Centrepiece of Family Violence Action Plan on track

Significant progress has been made since the launch last year of the Tasmanian Government’s Safe Homes Safe Families: Family Violence Action Plan, which was described as a nation-leading $26 million package to respond to family violence.
Today, with Minister Petrusma, I met some of the staff who will make up Tasmania’s first, whole of Government, family violence unit; the Safe Families Tasmania Coordination Unit.
The unit is the centrepiece of our Family Violence Action Plan. It will provide for the coordination of support services for victims, by bringing the best available information from across Government together in one place to ensure families at risk are identified and supported as early as possible, and aid the prosecution of perpetrators.
The Safe Families Coordination Unit includes experts from across Government, including the Department of Justice, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Police and Emergency Management.
The unit will be led by police, and will include five sworn officers, an investigator and analyst from both DHHS and DoJ, an investigator from DoE, and a review officer from DPEM. Together, they will undertake interagency case assessment of families experiencing family violence.
Next month, the SFCU will enter its Trial Phase, which involves members of the unit working together to develop policies and protocols to underpin their ground-breaking work. The unit will commence full operations in June.
Alongside the unit, we are also developing the new Safe Choices, which will provide a wrap-around service and practical support to people in or choosing to exit violent relationships. The Request for Proposal process to select a service provider to deliver Safe Choices closed earlier this month. The proposals will now be assessed, and the program is expected to be up and running in June.
We have committed $8 million over four years to support the implementation of the Safe Families Tasmania Coordination Unit and Safe Choices.
While our Implementation Plan guides our actions, our approach will continue to be flexible so that we can best respond to emerging priorities and take account of work being done across Australia to address family violence.
Tasmanians can be assured this Government is committed to bringing family violence from behind closed doors, holding perpetrators to account and focussing on prevention and early intervention.
As we expected, there has been a significant increase in reported incidents of family violence and arguments this financial year. What this tells us is there are a growing number of brave victims who have taken the very difficult step of standing up and speaking out. This is a sign that the message is getting out; family violence is totally and utterly unacceptable and there is help.
While there is still plenty more to be done, importantly this work is on schedule and I commend all the hard work of those behind the scenes who are instrumental in making this happen.
Will Hodgman, Premier