Fair Agenda

The questions

Section 1) Funding to address family violence

These questions are being asked in partnership with a number of domestic and family violence peak bodies, including: Domestic Violence NSW, Domestic Violence Victoria, National Family Violence Prevention Legal Services Forum, National Association of Community Legal Centres and No To Violence. 

Q1. Inadequate and unpredictable funding for family and domestic violence services limits the capacity of organisations to respond to the urgent and ongoing needs of people experiencing family violence.

1A. Would your party support the implementation of guaranteed, long-term funding and a ten year plan for workforce capability and development framework for services that work to prevent gender-based violence, support women and children, and intervene with perpetrators? 

1B. Do you commit to ensuring funding for domestic and family violence related services is allocated to service providers with specialist expertise in the gendered nature and dynamics of domestic and family violence and its impact on victim survivors?

Q2. Inadequate and unpredictable funding for family and domestic violence services limits the capacity of specialist agencies to respond to the urgent and ongoing needs of those affected. How much extra funding will your Party provide to specialist agencies to meet unmet demand?

Q3. Family Violence Prevention Legal Services provide specialist and culturally safe services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but are currently limited to just 14 locations.

3A. These services have not received the standard CPI level increase on their direct funding since 2013, the equivalent of a $9 million real loss of funding. Would you reinstate this funding?

3B. Would your Party commit to providing long term increased funding to properly resource the capacity of the current Family Violence Prevention Legal Services, and to increase geographic coverage of FVPLS including to urban, rural and remote areas - estimated at an additional $28 million annually? 

3C. Will your party commit to long-term, ongoing funding for the National FVPLS Forum?

Q4. Community Legal Centres provide vital free legal advice to hundreds of thousands of people across Australia every year, including people experiencing family violence.

4A. Community legal centres continue to face funding uncertainty and are insufficiently funded to meet rising demand for services. In 2014 the Productivity Commission recommended that an immediate injection of at least $120 million per year of additional federal funding was required by the legal assistance sector to meet demand. This would mean at least $14.4 million additional federal government funding per year for Community Legal Centres alone. Will your party commit to at least $14.4 million additional core funding per year for community legal centres?

4B. A number of community legal centres have specialist family violence units and health justice partnerships. A recent evaluation of these units and partnerships highlighted the significant difference they make in the lives of women experiencing family violence. Would your Party support and provide funding for national roll-out of these units and partnerships?

Q5. Would your Party provide additional federal funding to expand perpetrator responses and interventions, including men’s behaviour change programs, case management, fathering programs and other specialist interventions, estimated by No To Violence to require an additional $88.2 million of federal funding annually?

Q6. Our Watch is the National Foundation for the Prevention of Violence Against Women and their Children. It oversees and leads the implementation of the national strategy to prevent violence against women. Does your Party support the provision of long term, core funding of Our Watch of $5 million annually?

Q7. Does your party commit to develop a new National Plan to Prevent Violence Against Women and their Children after 2022 based on consultation with the specialist sexual, domestic and family violence sector and incorporating learnings from the evaluation of the current plan?

Q8. Would your Party support investment to build the capacity of practitioners in community groups, government, organisations and key sectors to ensure they have expertise in the prevention of violence, and are able to expand the reach of current primary prevention activities?  

Q9. Would your Party commit to reviewing the domestic and family violence system to identify the funding gaps that are within the Commonwealth’s area of responsibility?

9A. Does your Party commit to develop a national strategy for ensuring all people affected by domestic and family violence can access emergency, transitional, long-term and affordable housing, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, culturally and linguistically diverse and LGBTIQ people and people with a disability?

9B. How much additional funding would your Party commit to ensuring children and young people who are experiencing, or at risk of, domestic and family violence receive early and ongoing specialist support that is tailored to their unique and complex needs?

Section 2) ParentsNext

The Australian Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Law Centre have criticised the ParentsNext program as inconsistent with Australia's human rights obligations, saying it unjustifiably discriminates against women and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Q1. Will your party abandon the current ParentsNext program?

Q2. Will your party end the application of compliance frameworks that threaten parenting payments based on the completion of activities?

Q3. Will your party make the receipt of parenting payments unconditional for parents with children under six years (i.e. not impose activity requirements as a pre-condition to receiving the parenting payment)?

Q4. Will your party commit to work in genuine partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations to co-create voluntary programs that support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families to achieve their goals and promote self-determination?

Section 3) University sexual violence

This question is asked in partnership with End Rape on Campus Australia and the National Union of Students.

Q1. Sexual violence is the most significant safety issue on university campuses right now. Too many universities and residences are still failing to appropriately respond to, and prevent, sexual violence.

Will your party commit to establish an independent and expert-led Taskforce to track, assess and publicly report on university and residences’ measures to prevent and improve responses to sexual violence?

Section 4) Workplace sexual harassment

More than 100 groups recently launched the “Power to Prevent” roadmap to address workplace sexual harassment in Australia. These questions relate to your party’s commitment to the five areas of reforms called for by those organisations.

Q1. What are your party’s policies to ensure dedicated prevention efforts to address the underlying gendered drivers of sexual harassment?

1.A Will you invest in integrated strategies for primary prevention, aligned with the national framework, Change the Story – both within workplaces and across the broader community?, and build capacity of employers to prevent sexual harassment?

Q2. What are your party’s policies on providing stronger and clearer legal duties on employers to prevent sexual harassment at work, and to ensure regulators are more effectively able to tackle sexual harassment?

2.A Will you amend work health and safety regulations and Codes of Practice to create an enforceable framework to prevent and address sexual harassment?

2.B. Will you ensure Commonwealth work health and safety agencies are resourced and trained to effectively address sexual harassment?

2.C. Will you updated Commonwealth anti-discrimination laws to impose an enforceable positive duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment, supplemented by guidelines for compliance?

2.D. Will you grant the Commonwealth human rights commissions greater investigation powers, the power to enter into enforceable undertakings, and the power to issue compliance notices, to more effectively address sexual harassment?

Q3. What are your party’s policies to ensure access to fair, effective and efficient complaints processes?

3.A Will you amend the Fair Work Act to protect workers from sexual harassment with a stand-alone civil remedy provision to enable the Fair Work Commission to receive complaints and the Fair Work Ombudsman to tackle sexual harassment?

3.B Will you amend Commonwealth anti-discrimination legislation to extend the time limit for bringing a complaint to 6 years?

3.C Will you resource the Commonwealth human rights commission to reduce the current wait times for conciliation?

Q4. What are your parties’ policies to ensure access to appropriate advocacy and support for workers who experience sexual harassment, including access to information, counseling and legal services?

4.A Will you fund specialist support services to assist people who have experienced sexual harassment?

Q5. What are your party’s policies to ensure accessible reporting tools?

5.A Will you pilot an online reporting tool that assists people to report and address problem behaviour and seek support, and identify trends to assist with prevention and enforcement efforts?