Domestic violence organisations say they'll need to start winding back services because the government hasn't invested enough in its latest budget.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 We provide free legal assistance, so we assist people who aren't eligible for a grant of legal aid,
00:07 but also can't afford a private solicitor to represent them.
00:11 We attend the AVO list days at the local courts in our region every week,
00:16 and we work with women to keep themselves and their children safe.
00:21 We provide a range of different services. It's a holistic service.
00:25 We work with other community organisations, women's health centres, counsellors,
00:30 Aboriginal community controlled organisations in our region
00:33 to deliver wraparound support services for people,
00:36 and all community legal centres across Australia do that work.
00:40 So what was your reaction to the budget in terms of funding for victims of domestic violence?
00:47 We're actually really devastated, along with the rest of the domestic violence sector.
00:52 We know that violence is an epidemic in this country.
00:55 Men are raping and murdering women, women are going missing,
00:59 and women are taking their own lives because of the violence they've suffered.
01:03 It is absolutely devastating to be a woman who has experienced violence.
01:08 People struggle to recover from that.
01:10 We know it's a complex issue, and it requires a whole-of-service system response,
01:14 and we, of course, welcome all of the investment that the government has announced
01:18 in prevention and the other announcements about women's safety initiatives.
01:22 But we're on the front line, and as you said, turning away people every day.
01:26 It's incredibly distressing to see huge amounts of money,
01:30 billions of dollars in the federal government for other issues,
01:33 while we're hearing the platitudes from government about how important women's safety is,
01:38 and yet in that budget, community legal centres across Australia
01:42 are getting an increase of just $9.3 million in the next financial year.
01:47 There's 150 community legal centres around the country,
01:50 and that works out to just over $60,000 per centre.
01:54 It's not even enough to employ one full-time worker,
01:57 and in addition we've got no funding security past 30 June.
02:01 We know it takes months and months and months for the Commonwealth
02:05 and the states and territories to argue about how much money everybody contributes
02:09 to the next national partnership agreement that will start on 1 July 2025,
02:14 but we are turning people away every day.
02:18 Legal assistance is absolutely critical to ensuring that women and children are kept safe.
02:23 Community legal centres are on the ground in our communities.
02:26 We know what the solutions are, but we don't have the resources.
02:30 We need more funding so that we can keep women and children safe
02:34 and provide more representation services to women and to children.
02:40 In the last two years, we essentially had a funding cut
02:43 because the indexation in our funding agreements didn't match the award increases
02:47 that we had to pass on to our staff.
02:50 What the budget delivered this week is under 10% of what we needed
02:54 as community legal centres in the next financial year.
02:57 We can't meet the demand.
02:59 It's increasing every day, and we turn away about 1,000 people a day across the country.
03:05 I'm actually terrified that the next woman that comes to my centre,
03:09 who we have to explain that we don't have the resources to assist,
03:13 is then going to be on the news as having been murdered or gone missing.
03:18 And our communities deserve better than that from our governments.
03:22 Our communities deserve services that they can rely on for the long term.
03:27 We recently opened up an office in Orange, New South Wales.
03:31 That community has a rate of domestic violence twice the state average,
03:36 and we're inundated for requests for assistance.
03:40 We try to give everyone advice, but beyond that, it's very, very difficult,
03:45 and it's time that governments stepped up, put their money where their mouth is,
03:49 and resourced the community sector properly.
03:51 Now, you mentioned that you are turning people away.
03:54 What does it feel like to turn someone away when they need help?
03:57 And I imagine once they're turned away once,
03:59 they probably don't come back a second time.
04:02 That's exactly right.
04:04 It is very, very difficult to sit in front of somebody
04:07 who perhaps has just disclosed to you for the first time
04:11 that they have been sexually assaulted
04:13 by somebody they've been in a relationship with.
04:15 It is very difficult to tell them that your assistance is going to be limited.
04:20 And what that person then does, often we don't know.
04:24 What I think happens is that people become so disillusioned with the system.
04:29 Some people have had bad experiences of reporting to police,
04:32 some people have had bad experiences in courts,
04:34 and of the legal system more broadly.
04:37 And we know that trauma leads to lots of other things.
04:41 It leads to health issues, it leads to drug and alcohol addiction,
04:45 it leads to lots of other things that costs lots of money.
04:48 And we've been having these arguments with governments for years
04:51 about the cost-benefit of our service, and nobody seems to listen to us.
04:56 So what were you expecting to be announced in the budget?
04:59 And more importantly, what are you needing?
05:02 We asked the government to invest $125 million
05:06 into community legal centres across the country.
05:09 That would at least help us to start to meet demand.
05:12 That is just for one year. That's for the '24/25 year.
05:17 Going forward, we need double the funding that we currently have
05:21 under the National Partnership Agreement.
05:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]