Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Deputy Speaker, I thank the member for Bass, Ms Rosol, for bringing this on today. It is incredibly important, particularly off the back of the Commission of Inquiry, where so many sector workers feel that we are so far behind, and they’re absolutely right. The member for Bass, Ms Greene, just pointed out the closure of Ashley in 2028, when the initial commitment was 2021. The commission of inquiry also recommended that there was online reporting, through Tasmania Police, of sexual assault and abuse.
Now, what was supposed to happen is there was going to be an augmentation with online normal crime reporting through Tasmania Police that was expected to be live in November 2024. It’s now November 2025 with no news of when that’s actually going to happen. The funding for all of these projects is bad, it’s not enough ‑ but the project management of all of this is a complete failure, and it is an absolute shame.
Off the back of the commission of inquiry, and while we’re looking at child safety, we need to be looking not just in institutional settings, but what more we should be doing so that Tasmanian children and young people are also safe in their homes. In Tasmania, it is estimated that over 30 per cent of women are experiencing violence or abuse by a cohabiting partner. That’s been happening for that 30 per cent of Tasmanian women since the age of 15. That is a deeply disturbing statistic.
I note that today is National Survivors Day, so it is a good day to be having this conversation. National Survivors Day is a day that recognises and stands with survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and other forms of abuse. It honours the strength, resilience and courage of those who have experienced trauma, while raising awareness of the ongoing impacts of violence and the need for justice and the need for support.
Young women in Tasmania between the ages of 18 and 19 years old are nearly three times more likely to experience violence in a relationship than other youth nationally. That is an incredible shame on this state, and what are we actually doing in that space, to properly invest, to even have the conversation for the government to be raising this, as they need to? We know that education for prevention is direly needed, but it has to be rolled out more widely and see greater investment.
I want to acknowledge the work that organisations such as the Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS) are doing through programs such as Keeping Kids Safe. That’s for education and training in schools for children, parents, teachers and other professions that are working to prevent sexual harm, because we know that intervention programs, particularly on harmful sexual behaviours, have quite a high success rate compared to some other programs that we still need to work on more. Why wouldn’t we be putting more investment into that now, to create a safer environment for our children, and to be rolling that out through all schools, not just capping funding and rolling out through a few as a gesture. They should be in all schools, and that should be completely invested in at full capacity by this government. It’s a choice that they’ve made not to do that.
Of course, early intervention is not only making Tasmania safer now, it’s making Tasmania safer into the future. That’s not just because it’s changing behaviours in young people and they’ll be learning how to have safe and respectful relationships with other people. These are young people that are also observing current family, domestic and sexual violence in their homes.
We know that family violence across Tasmania is still increasing, and that’s a hard statistic to pin down, why that might be. It could be because women feel safer and more aware of support systems and therefore are more comfortable calling police and reaching out for help. There could be just a stark increase where neighbours are calling police to attend incidents that they’re hearing or seeing. Either way, it’s inappropriate. It’s not good enough to be having this higher statistic. We should be working as fast as we can towards a decrease.
Now, that was the point, to help set up a joint standing committee on family, domestic and sexual violence so we could actually see parliamentary intervention, apolitically, across both Houses of this parliament. I note that the order that was sent from this place some weeks ago is just sitting in the Legislative Council. I know everybody’s busy, but this is an epidemic in this state, and we have to do something to fix it now.
There is not enough investment, and we have to turn our attention to it. It’s difficult, but we can’t turn a blind eye to it. It’s simply not good enough. We need to see a future in Tasmania where we have enough rapid rehousing that is appropriate for families, for children, so that they can keep living a somewhat normal life. Wouldn’t it be great to have an Arch‑style centre for family and domestic violence as well?
