E&OE TRANSCRIPT
MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, CATHERINE KING: Well, the Federal Government's been investing over $4 billion in family and domestic violence and sexual violence services. And we have a national action plan - we're coming up to the second one. And we've been doing consultations right the way across the country, and we've had Assistant Minister Ged Kearney here in Ballarat today doing what is the last of over 160 consultations across the country.
There's a lot of work being done by Respect Victoria, Respect Ballarat, but all of the terrific service providers here in Ballarat are both at the response and recovery end of domestic and family violence. But we're also doing a lot of work in prevention. We've unfortunately had some terrible, terrible incidences here in Ballarat, but also high rates of domestic violence as well. But the service system here been working incredibly hard to try and turn that around, engaging with sporting clubs, with schools, with businesses, and a huge amount of work. And it was great to have Ged here today to actually hear firsthand what some of the services are doing, but also what they think the next action plan and the investments from the Federal Government should go to, particularly working on prevention and particularly working on programs to help specifically children survivors of domestic violence in and of their own right, but also focusing on what we can do to help men change the trajectory of their lives to help their kids and their families.
JOURNALIST: Ged, just take us through what's been happening overall with these community consultations and what has been happening here in Ballarat today.
ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES AND THE PREVENTION OF FAMILY VIOLENCE GED KEARNEY: Well, the Albanese Government is absolutely committed to ending family, domestic, and sexual violence within a generation. It seems like a big call, and we've got a lot of work to do, but it's incredibly important because one in four women actually experience gender based violence and one in five women experience sexual violence. This is a real scourge on our community. It's something that we have to do something about.
So, we have a national strategy to end violence against women and girls in this country, and we're moving into a phase called the Second Action Plan, where we are going around the country consulting with everybody about what are the next stages in that strategy. We have spent $4.4 billion so far on fighting family, domestic and sexual violence, and a great deal of that money has been spent in crisis. And that's absolutely fine and important work, and we're not taking anything away from that, nor are we taking anything away from accountability. But in the Second Action Plan, we are serious about facing the barriers to working with communities and prevention. How do we prevent family and domestic violence? How do we intervene with people we know that are at risk? How do we work with young children who've been exposed to family and domestic violence and adolescents? And how do we work with men in our communities, bringing them on as allies and making sure that they are part of this national conversation, preventing family, domestic, and sexual violence.
So, we really wanted to come to Ballarat. We know that here in Ballarat, Respect Ballarat has been an enormous innovation, if you like, in tackling violence against women and children. It's a perfect example of how a whole community is taking an approach where every organisation, all the schools, all the sporting clubs, kindergartens, pubs, all sorts of communities, spaces, and people, and organisations are coming together to work together as one to fight this. It's really an incredible model, and I absolutely wanted to hear what was happening here with Respect Ballarat.
I've had a conversation here this morning. It's been amazing. I've heard that some organisations are working with children, they're working with families, they're working with men, they're working with women experiencing family and domestic violence, they're working with our sporting clubs and with all those organisations where we need to build an understanding of what drives and what actually prevents family, domestic, and sexual violence. It's been such an eye-opener, and I congratulate Respect Ballarat and the whole community of Ballarat and the regions right around for what they're doing here.
JOURNALIST: I suppose, in general terms, what are some of the challenges you've been hearing today, especially with these organisations, in going forward and improving the situation we're in.
GED KEARNEY: Well, I think I've learned a lot today. We talked a lot about how quickly we're being outpaced by technology and how the use of technology in some ways is driving a lot of the problems that we're seeing. Young people getting access to pornography very, very young, exhibiting sexually predatory behaviour, and how we deal with that in schools and in our community. I'm hearing that we really need to help our workforce be skilled up in how to manage ever-changing landscapes with respect to this, and investing in our workforce, I heard today is incredibly important. And I heard about the barriers to really getting out there to educate communities about gender equality, and how they compound with other drivers like alcohol and drug use. These are big questions and really big challenges that Respect Ballarat are taking on.
EMMA MAHONY: Yeah, yeah. So, it's Emma Mahony. Mahony is spelled M A H O N Y. And I'm the manager of Prevention Coordination at Respect Victoria.
JOURNALIST: Beautiful. Just take us through what was happening here today and why it's so important.
EMMA MAHONY: Today was a really wonderful and unique opportunity for the voices of Ballarat to be heard. So, we had a domestic violence roundtable. We brought together everyone that's working to solve this problem. So, we had response, early intervention, primary prevention, right across to healing and recovery. So, all the services that are striving to tackle this problem of domestic, family, and sexual violence. And what we're trying to do is look towards the next national plan as an opportunity to build on the strengths of the first plan and go further.
And what's unique is Ballarat, tragically, in 2024, three women lost their lives. In response to that, the community of Ballarat took to the streets. Through the kind of call to action, through the local kind of commitment for change, the state government invested in what is now described as Respect Ballarat, and the commitment of Respect Ballarat is to work in the places people live, love, work and play, to talk about, to think about, to understand this problem of violence, to intervene early, to find ways to respond when people are experiencing violence, and to kind of take a coordinated approach to ending violence before it occurs.
JOURNALIST: I suppose - I did ask the Minister - what are some of the challenges, specifically in the Ballarat and wider Ballarat area that the groups are experiencing and things that maybe need to be worked on?
EMMA MAHONY: Yeah, yeah. This beautiful collection, sort of partnership, coordination of activity locally. I think the two large problems, and I think Ged Kearney spoke about them earlier, is the experience of men and boys and so how they're learning about healthy, respectful masculinities, how they're learning about respectful relationships, how they're finding ways to explore who they are in healthy and constructive ways. And that kind of interacts with the digital environment. So, I think we all understand in the digital environment the access to unhelpful, destructive ways of behaving, ways of learning about sex and intimacy that are not respectful or safe. So, two emerging challenges are certainly the digital landscape and providing opportunities for men and boys to be part of whole-of-community action to end violence before it occurs.
JOURNALIST: Nailed it. [Indistinct], what are you worrying about? [Indistinct] sticking your head out and, just so you're not looking down the barrel. It looks pretty crappy. And again, just before we start, can I grab your name, how we spell it and your title, please?
JENNIE COURTNEY: Absolutely. Jennie Courtney, CEO of Women's Health, Grampians. That's Jenny with an I E. J E N N I E, C O U R T N E Y.
JOURNALIST: Jennie, from a local point of view, I suppose, where are we at here at Ballarat?
JENNIE COURTNEY: Yeah. It's been so amazing today to showcase the brilliant work that we've been doing in Ballarat for over 35 years, but certainly the last 10 years, through the Communities of Respect and Equality alliance. We have over 75 organisations in town who've been working together on the prevention of gender-based violence. And Minister Kearney today was able to see what a fantastic place it is. There is still so much work to be done, and we're doing that through Respect Ballarat, but we have collaboration across the whole of town, across all aspects of sporting clubs, community groups, workplaces, council, governments, everybody working together to ensure that we will stamp out these terrible, terrible experiences that people have.
JOURNALIST: And on that note, I suppose, how great is it to see so many organisations within the Ballarat area coming together on this one issue? This is huge. You don't usually get this kind of collaboration. So widespread: sporting groups, like you said, government, healthcare - whatever it is, everyone seems to be on board with this. How is that? How does that make you feel? And how important is that for a regional area?
JENNIE COURTNEY: So, in 2024, we had the deaths of three women: Samantha, Hannah and Rebecca. As a community, we came together and said, this is not good enough. And so, together, across all aspects of our community, we have been working to ensure that there are programs, there are activities, there are interventions that will mean that as a whole of community, we know how we can stop this.