Federal Minister for Women Katy Gallagher defends the government’s eligibility criteria for its leaving violence payment and says states and territories have only filled 30 frontline gendered violence roles ahead of a target to fill 352.
In 2023, the federal government pledged $169 million over four years to fund 500 new frontline workers to assist people who had experienced family, domestic or sexual violence.
Last week, the ABC reported that with only weeks out to the deadline, no state or territory was on track to meet the target for workers.
The minister for women and finance said the last figure she saw for the number of workers was 30, noting staff recruitment issues.
“So the money is there. I think the states’ view is they’re having issues with recruiting. But [Minister for Social Services] Amanda Rishworth has been working with her state and territory colleagues to really try and get these workers in place as soon as possible.
“They’ve signed on to [an] agreement to have the vast majority of them employed in the first half of this year, but they are saying that staff and recruiting staff is an issue.”
[Ed: All this money wanting to be spent and yet FLC continues to be unfunded, without an office and operated entirely by volunteers stretched to the limit. Furthermore, the Women’s Court Support Service has been defunded and now evicted from its office by the Sydney Family Court at the end of last year after providing its free service for well over a decade. The Court says they need the space for Judges although when we last looked in March the space was still vacant and unused.]
Source: Katy Gallagher says only 30 of 500 frontline gendered violence jobs filled – ABC News