Topics: Minister Plibersek discusses the launch of Our Ways – Strong Ways – Our Voices; President Herzog visit.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: It's a great pleasure to today be launching Our Ways – Strong Ways – Our Voices. This is the first standalone plan for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to address family, domestic and sexual violence. This plan is so important because it's not just a Commonwealth government plan. This plan has the endorsement of every state and territory, and it comes with substantial extra funding that will make a real difference on the ground. Today, along with announcing the plan, we're announcing an additional $218 million of funding that will begin to flow from the first of July into communities around Australia. That extra funding will deliver new services, for example, helping women trapped in small, remote locations get to safety if they need to leave a violent relationship, or working with men and boys who are at risk of using violence to change their behaviour, or working with young parents to connect them to supports to get the wisdom of elders in playgroups so that they can raise their children strong and happy and healthy in community. This plan builds on decades of work, and it builds on decades of calls from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, who have told us that solutions that are designed by them and delivered by them in their communities will make the biggest difference. As well as working through a network of around 40 Aboriginal controlled organisations around Australia, we also want to see mainstream services that support Indigenous Australians reform, so that they are more effective in delivering services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. This is a big job, and it comes after decades of activism from many people in communities right around Australia. One of the people who has been at the forefront of that activism, and the person who has chaired this process is Associate Professor Muriel Bamblett. This work, I mean, this work is good because of the work that Muriel and her committee have put into it. It comes after consultations right around Australia with well over 1000 people, dozens of organisations, listening on the ground to communities to hear from them what they need to end violence against women and their children. Professor Bamblett- I’ll come back for questions in a second, I’ll just let Associate Professor Bamblett make a few comments and answer a few questions.

ADJUNCT PROFESSOR MURIEL BAMBLETT: I've been very proud to be a part of this process. I've worked, obviously, a number of years, I’m 73 years old this year, and so I've worked in Brisbane, with Musgrave Park women, women in prison. I've seen violence impact on our women for generations. I’ve worked with a number of organisations to actually bring about change. And I think this plan is the actual first plan, that is actually written by us and for us that will bring about real change. Systems have to change, the court processes, the policing, the way that justice is implemented, the way that housing and homelessness, child protection system - all of those things need change. There's a lot of money that goes to mainstream organisations where there's no accountability. So we really do need to have Aboriginal people at the forefront. I work in child welfare, 72% of Aboriginal children come into care because of family violence. Now that's too many children coming into care because we can’t address family violence.  And family violence is learned. It comes out of the [inaudible] culture, and it comes out of the culture of that and alcohol culture that was never in Aboriginal communities. Our Aboriginal communities are sick of violence, and men are coming to us and saying, let us be part of the solution, we know that we are part of the problem at the moment, but we want to be part of the solution. The plan hopes to be able to work with men, to be able to work with LGBTQI+, to be able to work with organisations around housing, homelessness, police, justice, all of those systems. I think we have to address this terrible issue that's killing our women. Women are saying they need to be protected. If you've looked at that, women in sports, women in running. Women running can’t even run down the street without being attacked by a man, there’s things that women are facing every day. I'm just so proud to be a part of this. I’m part of a number of Aboriginal women that have come from the Torres Strait, that have come from remote areas of Northern Territory, Western Australia. We've had researchers, we've had people that have looked at the evidence that have informed this plan. We have tried to delve as deeply as we can. But the problem with family violence is complex. We have to get into the houses and homes and the hearts of people. We have to change the future for young girls being born today to know that they can have a better future, that they can be safe. But one of the really interesting data is 85%, in one of our regions, 85% of the violence perpetrated on Aboriginal women are by non-Aboriginal men. We have to ask the question, why non-Aboriginal men treat our women [inaudible]. And so, I think we need to really address the issue of racism and how that impacts on our women and our communities. Thank you very much for the interest and being here today, because it will be you that will get the message out. So, thank you

JOURNALIST: Aunty Muriel I just want to ask, like, how do you think that this will have a real, tangible impact for women and children on the ground? You've already seen three Aboriginal people murdered this year due to family and domestic violence. Do you think this will have a tangible impact?

