21 April 2016
AWAVA welcomes the report of the Victorian Royal Commission on Family Violence and the Victorian Government’s response
The Australian Women Against Violence Alliance (AWAVA) welcomes the report of the Victorian Royal Commission on Family Violence. We applaud the Victorian Government for its constructive response in accepting all 227 recommendations and taking up the challenge of adequately funding a comprehensive effort to overcome the failings of the past.
We congratulate the Commission on its detailed findings. We also acknowledge the work of other organisations who, like AWAVA, devoted time and resources to informing the Commission.
AWAVA encourages other governments and organisations to draw on the Royal Commission report as a resource and potential model for future work.
AWAVA is particularly pleased that the report addresses the different forms and complexity of family violence across a range of communities, and the need to entrench standards of service delivery that are accessible, inclusive and non-discriminatory.
We welcome the fact that the Commission recommended a dedicated funding stream for preventing family violence be introduced in Victoria. We urge the Commonwealth government to take parallel steps to create a dedicated and recurrent funding stream through partnership between the Commonwealth and the states and territories that supports the breadth of work specialist women and children’s family violence services do to respond to family violence.
