Ms BADGER – Minister, you made mention just before of the release of what is essentially red tape reduction for liquor licensing. The media release announcing that reform didn’t make any reference to family violence, although I note it is now in the terms for it. As the minister responsible for the prevention of family violence, are you concerned that this red tape reduction seems to be the priority of the review over the impact of alcohol on family violence?
Ms HOWLETT – As I stated before, the Treasurer has already had or is having meetings with key stakeholders. I’m not sure of the outcome of when he’s having those meetings, but the Treasurer has made a commitment to meet with those agencies and stakeholders and have discussions.
Ms BADGER – What are you going to do, as minister for the prevention of family violence, to advocate to the Treasurer and to ensure that the impacts of family violence are the priority of what’s happening, not just further red tape reduction?
Ms HOWLETT – Yes, thank you. Courtney, I know you wanted to –
Ms HURWORTH – Through you, minister. Through the minister’s department we’ve already engaged directly with Treasury, the Office of Liquor and Gaming, to make sure that the review terms of reference, and how to contribute, has been sent to all the key agencies, including to the CEO of the Family and Sexual Violence Alliance. My team has been heavily engaged in making sure that the review considers the impacts of liquor licensing and alcohol in relation to family violence.
Ms BADGER – To clarify, as a part of that advocacy that you’ve been doing with the Treasurer, have you been requesting that a focus is on the National Cabinet Agreement as a priority as well?
Ms HURWORTH – Yes.
Ms BADGER – Minister, I had another question on the liquor licence streamlining. Among the 16 specific changes that are highlighted in the fact sheet is:
Strengthening controls on alcohol access and availability to address the role that alcohol may play in family and domestic violence.
Can you just, if you can, describe any specifics of what that means or sort of talk us through how you, as Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence, see how that sits intertwined with the other amendments that are trying to be made here to make it easier for liquor licencing?
Ms HOWLETT – That that is a a matter for the Treasurer. I know that he’s having consultation with stakeholders, but I’ll continue to view all future policies on alcohol licencing, legislative reform through a family violence and safety lens to ensure a balanced and sensible approach is made. We do need to have a balanced and a sensible approach.
Ms BADGER – Thank you, minister. There are a few, I guess, small, simple changes that are in some ways absent from Tasmania or there aren’t enough of them in the toolkit that Tasmania has in responding to family, domestic and sexual violence. Some of them – like we have a lot of organisations that do some fantastic kits up for women who are perhaps having to move residence or go temporarily somewhere else so that they’ve got the dignity of having basic essential needs in place, but having kits like that for children is something that we need to be doing a lot more of.
Again, that’s obviously something that’s more prolific in regional areas, as much of these issues often are. Also, things like in the advocacy space. We’ve got some great organisations such as Agenda Equality immediately come to mind and they do some training for victim-survivors who want to use their experience to be able to speak out and how to train them and support them through reliving their experiences for that advocacy. But there’s no set up network at the moment to be able to empower victim‑survivors collectively and have that support there for them all together.
They’re two examples of things that could be done relatively simply. What sort of meetings are you having between now and the next budget to set those things up? Will you host a much overdue roundtable with the sector to help start filling in some of these gaps ahead of the review and that sort of thing on the family violence act?
Ms HOWLETT – I have regular meetings with stakeholders, and I thank them for the incredible work that they do and the advocacy that they provide. As far as the next budget in 2026‑27, that is something that we will start to have discussions on. We have had discussions on the needs that are out there in the community, in the urban and the regional communities, as well. I know Courtney has more to say on that as well.
Ms HURWORTH – I wanted to pick up – you were referring to Advocates for Change, which is Engender Equality’s program. In setting up the minister’s Victim‑Survivor Advisory Council, we actually worked in partnership with Engender Equality, and they ran a version of the advocacy training that they do for Advocates for Change for that group. So, we’ve been very focused on that Victim‑Survivor Advisory Council. It sounds like something simple to do but, in setting up councils like that, it has to be safe and trauma‑informed. Engender has been a central component of working with us to do that.