ADJUNCT PROFESSOR BAMBLETT: I think there's a truck load of work that needs to be done. I mean, obviously the appointment of Olga Havnen as the new CEO of the peak body for family, domestic and sexual violence will be critical for us to be able to drive better policies, to be able to put programs and services, but also working as well with the National Commissioner on Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence around better accountability, so that we start to look at what, we haven’t got really good data. The data the data is terrible, and so being able to get really good data so that we can understand what are the issues, where are the communities? There were some communities where there's very little family violence, so we need to understand is what’s happened. But we miss also, if we don't start to look at sexual abuse, and you know when we've got little children [inaudible] and June Oscar’s report can report, talking about sexual abuse. I think we’ve put ahead in the sand and don't address sexual abuse often, so this plan has to be able to come across family, domestic and sexual violence as well.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Okay, thank you. Aunty Muriel you’re welcome to stay here but if you want to go back to the thing you can as well if there’s no other questions for Aunty Muriel?

JOURNALIST: Maybe just one. We’re a few weeks on from the alleged murders that took place at Lake Cargelligo. What do you make of the response to that so far, given we know there was an AVO that was taken out against the alleged killer?

ADJUNCT PROFESSOR BAMBLETT: Well, I think we know that the court systems and the justice system fails to protect and particularly women. When we visited the Torres Straits, we saw very little evidence of systems that actually protected women and so, and this is the importance of the Attorney General and being involved. We can't do this just with obviously, there's one minister taking accountability and responsibility. All governments, housing, where family violence is perpetrated. If you look at all the Aboriginal housing across Australia, and those houses are cesspools of violence. The damage that's done to houses, there’s family violence, but there’s no approach to addressing that family violence. We need to be able to have place based, we need to have responses, and we need to act when the violence occurs and we need better responses. And I think, systems, we do not want to condone family violence, we do not want to stand behind family violence, we want to stand in front of it to stop it.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Okay, alright, any questions for me? Hang on, let's see if there's any questions on this very important report first.

JOURNALIST: I have a question Minister. This has been a long time of, you’ve touched on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have been campaigning and advocating for this for many, many years. Why has it taken so long?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I'd say that Aboriginal women and communities have been advocating for this for decades and in 2022 before the 2022 election, we made a commitment as a government to deliver a standalone First Nations plan for family domestic and sexual violence. Coming out of the National Plan on Violence Against Women and their Children, there was an action plan for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and that came with $282 million of funding for immediate actions. What this plan represents is the next stage of that work that takes a longer-term approach that also engages the states and territories. The reason that it's taken so long is because we worked closely, cooperatively and carefully with the steering committee to develop this work. We’ve done immediate response, this is about our long term future. How do we deliver new services on the ground, particularly through Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations? That work will be funded from the first of July onwards. It means new services, new healing services, for people who are affected by family and domestic violence as they're growing up, men's behaviour change, emergency responses that help women leave, including from very remote locations. Aunty Muriel was talking about the Torres Strait Islands as a really good example of how hard it is to keep someone safe in a small and very remote community. That work, that work will come out of this plan and be long term. It also builds on more mainstream work that includes things like the Leaving Violence Payment. 10,500 people so far have benefited from our new Leaving Violence Payment. The family violence, the Leaving Violence Payment regional trials that will help about 3000 people every year will continue. They are, in some cases, actually, you know, workers having to get in a car and drive for six or eight hours to reach someone in crisis in a remote location. This work is difficult. It requires commitment, it requires local knowledge, but we are up for it. We're also working with states and territories. Of course, there is a big Commonwealth government responsibility for systems change here and for investment, and we're up for that, but it also requires the commitment of state and territory governments. And the remarkable thing about this plan is that every state and territory has endorsed it. It provides a way forward for working on those state run services, like policing, like out of home care, like our justice system, like refuges, the day to day responsiveness of refuges and our health system. So states and territories will be working in their own jurisdictions to make change. The other thing that this plan says very clearly is that communities themselves and individuals themselves are accountable, and men in particular, who have used violence or using violence are accountable for their behaviour, but it provides supports so that men who are up for that change are able to change their behaviour, the behaviour they know is damaging their partners, their children and their communities. It is complex, difficult work, but we are up for that journey.

