National Cabinet's $4.7B funding plan for family violence support | Sunrise

National cabinet has just announced a $4.7 billion plan to provide ongoing funding for Frontline Family Violence legal and support workers it comes as pretty welcome news to organizations across the country supporting women and children who are fleeing violent Partners now the women's shelter in Armadale New South Wales has been providing vital services to families in the region for the last three decades and joining us now from the women's shelter is CEO Penny Laro Penny thanks so much for being with us okay your organization provides a number of vital services including crisis accommodation how do you see this announcement by the government helping your area morning M morning Matt uh yes you're right we uh the amow women's shelter has been here since around 1977 um we have a little under 20,000 square kilometer footprint so it's a really large area and lots of people up here in the northern table lands um we've seen about a 25% increase in the last two years um so we would have we'll have anywhere from around 600 women come to our door in any year um with their children and uh looking for housing looking for escape looking for safety any increase um is just horrifying uh considering what we're talking about here and that number is really alarming Penny uh just explain how the transitional housing works and and what you are able to offer because as mon mentioned the service absolutely vital yeah look there's a huge range of services that we offer much like uh other organizations like us around the country um one of the important ones is transitional housing so this is where it's between crisis housing and long-term housing and it it really allows us to address those Insidious and visible harms that come from domestic violence and many of those harms will continue to affect women and their families for sometimes years um so where we have uh 12 houses around Armadale um that look like any other house on the street um the family will be in there we will be com providing some case management support we're helping out to allow them time to rebuild and reimagine their life post violence um and also to to really have time to get that um life admin in order if you like um that is one of the biggest consequences of domestic violence when when someone is controlling so many parts of your life it can be hard to keep the balls in the air when it comes to the school the school for children and your own health and uh your Tendencies and how you look after your friends and your family and so this transitional housing just gives people a little bit of breathing space um it also allows us and and it's a really important part of moving people out of Crisis and into that long-term stable accommodation further down the track gosh Penny what what an amazing service that is I imagine that you could do with scores more of those transitional houses for for women I'm wondering about this new domestic violence funding announcement that was made yesterday and it's essentially for for Frontline Services a lot they are going to look at and report back to National cabinet about things like alcohol restrictions but what about turning the the tap off what about men Behavior programs what do you see needs to be done there mon what I would say um you know we talk a lot about violence being a choice and VI and using violence is a choice of course it's not like a it's not a choice like most other choices most men don't walk around you know choosing not to use violence today um for most men it's not part of their experience of the world but for the men who are using violence it's because it makes sense in their experience of the world so what we really need to tackle this epidemic against women is the resources to deal with that as you say to turn the tap off and ironically uh one of the biggest symptoms of domestic violence is that we don't really value the experience of people who've had violence in their life so when we when we don't provide quality services to women to young people and to Children who've experienced violence we sort of make violence a part of their existance and something that could occur later on in their life so it'll be really as this money filters down um I'm really hopeful that we get more um money and more resources to be able to really upskill our staff and to you know provide those really specific services that we need those therapeutic interventions that we need at a young age and for women immediately after their experience so that we can ensure that it's not ongoing and that it doesn't you know become a lifelong experience it's just one part of their life that they're able to move forward from yeah well Penny uh you're you're adding to the offerings just last week opened a Health Service um you know a nurse providing services to women in the shelters absolutely vital we're really grateful for you giving us an Insight this morning thank you so much thank you Matt thank you man