HOST, NAT TENCIC: The Federal government wants to hear from you, stakeholders, people with lived experience about how to prevent violence against women and children, something we know about too well in the NT, with rates of domestic family and sexual violence being the highest in the country. And Indigenous women are seven times more likely to be victims of intimate partner homicide, 27 times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be hospitalised due to family violence, which is a massive problem in this part of the world. Ged Kearney is the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Family Violence Prevention. She's in town today to hear from the community about what should be in the government's second action plan. And she joins me on the line now. Good afternoon.
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: Good afternoon, Nat. Thanks for having me on.
NAT TENCIC: Ms. Kearney, you've been in consultations with people in Alice Springs today. Who have you spoken to?
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: We had consultation. We are actually undertaking consultation right around the country. And today I was really privileged to be here in Alice Springs to meet with around 30 people from the health sector, from the family, domestic and sexual violence sector, people who work in remote communities, people who work in Alice, organisations like the NPY Women's Council, Aboriginal Corporation, Congress, AMSANT. It was really a great collection of people who are doing amazing work. And we talked a lot about what is happening now, what is working, where the gaps are and where they think that we really need to focus in what we're building now is the second action plan for the national plan to stop family, domestic and sexual violence.
NAT TENCIC: And so what have those people been saying to you about what should be going into the second action plan?
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: Well, of course, we talked a lot about resourcing. At the moment, the Federal Government is investing around $4.4 billion into family, domestic and sexual violence services. A great deal of that is going into crisis management and I think that that is incredibly important and we're not going to take any away from that. And of course, there are still huge gaps in crisis management for people fleeing family domestic violence. But we talked a lot about what we need to do in prevention and early intervention, working particularly with men and their families and whole communities. I think this is an area that we really need to start to build government support for and of course, healing and recovery, which is incredibly important as well, and actually takes up quite a bit of working towards prevention. If you can work in the recovery space, you stop it rehappening again or that whole recidivism piece. So, we talked a lot about that. I'm very interested personally in how we work with young men, with children, with children who are of course victims in their own right of family domestic and sexual violence, and how we work with adolescent boys in the prevention of use of violence. And they had some amazing ideas and there are some great programs happening already and my interest is how we can build on that and maybe replicate that across the country.
NAT TENCIC: And there are plans too to create Indigenous-led plans and actions when it comes to prevention and early intervention as well. Could you detail those?
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: Oh, this is absolutely incredibly important. We heard from everybody around that table that Aboriginal community controlled organisations are the ones who are best placed to lead and implement these services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. All the research shows that we're very proud that our government has launched the first ever national strategy to prevent family domestic violence amongst First Nations communities. It's called Our Way, Strong Ways, Our Voices. And we are concurrently working on an implementation plan to work with community controlled organisations to make sure we can really make every effort where we possibly can, you know, to prevent those statistics that you stated in the opening comments.
NAT TENCIC: Well, you know, it is interesting that that is a priority of this Federal Government because we're seeing sort of different moves when it comes to the NT government. The NT government is debating change to child protection laws today and this week, which, you know, is related to this issue. And these laws are set to strip the, you know, strip back the Aboriginal placement principle and make child removal easier to conduct which, you know, the Aboriginal placement principle is there to have an Aboriginal led, you know, resolution around child protection. So, how, how does that all sit with what the Federal Government have planned?
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: I've got to say we are deeply concerned about the Northern Territory's actions here. The child placement principle is an absolutely integral part right across the country in every state and territory, saying that evidence shows that that is the best way to get the best outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids. Now, you know, the Minister, Tanya Plibersek and State and Territory Ministers from right around the country, the majority of them, I have to say, put out a statement this week expressing concern about the Northern Territory’s Bill that it's a regrettable divergence from the Safe and Supported partnership agreement, that it will not, it does not have the best interests of Aboriginal children at heart. And actually there are many concerns raised by stakeholders and experts and we share those concerns that this could weaken the child placement principle and cause further harm and actually put kids at risk. So, we don't want the mistakes of the past to be repeated. We don't want children to be removed from their communities, indeed their families and we are really worried that this will lead to that.
NAT TENCIC: Well, what sort of recourse does the Federal Government have here? You know, is there any desire to intervene or is it just going to be condemnation?
