Family Violence Motion

Mr President, I join my colleagues in welcoming and congratulating the two new members of the Chamber – the member for Huon and the member for Rosevears. It was lovely to hear the inaugural contribution of the member for Huon today. I certainly look forward to hearing from the member for Rosevears in times to come and getting to know you both better as colleagues in the Chamber. Welcome.

Thank you to the Member for Murchison for bringing this motion for debate.  Family violence is an important topic for our consideration as its impact pervades our community.

I would begin by acknowledging any people here today and those in the Tasmanian community who are affected by family violence – those who are victims and survivors, those who are witnesses and allies, and those who provide support and assistance.

The Member for Murchison has provided a thorough discussion of this issue and the points covered by the motion. I support the motion fully and will add my thoughts on a few matters it covers.

Something I am inserting into my contribution just now, having listened to my colleagues and their contributions, is something I noted as I listened – that is, we use a lot of figures in relation to this topic, a lot of data. Generally, the figures we quote are victim-focused – one in four women, one woman a week, and the like.

This in itself tells us something, because if we talk about and prompt each other to think about the fact that one in four women we may know is experiencing family violence, or has experienced family violence, we must be prompted to extrapolate that, and to think about the fact that potentially one in four men we know is a perpetrator of family violence.

I do not know about you, Mr President, and others here, but somehow, for me, I have to acknowledge when I say that aloud, it is much more comfortable to acknowledge one in four women than it is to acknowledge one in four men as a perpetrator. That is interesting. It is fundamental to what is underpinning this motion, and what is underpinning this issue.

It is representative of the sensitivity that is there, so that when we come to discuss this issue together, when we come to give it our consideration and our analysis and our investment and our true commitment, we have to acknowledge the uncomfortable parts of it. We have to have the difficult conversations with ourselves, and with each other, to move forward.

We cannot just comfortably all share a ‘one in four women’ and ‘one woman a week’ and nod and shake our heads and feel bad about that. We have to also find a way to talk about an even more important need to put accurate figures, honest figures, purposeful figures, to the however many in four, and however many in 10, however many men in our community on the other side of this equation who are the active perpetrators of this issue.

Until we do that, we are still putting barriers in front of us making general progress. We are still focusing on the wrong end of the equation, and we will still be talking about this issue for who knows how much longer into the future, until we have that difficult conversation.

That leads into the things I would like to say further about this motion. That is, Mr President, violence against women occurs in the social context of gender inequality. 

It is not inevitable; it is preventable.

As a community we can work to prevent violence against women by addressing the gender inequality that exists.

It is important to emphasise that this is not something that will happen naturally. It is not something that will happen on its own. It is something that must be done through active, thoughtful work, so that we can undo the patterns that are set, so that we can address the unconscious biases that we all hold from our socialisation – and I would pin that to the more comfort in discussing the women experiencing violence, than the comfort in talking about the men perpetrating it. The unconscious biases, so that we can also address those more overt forms of discrimination that are still held by many, and acted on by many, in our community.

The Member for Murchison has already mentioned Jess Hill’s book, published this year, titled ‘See What You Made Me Do’.

I reiterate the Member’s encouragement to read this book.

In it, Ms Hill explains why she prefers the term domestic abuse, rather than domestic or family violence. 

That is partly because use of the word ‘violence’ puts the focus on physical assault and physical harm. But we know that the vast majority of domestic abuse which is occurring is not physical violence.

It is like an iceberg, with the physical violence the very small tip that is perhaps most visible, while the great mass of domestic abuse is below the surface, harder to see.

It’s the controlling behaviour, the emotional abuse, the threats and coercion, the psychological damage, the financial and social control.

These are the behaviours that have a life-limiting impact on victims – that freezes them in their potential to fully live and express their own identity and sense of self and pursuit of life and happiness.

These are the behaviours that find a fertile ground in more broadly held attitudes of gender inequality.

Some of the damaging societal attitudes and patterns we need to dismantle include rigid gender roles and stereotypes about men and women.

As a small anecdote, sometimes these things do not really ‘hit you in the face’, where some people overtly hold rigid gender roles – men must go and do this, women must go and do that. It can be really subtle; it is the unconscious biases that are there.

I will give you an example. I had a discussion recently with a friend. We were simply observing posts on a Facebook page about sports teams relating to girls and boys. They were all on the same Facebook page, the little comments about games of the week. We just noted the difference in language used in the descriptions of the children who were featured about each game. We noted that the language used, the verbs used, the sorts of energy in the descriptions that related to the boys who had played that weekend, were very forceful and active and strong and lively in the posts about the boys’ teams.

This is a generalisation, but in the same Facebook feed, the descriptions that related to the girls and the girls’ teams that had played were less active, a little bit softer, a little bit more general, a little bit less physical and robust in the way they were described.

