No to Violence welcomes today's tabling of the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs report from the 'Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence' and is committed to working with the Australian Government to hold perpetrators to account for their use of violence.
No to Violence is the operator of the Men's Referral Service, and represents organisations across Australia that work to monitor the risk and safely address behaviours of men who use family violence.
The report includes 88 recommendations, with a strong focus on perpetrators of family violence. This represents a strong shift at a national level to holding the people actually using the violence accountable.
Recommendations included additional funding to support the sector that works with family violence perpetrators, and continuing the national operation of the Men's Referral Service for a further three years.
This recommendation comes following No to Violence's submission and appearances in public hearings that provided evidence before the Committee in 2020.
No to Violence Chief Executive Officer Jacqui Watt thanked the Committee members for their consideration, analysis and consultation.
"We are really encouraged by the report's recommendations, including the increased focus on keeping perpetrators in view to reduce the risks experienced by victim-survivors. If these recommendations are adopted by the Australian Government, this would significantly improve the safety of women across Australia," said Ms Watt.
"As highlighted in our submission, our fundamental belief is that children are not born violent. Children do not need to turn into violent men. This is a learnt behaviour. We fundamentally
believe that men who use violence can change."
The report includes a focus in the next National Plan to hold perpetrators to account for their use of violence and highlighted the need to provide funding for research on the backgrounds, characteristics, and recidivism rates of perpetrators of family violence to inform future policy and practice concerning perpetrator intervention.
"As we transition to a new National Plan, it is important to continue to collect national data, from diverse populations data if we are to help drive change across Australia's family violence system," said Ms Watt.
"Nationally consistent data is currently limited due to the state-based nature of police datasets, and needs to be informed by detailed insights on outcomes for victim-survivors and perpetrators. We need to monitor this to build the evidence base and find out what works.
"We are all this together; the community sector, employers, employees, community groups, individuals and importantly, government and need to work together to ensure the system and services are enabled to work together".
If you are concerned about how your behaviour is affecting your family, please call the Men's Referral Service (1300 766 491 or mrs.org.au).
If you are experiencing family violence, help is available at 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) or 1800RESPECT.org.au.
