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Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence

Answer

Violence against women and children is a national emergency, underreported and prevalent. It requires action across prevention of harm, early intervention, response, reporting, recovery and healing services. Women have a right to be safe at home, at work and in our community. Sexual violence is an issue that affects people in Casey, through personal experience or knowing someone who is affected.

It is shocking that the major parties have been silent about violence against women until the final days of the 2025 federal election campaign. 

If elected as the Independent MP for Casey I pledge to take these policies to Parliament:

  • Research to better understand causality of sexual violence including, but not limited to poverty, intergenerational abuse and violence, geographic, cultural and religious considerations.
  • Develop a national sexual violence prevention framework.
  • I support a meaningful investment in healthy relationships education and consent to drive a long-term cultural change in attitudes towards women.
  • I support regulation and legislative reform of online misogyny, hate organisations, influencers, organisations and individuals that assign social roles based on gender. Online platforms need to be accountable for messaging about gendered violence.
  • First responders need to be better resourced, informed and trained to deliver trauma-informed best practice policing.
  • I support a long-term National Partnership Agreement between Federal and State Governments to ensure funding is ongoing for specialist frontline family, domestic sexual assault and sexual violence services including expert trauma-specialist prevention, response, recovery and healing services.
  • I will advocate for investment in crisis accommodation in Casey with wrap-around services so victims of sexual violence can leave when their home is not safe.
  • I support a meaningful investment in the specialist legal assistance sector for women affected by gender-based violence.
  • Advocate to the Attorney General to implement the Recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission report 'Safe, Informed, Supported: Reforming Justice Responses to Sexual Violence' starting with Recommendation 1.

We must do more for victims of family, domestic and sexual violence.

Over the past 6 months it has been curious to me that people in the community talk frequently about their fear of young men roaming the streets breaking into houses and stealing cars, and yet gender-based violence against women and family violence is rarely mentioned, unseen and under-reported.

Women across Australia are not getting the legal assistance and support they need to escape or recover from family, domestic or sexual violence. Specialist support services save lives. These services prevent sexual violence and support the recovery and healing of adult and child victim-survivors.

When someone needs crisis support, crisis accommodation, legal advice or specialist domestic and family violence services, these services should be available when they need it - not subject to a postcode lottery. Current waiting lists in Victoria for sexual assault/sexual violence counselling can be up to six months.

The National Association of Services Against Sexual Violence (NASASV) is the national peak body for the elimination of sexual violence in Australia. The sexual violence statistics in Australia are alarming:

  • 14% (2.8 million) of people aged 18 years and over have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15
  • 1 in 9 women (11% or 1.1 million) have experienced sexual violence by a male intimate partner since the age of 15.
  • 51% of women in their 20s, 34% of women in their 40s, and 26% of women aged 68–73 years have experienced sexual violence.
  • One in five women and one in 16 men over the age of 15 have experienced sexual violence.
  • Around 1 in 10 Australian men report they have sexually offended against children.
  • One in three girls and one in five boys have been sexually abused as children.
  • 1 in 20 (4.9% or 489,000) women have experienced sexual violence by a male friend or housemate.
  • First Nations women, women with disability and migrant women experience sexual violence at much higher rates.
  • Women with disability are more than twice as likely to report sexual violence as women without disability.
  • There were 36,318 victim-survivors of sexual assault recorded by police in 2023, an 11% increase from 2022, the 12th straight annual rise, and the highest rate in the ABS’s 31-year dataset.
  • Fewer than one in 10 victim-survivors report to police.
  • 75–85% of sexual violence reports to police do not proceed to charge, with victims experiencing the justice system as retraumatising.

Reporting of sexual violence 

Every victim-survivor should feel safe to report, informed about the options available to them and supported.

On 6 March 2025, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) report, Safe, Informed, Supported: Reforming Justice Responses to Sexual Violence, was tabled in Parliament, with 64 recommendations. The ALRC concluded that:

  • under-engagement with the justice system is the most significant problem with the justice system’s response to sexual violence. 
  • the justice system is failing to meet the twin goals of access to justice and accountability: it is not supporting those who have experienced sexual violence to engage with the justice system, nor holding those who use sexual violence to account. 
  • the justice system must be more accessible, more accountable, provide appropriate support, avoid ill-treatment and harm, and better meet the diverse justice needs of people who have experienced sexual violence. 

In response I draw attention to: Recommendation 1: To ensure people who have experienced sexual violence are able to engage with the justice system in a safe, informed, and supported way. I recently became aware of a local start-up called SAYFE founded in Casey - ready to scale which directly responds to ALRC Recommendation 1. SAYFE is a secure, trauma-informed disclosure online platform designed to remove the barriers that prevent victim-survivors from reporting serious incidents. I will champion these types of innovative solutions to achieve change.