- Published:
- Tuesday 2 May 2017
The same policies will only produce the same tragedies.
That’s why I promised to change it all.
Three years ago, I announced our plan for Australia’s first Royal Commission into Australia’s number one law and order issue – family violence.
Its brief: to examine our failing system from the ground up, and to recommend the changes that will save innocent lives.
In the end, the Royal Commission into Family Violence produced 227 recommendations.
We are implementing every single one of them.
Last year’s Budget got on with the urgent changes: $572 million for more counsellors, more prevention programs, more support for children and more provision of emergency housing.
And this year’s Budget makes good on the promise I made three years ago: that we will match each and every recommendation with funding it needs – not just the rhetoric.
Our budget provides an unprecedented $1.91 billion investment to fulfil that promise.
We’ll establish 17 Support and Safety Hubs across the state – places where victims can go to protect their family and start their recovery.
We’re extending after-hours crisis support, counselling and therapy for tens of thousands of women and their children.
We’re building more crisis housing.
We’re overhauling the courts and the justice system, to make sure perpetrators get punished and victims get protected.
We’re recruiting hundreds of child protection officers who can take action straight away.
We’re helping police, courts, corrections and social workers share vital information so they can track perpetrators.
And to stop family violence before it starts, we’ll establish one of the world’s first family violence prevention agencies.
These are vast and lasting changes, and they’re going to save lives.
We need to keep victims safe. We need to keep perpetrators accountable. And we need to keep confronting the problems that cause family violence.
We’re doing just that.