Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced a $100 million Women's Safety Package to provide a safety net for women and children at high risk of experiencing violence. The package will aim to improve frontline support and services, leverage innovative technologies to keep women safe, and provide education resources to help change community attitudes to violence and abuse.
The package includes:
- $5 million for safer technology, including working with telecommunications companies to distribute safe phones to women, and with the eSafety Commissioner to develop a resource package about online safety for women, including for women from CALD communities
- $17 million to keep women safe in their homes by expanding successful initiatives like the Safer in the Home program to install CCTV cameras and other safety equipment
- $5 million to expand 1800RESPECT, the national telephone and online counselling and information service, to ensure more women can get support.
The package is part of the Government’s longer term response to domestic and family violence and the COAG Advisory Panel’s final report, due in early 2016, will advise on what further measures could be introduced.
The Commonwealth will work with states and territories to trial innovative new technologies to keep women safe, to train more frontline staff to recognise and respond appropriately to women experiencing violence, and to provide better resources and infrastructure to police working in remote Indigenous communities.
More information about the Women's Safety Package is available at this link.