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: Well, the Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy and the Attorney General Michelle Rowland wrote to their counterparts here in the Northern Territory seeking assurances and expressing major concerns about the proposed changes. As I said, a joint statement was put out just last week about urging the Northern Territory government not to go down this pathway. You know this is, we are really very concerned and the entire country is asking the Northern Territory government to consider this very carefully.
NAT TENCIC: But it looks like it's, they're going to. So, I mean I guess what I'm asking is with the, with this plan, with what is in the second action plan, with what is in our ways, strong ways, our voices, how do you negotiate the implementation of these plans with what the NT government is legislating?
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: Well, as I said that we are working incredibly hard to build and develop Aboriginal controlled, community controlled organisations to work in the prevention and early intervention stage. And I think this is where we really need to start to boost up our activities here. They know what works best for their communities and we are absolutely committed to working with them through our ways, strong ways, our voices and we are funding that. We have set up a peak body to implement that strategy and we will be working very closely and directly with that peak body. It's called our Ways Strong Together to implement that strategy. And that I think is the best way that we can go.
NAT TENCIC: You're listening to ABC Alice Springs. I'm speaking with Ged Kearney, Federal Assistant Minister for Social Services and Family Violence Prevention. She's in Alice Springs today to hear from the community about what should be in the government's spot second action plan to prevent violence against women and children. We've been talking about the NT government's response and how they're divergent from the Federal Government's, you know, position on this when it comes to violence against women, family violence. There's also a lot of strong law and order approaches. This year the government implemented a mandatory minimum sentencing for domestic violence related murder, 25 years minimum, which hasn't been supported by a lot of voices who work in this sector. Is this an appropriate measure to combat family violence in your government's view?
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: Well, again this is clearly a matter for the Northern Territory Government and we don't shy away from the need for there to be accountability in, you know, for perpetrators. Absolutely there needs to be accountability and the sentencing, if it does come to a sentencing, must be appropriate to the crime. However, you know, working with different communities and with particularly working with First Nations communities, I think we need to be very cognisant of the fact that mandatory minimum sentences are not always the right solution. And the government, clearly, the Federal Government that is, clearly does not think that these mandatory sentencing is the right solution. It doesn't reduce crime. There's evidence that it can actually make it more difficult to secure convictions. There's no evidence that mandatory sentencing acts as a deterrent. And you know, quite frankly, you know, I don't think we should be making it harder to protect the community and especially our children.
NAT TENCIC: When we talk about taking action on, on this matter. After four deaths a week before last, including the death of a 17-year-old Yolngu girl, one expert policy expert told the Guardian that there's been enough talking and now there's an implementation gap. What do you say to that?
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: That is exactly the reason I am here right now is we are working on, implement, implementing our national strategy and we are consulting widely right across the country. That consultation will end very shortly in the next couple of months and we expect a new action plan to be finalised in the first half of next year. And I'm absolutely confident, having been involved in a lot of the consultations that we will have an action plan that will be effective and that will certainly go some way to reducing the incidence of family, domestic and sexual violence.
NAT TENCIC: The NT's family violence sector has said that they're at a crisis point and you know, as you've said there, I guess there is federal funding in the plan to better support local services here in the territory.
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: Yes, there's federal funding, there's of course there's state funding. A part of the discussion that we had today was that you know, funding is important. Yes, there's no doubt about that. But it's also about making sure that all of the systems and all of the organisations work together, that we don't have cracks in the system and that the funding that we do have is utilised effectively. And I think that was a very interesting contribution from the groups today. I mean they all indicated that they work together all the time and they patch this together to that to make sure that people don't fall through the cracks. So, part of this plan is to make sure that the system is integrated, that there are no gaps for people to fall through and also that we, as I said in the beginning, that we really start to focus on prevention and early intervention. Particularly working with men and their families.
NAT TENCIC: As you said, this consultation is ongoing. Processes are ongoing. Just for a little bit longer. How can people have their say in this process?
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: We would love people to have their say and to get involved. There's a couple of ways that you can let us know. I mean if you are working in an organisation or in communities where you have programs that you know are working, please let us know. If you are cognisant of the gaps and areas that we need to improve, let us know there as well. You can attend a face-to-face meeting or online events, you can write a formal submission, you can complete an online survey, all of these things. You'll find how to do that at engage.dss.gov.au and I would love to hear from as many people as possible.
NAT TENCIC: Assistant Minister Kearney, thank you so much for your time.
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: It's a great pleasure. Thank you.
NAT TENCIC: Ged Kearney Assistant Minister for Social Services and Family Violence Prevention.