E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
YWCA CANBERRA
WEDNESDAY, 4 March 2026

TOPICS: FUNDING BOOST FOR FAMILY, DOMESTIC AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE FRONTLINE WORKERS

ALICIA PAYNE, MEMBER FOR CANBERRA: Thank you very much, Tanya. It's great to be here this morning at the YWCA, talking with their team and also with Tiffany from the rape crisis centre about the incredible work that they do for women here in Canberra, often at the most difficult and darkest times of their lives. These are two organisations that are really well known in our community, they are critically important, and they are providing the support when there is nowhere else to turn and when it is just critically important for women to have someone to help them across a range of services, from housing to other supports. We've been talking about the impact of the 500 workers that have been supported by the Albanese Labor Government, and what that's meant for their team. So it's wonderful to be here today with the minister, Tanya Plibersek to hear about how we're going to boost that program. And I just want to take this opportunity to thank the teams at the YWCA and the Canberra Rape Crisis Service for the work that they do each and every day for Canberra women, it is really amazing, skilled and dedicated work.


TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Thanks so much. It's really a pleasure to hear firsthand from the women at the YWCA today, there are two workers here funded under the 500 workers program and at the rape crisis centre, I think we've got four workers funded at the rape crisis centre here in Canberra, under this program. When a woman is fleeing domestic or family violence, or if she's experienced sexual assault, the frontline worker that she speaks to is literally a lifesaver in many circumstances. Planning to leave a violent relationship safely, knowing where to go, knowing what help is available, being connected with housing services and safety planning is literally life saving work. That's why the Albanese Labor Government is so proud to support the 500 workers initiative. Between 2022 and 2030 we will contribute almost half a billion dollars to this vital initiative. Today, I'm announcing a $292 million boost in funding. This will, of course, extend the program to 2030 but it will also calculate, it's also calculated to pay the workers at a higher rate. The work of helping someone leave a violent situation or recover from sexual assault is highly specialised, highly complex work, and we should recognise the frontline workers who do it appropriately. This half a billion dollars of funding for frontline workforce is just one of the investments that we're making as a government. We have invested more than $4 billion in services to help women and children escape violence, to help perpetrators change their behaviour, to do specialised counselling with children, to work intensively with young boys, in particular, who are at risk of behaving, using violence in their relationships, particularly if they've been brought up in families where there is violence in their background. We're doing a whole range of highly specialised work across the country, in communities right across Australia. Of course, on top of the well over $4 billion we've invested since coming to government, we've seen a $3.9 billion investment in legal services, including about $700 million in specialised family and domestic violence prevention services, and, of course, more than $1.1 billion in crisis and emergency housing for women and children fleeing domestic violence, thousands of homes that they can go to to be safe. We've made a commitment to seeing an end to family domestic and sexual violence in a generation, that's a really tough thing to do. These problems have been with us for, I'd say, decades, more accurately, centuries, and we've set ourselves a very difficult task. But until every woman, every child, every person in Australia is safe from family, domestic and sexual violence, we won't rest. We'll continue to invest we'll continue to work with frontline services to make sure that Australians are safe.

FRANCES CRIMMINS, CEO YWCA: Thank you very much, Minister. I wasn't aware of this announcement this morning, but I can tell you that we are delighted, because the specialist team, the frontline workers, are simply just amazing people, the skills and knowledge that they have to have. They are systems navigators. They may bring in a woman with children, depending on the protective factors, these women might need a house. They might need furniture. Their children need to be put back into school or early learning education. They might need somebody to navigate the NDIS. There might be a woman of an uncertain visa system, so they need to know how that works within immigration. They might need access to a lawyer immediately. They most definitely need an expert in safety planning. These are complex jobs, and they deserve to be acknowledged and remunerated as the professionals that they are and really that frontline work that they do. So thank you for this announcement, and I know it's also the ASU have been advocating, but they really are professionals in what they do, and the knowledge that they hold, this will help retain that knowledge to keep women and children safe. Thank you Minister.


TIFFANY KARLSSON, CEO CANBERRA RAPE CRISIS CENTRE: Thank you minister. We are incredibly grateful for the funding that we've been receiving over the last three years as part of the 500 Workers initiative, and we're very delighted to hear today that that funding will continue. For the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre this funding has allowed and will continue to allow us to put frontline, specialist sexual violence experts on the frontline. That means more calls are answered on our crisis team. It means more counselling appointments are available, and it means that our workers are going out in the middle of the night to support sexual violence and child sexual abuse victim survivors. Specialist sexual violence services are at the epicentre of the response, recovery and healing journey of victim survivors in this country, and this funding means that more of those victim survivors will be able to be supported the moment they pick up the phone and call our services. Sexual violence in this country is widespread. It's under reported, and it is increasing. One in three girls and one in five boys are victim survivors of child sexual abuse, and one in 15 women, sorry, one in 15 men and one in five women are victim survivors of adult sexual assault. So the services that we are providing really meets a huge amount [INAUDIBLE] this funding will allow our workers to be present 365 days of the year, 24 hours a day to provide those specialists much needed services.


EMELINE GASKE, AUSTALIAN SERVICES UNION: Hello, I'm Emeline Gaske, I'm the National Secretary of the Australian Services Union, and we're the Union for the workers who deliver frontline family and domestic violence services. We are so pleased with this announcement from the government today, we'll not only extend but uplift the funding that is paying into frontline family and domestic violence services. We know that it is only with a strong investment in the frontline workforce that we're going to be able to tackle this issue front on and see changes, because it's the workforce who are there when people need them most. It's also so pleasing to work with a minister and a government who understand that it's only if we invest in the frontline workers and make sure that we can recruit and retain the very best people in the middle of this crisis that will get the outcomes that we need. So we're absolutely delighted to see an increase in the funding and an extension in the funding that will give communities and services and workforce the certainty they need over the future.


