Victims of family, domestic and sexual violence will have access to a 24-hour crisis phone line under a state government’s response to royal commission findings.
South Australia’s Labor government will also move to regulate home delivery of alcohol after unveiling the commission’s report on Tuesday.
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas.Credit: AAPIMAGE
Premier Peter Malinauskas said the government had already agreed to seven of its 139 recommendations and will formally respond to the remainder by the end of the year.
“It’s important to remember how we got here – tragically, a little over 12 months ago, four women died in the space of just over a week,” Mr Malinauskas said.
“It was a really harsh wake-up call that reminded us all that domestic violence is having an extraordinarily detrimental impact in our community.”
The government has agreed to a standalone ministerial portfolio for domestic, family and sexual violence, will develop a five-year statewide strategy and require department chief executives to develop implementation plans.
On ABC News’ Afternoon Briefing, National Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin said, “South Australia has not invested for quite a while now, has not – invested enough in the service system here and as the commissioner pointed out, South Australia was leading at one point and they have not kept up the level of investment.”
SA Commissioner and former senator Natasha Stott Despoja said lessons had been learnt from Victoria’s royal commission on the same issue, which began in 2015.
National Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin.Credit: AFR
Asked what these were, Cronin said, “One of the things that I’ve spoken to people in Victoria about that there were some things that probably were too prescriptive in the way the recommendations were designed, that meant that as the context changed around them, they were unable to adapt.
“So, for example, one of the recommendations about physical – physical infrastructure required to provide services actually didn’t serve them terribly well when COVID hit because it wasn’t as easy to pivot online. Now they’ve done that but the context around us changes, and you need to be able to adapt.”
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AAP