It was an interesting observation for my friend and I to be making together. I think it points to the fact that this is not always obvious. Dismantling these ideas about how we talk about boys and girls, about how we think about men and women. It is not always the obvious, overt, discriminatory things, it is the very small things. They are things that you can tweak, they are things that you can think about subtly. How are we describing boys here? How are we describing girls? What messages are we giving these young people about who they are and their capacity and capability and how they should be in the world?

We can do it in all sorts of ways, big and small. That is just a small anecdote to help illustrate that point.

I will move on. I was talking about the damaging societal attitudes and patterns we need to dismantle. Moving on from those gender roles and stereotypes, we also have to look at toxic forms of male bonding, and exhibitions of aggressive masculinity that directly disrespect and are hostile towards women, towards things that are regarded as feminine, and are dismissive of those things – both broadly, but also certainly within other males.

We have to look at social norms that place men more readily into decision-making and leadership roles, and relegate women’s voices into subservient roles, into less featured roles, into less heard roles. We have to look at the excuses – those excuses that are made all too readily that absolve men of responsibility when they are aggressive, or abusive, or even violent in their behaviour.

This motion from the member for Murchison calls for a whole of Government, whole of Parliament approach to raising awareness, challenging attitudes and considering law reform.

I support that call, but I would add that this must be alongside a whole of family and whole of community approach. 

It is everyone’s business.

But to be even more pointed about where responsibility lies, it is the business of each and every one of us; every day; at home, at work, at play and in our community.

Sometimes saying it is everyone’s business means that it is no-one’s business. I want to be absolutely explicit that it is in fact the business of each and every one of us to make the change that is needed.

This is a huge task.  It is, at times, difficult and confronting as I have already spoken about.

It takes consideration, analysis, strategic and purposeful action.

And it will take time.

Having said that, I don’t believe we have reached an appropriate level of urgency in our approach and our actions.

Thirty six Australian women have been killed in 2020.  We have heard that numerous times today already.

Five of those have been in the last 20 days and the physical manifestation of violence against women – particularly homicide as its most extreme expression – is just the tip of the iceberg. Every single one of the 36 murders of Australian women this year by a partner or a former partner is abhorrent. Every single one is an utter tragedy. Every single one is a shocking waste of life and it must be unimaginable painful for the families and friends and communities of each of those 36 women had around them.

It is the tip of the iceberg though. It is the tip of the iceberg of that tragedy of shocking waste of life and abhorrent reality too many Australian and Tasmanian women are living.

Mr President, the Member for Murchison has spoken of the work of Our Watch, a national leader in the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia.

That organisation works to embed gender equality and prevent violence where Australians live, learn, work and socialise.

Our Watch tells us the actions that will help prevent violence against women include challenging the condoning of violence against women. Not accepting that violence against women is normal, inevitable and challenging any social norms structures and practices that condone or excuse it.

They said promoting women’s independence and decision-making is essential. Ensuring women have access to the same resources, power and opportunities as men. They also say challenging gender stereotypes and roles confirming that supporting children, young people and adults to develop positive personal identities free of those restrictive gender stereotypes is essential.

Particularly, they highlight promoting gender equitable roles in parenting, in work and other areas amongst our community. Home is important as well as in public. As they strengthen in positive equal and respectful relationships must be part of this equation. Challenging disrespectful behaviour towards women and assumptions men should have power and control. Working with children and young people to promote respect and gender equality as they are raised at home, school and in our community.

These are valuable guideposts for us in taking action but, most specifically, I highlight the particular role Government can take to provide a better and more effective support to those who are experiencing family violence now.

The section of the motion that is pertinent here is point 3(e):

Provide adequate resourcing to support the victims of family violence, predominantly women and children, to access: safe shelter, financial support, social support, access to justice and legal aid, psychological and therapeutic support.

We live in a community that has insufficient affordable housing, such that thousands experience homelessness, including thousands of women and children turned away from emergency housing services.

We have heard about two women’s services delivering emergency accommodation to Hobart women – one in the Kingston area and one in the Hobart area. Twelve women a month from the Huon region was the figure given to us by the member for Huon, who are turned away. The member for Murchison mentioned 219 women a month are turned away from the Hobart Women’s Shelter.

This is the stark reality of a lack of affordable housing, because we cannot move women through those emergency services and into more secure, permanent accommodation by which they can escape their current situation. The number of women who can only exit emergency accommodation back into situations of violence is abhorrent and astounding in a community that claims to be civilised, that claims to be a compassionate and kind society.

We live in a community that sees women financially disadvantaged throughout their working life and in their retirement.

We live in a community in which access to justice can be traumatising to women and children and legal aid is rationed, with many missing out.

