Frontline and legal services supporting women and children experiencing domestic violence have been given extra funding to address the national crisis.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a $4.7 billion package to fund services following a national cabinet meeting in Canberra on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that a nationally coordinated approach is required to address this national crisis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must act to ensure women are safe. These horrific and disturbing deaths and vile violence must be prevented.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albanese said the federal government would provide $3.9 billion over five years, in support for frontline legal assistance services.<\/p>\n
He said $351 million will be committed for the National Partnership Agreement, which will be matched by the states and territories, and will become available from July 2025.<\/p>\n
Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley said the Coalition was concerned by reports the money would not immediately flow to where it was needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that is the case, on the trajectory we are on, 40 women will be killed and many more women and children harmed between today\u2019s announcement and that funding kicking in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDomestic violence is above politics but we will hold Labor accountable for their promises to Australian women and children and for their delay in demanding a more rapid response from the states and territories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Legal aid services across the country want national cabinet to commit $317 million a year to meet demand for family law and domestic violence services, with vulnerable women being turned away.<\/p>\n
Legal Aid NSW senior solicitor Melanie Alexander said of her six to 10 clients a day, most women presented with \u201ca real risk of them, or their children, being harmed\u201d.<\/p>\n
Areas identified as needing urgent reform to reduce violence included a failure to protect vulnerable children in the youth justice system and the prevalence of alcohol.<\/p>\n
National Children\u2019s Commissioner Anne Hollonds said a tough-on-crime rhetoric was counterintuitive as it only increased the chances of reoffending.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re putting politics ahead of prevention,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds good because it sounds tough on crime, but it\u2019s not based on evidence and that will not keep the community safer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hollonds said this was because locked-up kids had high recidivism rates and learned more about criminal behaviour while behind bars.<\/p>\n
Increasing prison time to act as a deterrence against crime was not effective as children aged 11 or 12 were not making a calculation before committing an offence, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cChildren are not making their decision about whether to steal food or a car based on how long the sentence will be \u2013 it\u2019s a preposterous notion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Governments needed to recognise children committing crime meant their basic needs were not being met, whether this be housing, family care or mental health, the commissioner said.<\/p>\n
Restrictions on alcohol sales, delivery times and advertising as well as stronger regulation have been called for to address the role alcohol played in domestic and sexual violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Frontline and legal services supporting women and children experiencing domestic violence have been given extra funding to address the national crisis. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a $4.7 billion package to fund services following a national cabinet meeting in Canberra on Friday. \u201cWe know that a nationally coordinated approach is required to address this national […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-breaking-news"],"views":35,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4367,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4364\/revisions\/4367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}