Working To Keep Women Safe

The Albanese Labor Government will continue our commitment to ending family, domestic and sexual violence in one generation with further investments to accelerate our efforts.

Violence against women and children is a national crisis. Since coming to Government, ending this violence has been a priority for the Albanese Government.

Funding in this Budget brings the Labor Government’s total investment to over $3.4 billion to support women’s safety and the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-2032.

Rates of intimate partner violence remain at epidemic proportions in Australia with a quarter of women having experienced this in their lifetime.

This Budget delivers $925.2 million over five years from 2023-24 which will provide financial support and support services for victim survivors leaving a violent intimate partner relationship, by improving and making permanent the Leaving Violence Program.

The Budget also includes a new decision to direct $1 billion of funding for the National Housing Infrastructure Facility towards crisis and transitional accommodation for women and children fleeing domestic violence and youth. This decision will supplement the $9.3 billion, five-year national agreement on social housing and homelessness.

We know we must do more to prevent violence from occurring and escalating, including to target high risk perpetrators and risks of homicide.

To address this, this Budget provides:

• $1.3 million for a rapid review of targeted prevention approaches to violence against women, with a panel of experts to provide advice to Government on preventing gender-based violence, including a focus on homicides.
• $4.3 million in 2024-25 for Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) to further build the evidence base on pathways into and out of perpetration of family, domestic and sexual violence.
• $3.9 million over four years in additional resourcing for the Office for Women to support whole of government coordination efforts and complement the work of the Department of Social Services to deliver on the Government’s continued response to gender-based violence.

To support the National Plan and address gender-based violence, this Budget also provides:

• The Albanese Government is providing an urgent injection of $44.1 million in 2024-25 to provide an immediate funding boost to the legal assistance sector to ensure that more Australians have access to justice and equality before the law.
• $19.4 million over two years to establish a National Student Ombudsman to help to eradicate gender-based violence from universities and $18.7 million over four years to establish a National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence.
• $13.1 million in targeted investments to support refugee and migrant women, including for the Settlement Engagement and Transition Support program and to support visa holders experiencing domestic and family violence.
• $11.7 million over two years to extend the First Nations Family Dispute Resolution pilot to deliver culturally-safe family dispute resolution services.
• $6.5 million in 2024-25 for the Age Assurance Pilot to Protect Children from Harmful Online Content.
• $6 million over two years for the provision of local outreach trauma-informed healthcare support to women and children experiencing domestic and family violence or homelessness, provided through Primary Health Networks on the Central Coast.

These new investments build on the $2.3 billion already put in place to support women’s safety and deliver the National Plan, with these new investments. This is also supported by investments that support efforts to tackle the scourge of gender-based violence including through housing, social security and streamlining our criminal justice system.

This Budget also delivers:

• Investments in women’s economic equality and financial independence, which is critical for women’s safety, including superannuation on Government-funded Paid Parental Leave ($1.1 billion) and supporting students on mandatory nursing, midwifery, social work and teaching prac placements ($427.4 million).
• Investments to improve information sharing and policing, including to support the National Criminal Intelligence System (NCIS) which provides Australian law enforcement and intelligence agencies with secure access to a national view of criminal intelligence and information, including on domestic violence perpetrators. This Budget provides $109.9 million over two years in further funding to support the NCIS.

Our new investments build on ongoing funding for services and programs that support women affected by violence, or provide women at risk of violence with financial support, including:

• $253.4 million over five years from 2023-24 in funding for 1800RESPECT, the national counselling, information and referral service for people affected by domestic, family and sexual violence.
• Payments through the income support system, including $35.4 billion over five years from 2023-24 to fund Parenting Payment (Single), which overwhelmingly supports single mothers, and $31.8 billion over five years from 2023-24 in Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) – of which 51 per cent of recipients are single women (compared to 27 per cent who are single men).

Our Government knows there is more to do – the job of ending gender-based violence is far from done.

One life lost is too many – and the deaths of women at the hands of men has to end.

Our commitment will not waver and is demonstrated strongly in our investments in this Budget that see our record investments in women’s safety grow to $3.4 billion.