JOURNALIST: Minister, just on a separate topic, why weren't the families of Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones told that the people responsible for their deaths were only fined $185?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I can't tell you the answer to that. That is a question for the Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs Ministers, I'll leave it to them.

JOURNALIST: DFAT has apologised, though. Why do you think there was a lack of communication with the Australian government generally?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I think it's devastating for any family to lose a young family member. It's been a horrific experience for their families. I'm shocked and deeply sympathetic to the loss of these children, these beautiful young women at a time when they should have been free just to be carefree and have a lovely holiday. And I think it's right that DFAT have apologised for the lack of communication. But beyond that, I think it's a matter for DFAT to explain.

JOURNALIST: Minister. There's lots of speculation in the building about Angus Taylor and a potential leadership challenge. What do you make of Sussan Ley’s performance, her treatment, including by her colleagues, and the prospect of the Liberal Party rolling their first female leader?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I think this is, you know, it's a, it's a very typical approach. What happens is the disgruntled alternative candidate to the leadership causes chaos, and then they point to the chaos, and they say there's a reason for leadership change. I think it's very disappointing that she hasn't really been given a chance to do her job, but it's a matter for the Liberal Party. What's important in our Australian democracy is that there is a strong opposition. I think it's healthy for our democracy to have that, and at the moment, we've got an opposition that's just focused on themselves and infighting. They're not focused on the needs of the Australian people. They're not coming up with positive alternatives. They're not presenting positive policies that would make a difference to the lives of Australians. And I think that's, you know, it's reflected in the loss of faith that people are demonstrating in the former coalition parties.

JOURNALIST: Minister I had a Liberal tell me earlier that Liberals were literally begging their senior people in the Liberal Party to get this resolved. Does that surprise you? And as someone who's been around Labor for a long time, you’ve seen division. Have you ever seen anything like this?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I don't think I've ever seen as much chaos back biting, backgrounding, briefing as we see at the moment in the Coalition parties. But honestly, it's a matter for them to sort out. As a government, we're not focused on them, we're focused on the Australian people and delivering for the Australian people.

JOURNALIST: Minister, in the Northern Territory and in WA, where we see really, really high rates of indigenous incarceration, the legal services often, [inaudible] Aboriginal legal service and NAAJA are working, like a lot of these lawyers have case loads that are 150, 250 plus. Lots of their cases are involving DV cases. How are you going to be working with the legal services? Is part of this going to be bolstering the legal services? And what is the complex relationship between, I guess, how to solve this problem from a cultural level, and also working with the legal services? And I'm quite curious to know if this will involve that at all?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, a couple of things about that. The first is states are responsible day to day for a range of the frontline services that we're talking about, policing, justice, child protection, the day to day running of refuges and states and territories will have to take responsibility for the things that they are responsible for. At the Commonwealth level, we have made a massive extra investment in legal services, including family violence prevention legal services, an extra, almost $290 million extra, sorry, almost $390 million extra funding family violence prevention legal services in the last agreement between the Commonwealth and states and territories. That almost doubled funding for family violence prevention legal services. I know that the work is still hard. I know that the lawyers in those services are still carrying a big caseload, but almost doubling funding is a very substantial commitment from the Commonwealth government.

