ACT family violence victims 'waiting 3 or 4 days' for help, inquiry hears

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Victims of domestic violence in the ACT are facing delays for crisis support, with some people unable to access help at all if they remain in violent homes. An inquiry into the Safer Families Levy has heard that funds raised by the tax are not being spent and evaluated effectively.

Transcript

00:00When domestic and family violence victims reach out for help in the ACT, the response

00:08can take too long.

00:09When they need the support of a frontline service crisis response agency, they don't

00:15always get through when we have people waiting three or four days for us to be able to get

00:21back to them.

00:22And the timeframe is gone at that point.

00:26Support services also say more Canberrans are being excluded from programs because they

00:30still live in the home where the violence takes place.

00:33They want to be able to create safety around the violence, but so many of the targeted campaigns

00:40and outputs and also funding environments require someone to be leaving or to have left.

00:46The comments were made at today's inquiry into the Safer Families levy, which sees Canberrans

00:50pay $60 a year in their rates to boost support services.

00:55A report from the Auditor-General in November last year found there was a lack of transparency

00:59about how the levy's funds were spent and there was no framework to assess the programs

01:04it was funding.

01:05Without the adequate evaluation, it's hard to know which of the programs are performing

01:12well and which aren't and therefore which should continue.

01:15The report also said the majority of funding was spent on government initiatives, not those

01:20leaders led by the community and highlighted the absence of an overarching strategy to prevent

01:25domestic violence.

01:26But we need to have a coordinated strategic approach.

01:31We need to start at the prevention all the way through to healing and recovery.

01:36The ACT Government told the inquiry it's working on providing more transparency.

01:40A clear, detailed document that outlines the overall amount of money that the Government

01:48is spending on all initiatives including consolidated revenue but also the levy funding.

01:54While it's also hired consultants to address other issues highlighted by the Auditor-General.

01:58There's performance monitoring so this is establishing an evaluation framework.

02:06It says the consultants are expected to deliver the overarching strategy and evaluation frameworks

02:11for the levy by mid-2026.

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