Bilyk, Sen Catryna

Senator BILYK (Tasmania) (19:34): Last week, the Tasmanian Liberal government had an opportunity in state parliament to show that they are serious about addressing family violence. Instead, the 12 Liberal members of the house of assembly, other than the Speaker, voted down a Labor motion calling on the government to properly fund Tasmania's Family Violence Counselling and Support Service. This service was established as part of the Safe at Home initiative and offers professional, specialised services to assist children, young people and adults affected by family violence. It delivers a whole host of services, including information, counselling and support, arranging assistance from police, organising safe accommodation, referrals to court support and legal aid, and acting as an advocate in speaking to other agencies such as Housing Connect or Centrelink. I cannot stress enough the importance of a service like this, nor praise highly enough the work of their staff. When a person leaves a violent relationship they can be extremely vulnerable. Victims will often leave with few belongings, no accommodation and no financial resources, while their abuser has often successfully isolated them from their friends, family and support networks. Without a service such as this, where can they go? Who do they turn to? The service currently receives sufficient funding to handle 2,000 referrals a year, yet this is not coming close to keeping up with current demand. Last year, there were just over 6,000 referrals to the Family Violence Counselling and Support Service. This has placed the staff at the service under enormous stress. No-one in need of help gets turned away, but with only one-third of the resources needed to meet demand it is impossible to give every person referred the support and the help they need. You can no doubt imagine that this is extremely distressing for the staff, let alone the people who are desperately seeking their help. The service estimates that they need a further 11.54 full-time equivalent staff to meet the additional demand. A month ago, Premier Will Hodgman offered to meet the staff, but he is yet to honour that commitment. There was a great demonstration of the overwhelming community sentiment about this issue when, on Friday night, Mr Hodgman posted on Facebook about an Our Watch/Engender Equality forum. The post, in which Mr Hodgman celebrated 'putting the prevention of violence against women into practice', was inundated with comments about funding for the Family Violence Counselling and Support Service. Here are a few examples of those comments. The first reads, 'Family violence support and counselling services need to be adequately funded and resourced by the government. It's the only way to break the cycle of violence. Take some positive action please, to get funding to these much-needed services.' Another quote reads, 'We need this government to provide support to victims of family violence in addition to preventive measures. You can't just forget about those that are already suffering because you are hoping to reduce family violence in the future. Please ensure the Family Violence Counselling and Support Service continues to be funded to those in need now.' And there's this one: 'Please, if you value and are committed to eliminating family violence, you must support the victims to ensure that they can access the services which potentially could be the only way they can see their way out or know that they're not alone.' As well as calling on the Tasmanian government to meet the staffing shortfall, the Labor opposition is seeking assurances that the government's review of family violence services won't result in the restructuring, dismantling or outsourcing of FVCSS. I'd like to thank those who have advocated for the service, including the Tasmanian Labor opposition—in particular their family violence spokesperson, Michelle O'Byrne—and the Community and Public Sector Union. Unlike the Hodgman government, they are standing up for the FVCSS, its staff and the thousands of victims of family violence it seeks to support. Premier Will Hodgman may well be a White Ribbon ambassador, but it takes more than wearing a white ribbon to show you're serious about tackling family violence. Mr Hodgman and his government are failing Tasmanian victims of family violence. If the Tasmanian government want to show that they are serious about family violence, they need to recognise that the FVCSS is an integral part of the Safe at Home framework. Furthermore, they must properly fund the service to meet demand. Failing to do so leaves victims of family violence isolated and vulnerable, with little choice but to return to the violent, abusive relationships that they sought to escape, and that's just not acceptable. Senate adjourned at 19:39