear of situations reported where people tried to get support or did what they thought was trying to get support, and they don't feel that they got the support back. So we need to keep working on that. It does require a lot of trying to get a lot of cultural change, because it wasn't that many decades ago that domestic violence was seen as something that just happened behind closed doors, and we shouldn't ask any questions. We have to be making sure that whether it's our policing or our courts or our justice system, responses are fit for purpose. I know that state governments are very clearly looking at that now through the National Cabinet process.
SALLY SPICER: Okay, so can you talk me through functionally? How does a National Plan actually result in police on the frontline being better informed and better trained to respond appropriately to these really high-risk men?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: The National Plan sets the policy framework and under that is the actions that all governments have decided to take. Then to achieve those actions are the activities. One of the activities under other justice system responses is funding to train frontline policing in how to better respond. So what it does is it drives the activities, it drives the investment, it drives the programs that are funded, not just from the Commonwealth level, but from the state level. But this national policy framework, the National Plan, could be picked up by business who could look at what are some of the drivers that are contributing to this. What are the some of the things I can do, and they can look at some of the principles and work out how they hold perpetrators to account, for example. So it does drive investment. It drives where the governments put their focus and it leads to things like funding for training of police. But obviously we've seen in some states and territories recently that they've decided to change their bail laws because it is the bail laws that have, in addition to cultural change, been identified. There will be different responses, but it does focus states and territories, along with the Commonwealth, about where to put their resources and where to put their effort
SALLY SPICER: So is this something we can expect to continue to hear being discussed at National Cabinet?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Certainly, there is going to be a report back to National Cabinet later this year with the work that has been undertaken, including looking at how we can get more consistent bail laws as one example. I do think there will be a continued conversation. But in addition to National Cabinet, I, along with Minister Gallagher, regularly meet with women and women's safety ministers to discuss progress on this Plan.
SALLY SPICER: Talking about online safety briefly, in May, the Federal Government funded a pilot to tackle extreme misogyny online and that included measures to address how easy it is for young people and children to access pornography. Can you tell me what the purpose of that pilot is?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: I think some of the challenges we've got in the online space is where there is, in some forums, extreme misogyny that is being perpetrated. If you're a young person forming your views about the world, forming your views about what respectful relationships look like, forming your views about how to treat women and men and their gender roles. If you are being bombarded by online influences, but also, particularly in the case of extreme violent pornography, you're actually developing a bit of a warped sense of what a normal relationship, a respectful relationship is about gender roles. It is a hard one to tackle. So there's a couple of measures we've taken, obviously for young people, particularly children, exposure to that really does mould your view of the world. Minister Rowland is looking at how we trial age assurance to harmful content online, including violent pornography. We are looking at how we can limit the exposure of children to that sort of material. Also the Attorney General is looking at how we criminalise using deep fake pornography which sometimes can be very disturbing because it takes the image of a person and puts some really damaging stuff online, so how we criminalise that, but also we're looking at how we can promote better role models online in the spaces where people are. We recently got a program where we're looking at how we tackle some of that really toxic, misogynistic stuff online through presenting different, more healthy role models for men and boys. But we are also about to launch a new campaign, called Stop It At The Start, to try and help adults in a young person's life understand the type of environment they are in. So, there's really a mixture of, how do we put some regulation around what people are seeing and exposed to, but how do we inoculate them, through education and support, of adult influencers in their lives? These are two different ways we're trying to tackle it, but ultimately, what young people are seeing online is having an impact on how they see their relationship between men and women and the roles that women play. It can be pretty damaging.
SALLY SPICER: For a lot of women who need to leave violence right now, often there's difficulty in finding appropriate crisis accommodation or finding an appropriate rental, for example, one that they can afford as a single parent or someone with dependents. What are you doing to address that element of it?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Looking at crisis accommodation is really important and we've been investing in Safe Places, which is about crisis accommodation and we've put another $100 million dollars into that. That is really important, along with money from the some of the other housing funds that we've created as a government which have led to dedicated places and crisis accommodation, but also more medium-term accommodation for women and children. There's a couple of other approaches as well. We've announced a permanent Leaving Violence Payment, which provides an upfront cash amount as well as goods and services to support women that can be used, for example, for their bond. There’s an immediate amount of money that is available of up to $5,000 of both financial supports along with referrals and connections to financial counsellors. So that is also another response. There is a final response that we are funding as well, which is a program called Keeping Women Safe in their Homes, where what we're trying to do is actually put the right things in place with the right support, so not just the technology like cameras and those sorts of things, but put equipment in place, along with the appropriate support from policing to actually keep women safe in their homes. Now that is not always possible, but it is a very important program that can support women stay in their homes. So, trying to look at all of those areas, look it is tough, of course, and it takes time to build this accommodation, build these homes, but we are very much aware of it, which is why we've invested hundreds of millions of dollars into this to build safe accommodation at the same time as trying to tackle other elements as well.
SALLY SPICER: Final question, Minister, we've discussed what you have done and what you are doing, but is there anything in this space that you haven't yet done or that you haven't yet focused on that you'd like to?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: That’s a really good question. I think there is a lot that can be done around financial abuse. Financial abuse is something that often really can be quite controlling and quite limiting. So, I think there is a lot of opportunity, both at government level, but also working with financial institutions to look at how you put better systems in place to identify and respond to financial abuse. I think that is an area very much of interest to me. I think First Nations women in particular, we do have a dedicated Action Plan for First Nations women, but there is work underway for a standalone National Plan for Family Safety in First Nations communities now that will be really important, because we know that First Nations women have a much higher rate of family, domestic and sexual violence, and are also more likely to end up in hospital. That is another area I’m really very keen to tackle. Then I think there is a need to have a good look at children as victim-survivors in their own right. I think we are changing, and it was identified in the Plan about how we see children as themselves and how we treat them, not just as an extension of their mother, but in their own right. I think there is still more work to be done about we best support those children and young people who are also victims of family and domestic violence.
SALLY SPICER: Minister, thank you.
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Thank you for having me.