Image: Wikimedia Commons
by ASPEN ABNER
The NSW Budget will provide $15.6 million and an additional $230 million, spread out over 4 years to tackle the domestic violence epidemic and provide support for victims. Critics say it’s not enough to tackle the country’s endemic of domestic violence.
Nearly 1 in 4 women in Australia suffer from domestic and family violence. On average, one woman a week is killed by an intimate partner.
This is a long-term problem, triggering nationwide outrage and rallies, such as the No More rally in response to Molly Ticehurst’s horrific death, and the growing number of women lost to violence.
As of June 19, data from Counting Dead Women shows that 36 women have died this year alone due to domestic violence.
The emergency funding is split into six categories: $48 million for crisis response, $73.1 million for improving the justice system for victims, $48.7 million for early prevention, $46.1 million for primary prevention, $8.6 million for strengthening the sector, and $5 million for research.
Premier Chris Minns stated this funding announcement is “an important step to doing better”.
Greens NSW Treasury Spokesperson, Abigail Boyd said, “To provide a measly additional $15.6m on top of the already-announced so-called “emergency funding” of $230 million to tackle the domestic and family violence crisis is insulting.”
“How loud do we need to yell before the NSW Government takes this issue seriously? After decades of underfunding, the NSW Labor government couldn’t even provide even a modest uplift to the core funding of domestic and violence services across our State.”
Including the emergency funding allotment, Boyd states that the money is “between half and two-thirds that which is being provided by Victoria.”
“Simply a continuation at current funding levels”
It’s also unclear how much of this money is new additional funding and how much of this money is already being used to fund existing programs and pilots with already prior funding commitments.
For further context, Staying Home, Leaving Violence, a four-year program, was initially funded $32 million in the 21/22 Budget. It is yet to be seen whether or not the promised $48 million in the 2024/25 emergency funding includes this $32 million program, set to expire this year.
Boyd said, “It appears the $48 million funding for workers who support children accompanying their mothers to refuges is simply a continuation at current funding levels to support the existing 20 Specialist Children and Young People Workers in NSW refuges whose funding was only funded for 12 months and is due to expire this year.”
“When you put this announcement in context and consider the scale of the crisis, and look at the NSW government annual expenditure of around $120 billion dollars, you have to ask yourself if the government is genuinely pulling all of the levers at their disposal.”
NSW Treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, has framed the budget spending into “Must Haves” and “Nice to Haves”.
Boyd said that it’s long overdue that “the epidemic of gendered violence is a ‘Must Have’”.
“The government needs to be really open and transparent with people right now,” she continued.
“We need confidence in their response to this crisis that has been going on for too long. Inflated figures and creative accounting won’t sit well with a public so thoroughly fed up with spin without substance.”