DR MARISSA PATERSON MLA, MINISTER FOR THE PREVENTION OF DOMESTIC, FAMILY AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE: From the perspective of the AC T government, we very strongly welcome and thank the federal government for this funding. We know how important our frontline workforce are in the work that they do every day working with victim survivors in our community. So the extension of funding and the uplift in funding will be incredibly valuable on the ground here in Canberra and across Australia. So, I'd again like to thank the ministers, federal ministers and member for all the work they've done in advocating and getting this funding across the line. Thank you.

JOURNALIST: Why did you feel the need to increase the funding?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, we needed to increase the funding for two reasons. We wanted to give this workforce certainty until 2030. This is highly specialised work, it is literally life and death getting the response to someone who is leaving a situation of violence, getting the response right, is literally life and death work. We want the best people doing this, and if we want highly specialised, highly competent workers to commit to doing this work, then it's fair enough that we make a commitment to them and that we say that their jobs are going to be there. [INAUDIBLE] increase the rate at which we're funding each position to reflect the complexity and the responsibility of the work. We know that there is a huge amount of demand for that frontline response, whether it's for child sexual abuse, whether it's for sexual assault, whether it's for domestic violence, we know that there is a huge demand in our community, and frankly, as the nature of abuse changes, we also have to keep up to date with the changing nature of family domestic and sexual violence. For example, we're hearing much more about systems abuse, about coercive control, about the use of undetectable stalking tools. There's a whole range of new frontiers in family and domestic violence and sexual assault that we need to make sure we've got the specialised workforce to deal with.

JOURNALIST: Do you want to talk about what you heard from all the services today of what is happening in Canberra and surrounding areas?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I think one of the fantastic things about Canberra and the ACT in particular is the services all work together. So the workers know each other, they know that if someone comes to a particular service and requires the assistance of a related service, they can refer that person safely across to another service. Having a service system, not just individual services, is I think, a really, a really strong benefit for people who rely on that assistance.


JOURNALIST: What kind of pay rise will these workers be seeing?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, that's something that will work with the states and territories on. But the workforce has been paid at an average rate in the award. After many conversations with the Australian Services Union, I'm saying that very politely, after a lot of lobbying from the Australian Services Union, we've recognised that they should be paid at a higher rate on average, and those negotiations will happen with the states and territories over coming weeks.

JOURNALIST: Have workers been leaving because of the current pay?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, because this is a incredibly dedicated workforce. And frankly, it's not fair that we treat the incredibly dedicated workforce who do this because they are passionate about keeping people safe. It's not fair to rely on that as we traditionally have. People deserve to be paid for their skill, for their dedication and for the life saving work they do.

JOURNALIST: And without this funding, what I guess here would the workers, 500 workers program funding run out for these services in Canberra?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah. Well, not just in Canberra, but around Australia. We needed to extend this program to give certainty to organisations like the YWCA and the rape crisis centre that they could continue to fund those positions. And we needed to give certainty to the organisations, to the workforce themselves. And we've got an obligation to the victims of violence who rely on these services to continue to provide the funding so that they can live violence free.


JOURNALIST: So was the funding bound to run out?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It was due to run out. We have extended it to 2030 and not just extended the timeframe, but also increased the funding per position as well.

JOURNALIST: What is the ACT, I guess, share, and how many organisations will that be split or shared between?

MINISTER PATERSON: So that's something that we’ll continue to work with the federal government once the allocations of funding have been decided. At the moment, there's multiple services in the ACT that are receiving this funding or a share of this funding, so the YWCA, CRCC, DVCS, Mhub are some examples of how the funding has been split amongst services here.

JOURNALIST: Do you think that'll mean the ACT budget will be able to earmark more funds for non staffing related things like, say, crisis housing or things like that?

MINISTER PATERSON: So I think it's always a balancing act, and what we're committed to in the last budget was increasing frontline funding to our services here in the ACT, and we're going through a budget process at the moment, so these are active conversations in our cabinet. And yes, we're what I would like to say, though, is that we recognise that the services are experiencing significant strain, the number of victim survivors coming to services asking for help is increasing year on year, so we are committed to supporting the services in the incredibly important work that they do.

JOURNALIST: And DDCS was saying recently that they're currently not able to immediately answer every call that they get. Do you expect this will, I guess, allow more calls to be answered?

MINISTER PATERSON: So I think that's probably a matter for DVCS in terms of how they
allocate their work. But I think what we are committed on, we hear the calls from the sector that there is increased demand on their services. So we'll go through a budget process now, recognising that that need exists.

JOURNALIST: Previously, DVCS has said that their 24/7 helpline was at risk of cutting staff, staff members, and with this extension of the 500 Workers program will that allow them to retain their current staff or increase their staffing?

MINISTER PATERSON: Likely not, so that's a bit of a different issue. So the DVCS have a smaller portion of this 500 Worker funding. But what we will do is continue to work with DVCS. We recognise that they, DVCS and CRCC both had a funding cliff at this financial year, so we've been able to provide them with a commitment that that funding cliff will not occur for the next year. So this is an early budget decision, but we will go through the full budget process for the broader look at what services will be allocated in this years ACT budget.

JOURNALIST: How many workers in the [INAUDIBLE] funded as part of this program?

MINISTER PATERSON: It might be point six out of the federal funding.

Ends