JOURNALIST: The question is though, the territories and the states are the ones that have the jurisdiction of the criminal law and criminal policy, and we've seen this time and time again. We've just had a National Commissioner for Indigenous Children, but the Territory, the Northern Territory particularly, is incarcerating indigenous children more than anyone else. What can the federal government actually do in a material sense, like, is there anything the federal government can do through this role to actually reign in the states and the territories a little bit?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, the Commonwealth works in partnership with the states and territories, we don't run the states and the territories. What's significant about this report is that every jurisdiction has signed up to make a difference on the ground in the way services serve Indigenous communities. That's a very significant step forward. The questions about the day-to-day running of their policing, justice and other systems are really a question for those states and territories.

JOURNALIST: Minister, what did you make of the protest scenes in Sydney overnight and the fact that Grace Tame led the chant ‘globalise the intifada’?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, we knew as a government that this visit would come with some controversy and with mixed views. The views on the visit are not unanimous, not even within the Jewish community, but I think it would be helpful if people just pause for a minute and took a deep breath and thought about why this is happening and the context in which it's happening. We saw the worst ever terrorist attack on Australian soil before Christmas at the end of last year in Bondi. You've got a community that is frightened, that is grieving, that is looking for comfort. There is a visit from the President of Israel that is designed to bring comfort to a community that is frightened and grieving. I think it would be great if it was, that visit was allowed to proceed in a way that brought comfort. Of course, people have the right to protest in our democracy, but working with police, you know, the protesters were told that they could protest outside Town Hall, or if they wanted to march, there was a route proposed to them. I think it is reasonable to work with police to meet those requests of police. Now we've seen some very disturbing footage of the protest. I don't want to comment on disturbing footage until there's been proper investigation. I'm not going to go off you know, short clips in the media before you know, before there's been any chance to really look at what's happened on the ground there.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible] If you don't mind, that particular slogan is one that's been banned in countries around the world, like the UK. We know some Australian states are pursuing that too. Grace Tame, should she be stripped of her Australian of the Year title? Is that way too far?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I'm not going to comment on individual people on what they said. I wasn't there, but I would say about that phrase that's been used by a lot of different people to mean a lot of different things. At its heart, what it means is a single state, a single Palestinian state, or a single Israeli state, that is a that is a damaging and divisive message. Labor supports a two-state solution. We support a two-state solution with recognised borders that provide safety and security for Israeli people and Palestinian people to live in peace, side by side. We don't support slogans or chants or statements that suggest a single state, because a single state means pushing the other people out. We’d like to hear from the Assistant Minister Ged Kearney as well, so we'll make this our last question, but then Ged will say a few words about this report as well.

JOURNALIST: In terms of the Herzog visit, we know that there's a warrant for his arrest in other countries. And I guess the question is, does war criminal, does that actually mean anything to any government at this stage?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I’m not going to comment on that. I'm going to hand over to Ged Kearney, who is the Assistant Minister who's done an enormous amount of work on this report as well. Thanks, Ged.

GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES and ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR THE PREVENTION OF FAMILY VIOLENCE: Thanks, Tanya, albeit unexpected, but it is a great honour and a great privilege to be here to launch this incredibly important report. And I'd just like to acknowledge Aunty Muriel Bamblett, who I have the great pleasure of working with in my own electorate in Cooper, the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Association is domiciled there in Preston, and she has put an enormous amount of work into this. I'd also like to acknowledge the work of the steering committee and everybody that's putting such a huge amount into this, Tanya made it an absolute priority to get this done, and she really worked incredibly hard with the steering committee to make sure that we had a report early this year, and here we are. This is a seminal report. This is a game changer. We know that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children are over represented in all the statistics with respect to domestic, family and sexual violence. And the way forward that has been mapped in this report puts First Nations people at the absolute centre of all the solutions. This will be community led response, supported by the government, federal and state, and I'm incredibly proud of the Labor government, of the minister and everybody who's put a lot of work into this. It is a seminal report, and I believe it will be absolutely game changing. Thank you.