Tomorrow's National Cabinet must show that governments will act on the scale of the epidemic of violence in Australia, before it is too late.
Two years ago, prompted by public outrage over a rise in women being murdered and assaulted the federal government commissioned a Rapid Review and convened an urgent National Cabinet meeting to address gendered violence.
Despite the urgency required, many of the commitments made at that National Cabinet meeting remain unfinished or ignored, with Women's Safety Ministers recently giving themselves a further year to report back on progress.
Senator Larissa Waters, Australian Greens Leader and Spokesperson on Women said:
"In the last two weeks in Australia, we have been bombarded by devastating headline after devastating headline, each one leaving women feeling less safe in their communities.
"Two years on from the last urgent National Cabinet meeting to address gendered violence, commitments remain unimplemented and underfunded. And they just gave themselves a one year extension to report - so much for this being an urgent crisis.
"Tomorrow's National Cabinet must commit to fully fund frontline services so no woman or child is turned away when they seek to escape violence, and to increase funding for prevention work to address the worrying slide in attitudes to violence, particularly by young men.
"Every day, underfunded services are forced to turn women away or put them on unacceptably long wait lists. Every week 225 women and children are turned away from crisis accommodation. Every barrier and delay is traumatic and makes women less safe.
"DV NSW has consistently called for a 50% uplift in funding, given referrals to frontline services have increased by at least 22% while the frontline DFSV workforce in NSW has been reduced by 12%. In Victoria, Safe and Equal estimates that a 62% funding increase is needed to fully meet demand in Victoria. In Queensland, the government has recently cut funding to prevention services, and threatened services who complained.
"We need to fully fund the frontline services that do the hard work to support the women and children who experience it, and invest more deeply in programs to prevent violence.
"Too many women and children are being killed by violence, primarily by men and most often by someone known to them, to wait any longer. We don't need more ideas, we need the funding and the political will to turn them into action.
"The government seems to always be able to find money for war but when it comes to keeping women safe or helping us recover, Labor cries poor."
