The Andrews Labor Government welcomes the report tabled today by the Family Violence Reform Implementation Monitor on the implementation of the Royal Commission recommendations.
As indicated in the report, the work to completely rebuild our broken family violence system into one that protects the vulnerable and holds perpetrators to account is both ambitious and complex.
Since coming to Government we haven’t waited a single moment – commissioning a world-first Royal Commission, injecting immediate and critical resourcing into a too-long neglected service system, and investing $2.6 billion on measures to deliver reforms that will keep women and children safe.
The report noted that as of 1 November 2017, of the 227 recommendations, the Labor Government had completed 63 of them, with the remainder fully underway. It is expected that by the end of 2018, around 70 per cent of the recommendations would have been completed. The highlights of the work include:
- The Rapid Housing Assistance Fund which has resulted in 185 new social housing properties purchased for women and children and an additional 124 homes secured through head-leases
- Providing 8,000 flexible support packages to help women and children find safety
- Establishing a dedicated family violence agency to lead transformational information-sharing legislative reforms, workforce development and the roll-out of integrated responses to women and children
- The releasing of long term strategies to both prevent family violence and undertake a comprehensive industry plan to help recruit the workforce we need to keep women safe
- Establishing five specialist family violence courts and a range of other court based reforms to ensure family violence victims are dealt with more sensitively by the system and not further traumatised
- A boost in police resources including the recruitment of 415 new family violence police
- The creation of the new prevention agency Respect Victoria.
While we’ve made significant inroads, we know there is still a great deal of work to do. Family violence is our nation’s number one law and order issue and this won’t be turned around overnight.
For this reason we have committed to a ten-year reform vision to end violence against women and children in Victoria. Implementing the 227 recommendations constitutes the start of this journey.
Some of the ongoing reforms are easier to implement and are being rolled-out as quickly as possible, while others will require significant effort across the whole of government and will be delivered in stages.
We don’t shirk from these challenges and will continue to work hard to build on the collaboration across the family violence, families and children, justice and service sectors to date as we look to a long-term vision of a Victoria free from violence.
Quotes attributable to Special Minister of State Gavin Jennings
“We will not waste a single day working towards our goal of ending family violence in Victoria. We are proud of our work but we know there’s still so much more to do.”
“The Family Violence Implementation Monitor plays an important part in keeping us on track to achieve our promise to the women and children of Victoria and we thank him for his ongoing work.”
“We’ll continue to work closely with victim survivors and family violence practitioners to ensure that we get these reforms right. It’s crucial that we always put victim-survivors first and hold perpetrators to account.”
Quote attributable to Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence Natalie Hutchins
“We want all Victorians to feel safe, thrive and live free from family violence – that’s what our investment and reform is all about. We’ll continue to work hard each and every day to deliver the change that women need.”
Reviewed 19 August 2020