While I acknowledge that investment is being made by government in these areas, the simple reality is that it is not enough.

We are not planning to actually solve this issue.

We are not investing sufficiently to actually support Tasmanian women.

We are not doing enough. It is as simple as that.

Tasmania is not unique in this insufficient response. 

And, indeed, state governments cannot address this problem in isolation. Yes, it is their responsibility, but it is also a community and a national responsibility. Governments, however, should take a leadership role.

In early March this year, ahead of a COAG meeting of a Women’s Safety Ministers from around the country, 67 groups from around the country signed a letter written by Australian Violence Against Women Alliance and Fair Agenda to state and federal governments.

This letter outlined 5 clear areas that need improvement.

The five actions include:

• fully funding specialist services that keep women and children safe,
• putting kids’ safety first in the family law system,
• ensuring those facing safety risks can be identified and correctly referred to frontline workers,
• improving AVO standards and ensuring everyone’s calls for help can be heard.

The letter stated:

“Women can’t afford for this meeting to only result in more plans and promises of future action. Alongside long-term plans, we need these five immediate changes to urgently improve women and childrens’ safety.”

Dr Merrindahl Andrew, the Program Manager of AWAVA, said that governments can’t simply point to plans that have been written as if that’s all that’s required in order to make women safer.

She said

“The plan isn’t worth the paper it’s written on if it’s not matched with adequate resourcing of services, and changes to the systems that perpetuate this crisis,”

And further, she said,

“With increasing awareness of the issue, and a public focus on changing attitudes, more women than ever before are seeking greater safety and support from services. Without full funding of the specialist services that women rely on to be safe, the current national action plan is set on a course to fail.”

The COAG Women’s Safety Council has met numerous times since March, most recently this month, I believe.

Those actions, advocated for by dozens of groups nationally, have not been taken up or funded in a meaningful way.

National advocates and those in the sector estimate that current funding needs to be quadrupled to adequately address demand.

Mr President, I would like to finish by acknowledging the essential and excellent work done by Tasmanian services providing support and assistance to women and children affected by family violence.

I acknowledge Relationships Australia which provides counselling and other support to people who have experienced violence and abuse. It provides programs, groups and courses for people who have used anger, violence or abuse in their interpersonal relationships and want to find new ways of relating to others to not harm. They run the Men Engaging in New Strategies – MENS – program designed for men who have hurt or abused their partners or ex-partners and who are ready to take responsibility for their behaviour. That program is specifically for men who are perpetrators of low- to medium-risk family violence.

I also acknowledge Engender Equality, a statewide, not-for-profit organisation that supports people affected by family and domestic violence in Tasmania. It offers counselling face-to-face, by phone and online, and it offers, importantly, education and training and advocacy for change. It is a leadership voice on this topic in this state.

I also acknowledge the Women’s Legal Service Tasmania, a community legal service offering free statewide assistance to women. It provides advice and referral on all legal matters, including family law and family violence. I acknowledge the Hobart Women’s Shelter, which specialises in issues relating to domestic and family violence, gender discrimination and homelessness as it relates to women and their children in Tasmania.

The Hobart Women’s Shelter is also a partner in the Mentors in Family Violence Prevention Program. This is training that promotes participants as empowered as bystanders who can confront, interrupt or prevent violence. The other groups involved in delivering that program are Engender Equality, Women’s Health Tasmania and the Women’s Legal Service. It is funded by the Tasmanian Community Fund. I acknowledge Jireh House, which is a welcoming supportive crisis accommodation service for women and children in Tasmania.

I acknowledge Women’s Health Tasmania, a service run by women for women. They provide counselling and a free call information line. It has a community nurse and provides financial assistance through the No Interest Loans Scheme. It also runs a range of very well participated in wellbeing activities such as yoga, tai chi and meditation.

I acknowledge CatholicCare which provides the Safe Choices program. It is a service for children, young people and adults affected by family violence. This is a non-crisis service that can help with decision-making, exit planning and practical support. CatholicCare also runs specialised family violence services for couples and individuals dealing with issues related to controlling aggressive, violent or abusive behaviours in their relationships. That program provides help for all the family through a service focusing on the needs and the safety of each family member.

Finally, I mention the Tasmanian Family Violence Council and Support Service. That is part of the Tasmanian Government’s Safe at Home initiative. It has services available to anyone, including children and young people, who need support or information because of their partner, ex-partner or family member who is or has been violent or abusive to them.

That is not an exhaustive list of Tasmanian services that provide support in this space and I apologise to those I may not have mentioned. I extend my personal thanks to all those services and individuals in this state that are providing assistance and safety to Tasmanian women.

I thank the member for Murchison for highlighting this urgent and important issue and I reiterate my full support for this motion.