28 May 2024

NTV welcomes the appointment in Victoria of Tim Richardson as Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change. 

This is the first position of its kind in Australia and will focus largely on boys’ and men’s attitudes towards women and building respectful relationships. 

“We are pleased to see the Victorian Government continuing to prioritise the safety of women, children and communities in Victoria,” said No to Violence CEO Phillip Ripper.  

“This appointment demonstrates that the Government is starting to back up its commitments to go beyond the budget window to explore further options to address family violence in Victoria.”  

“We look forward to working with Mr Richardson to ensure that men’s use of family violence also remains a key priority for the Government. You can’t truly stop family violence until you stop men’s use of violence. And we won’t stop that without increased funding for a range of effective interventions to assist men to change their behaviour”.    

No to Violence said the Victorian government needs to:  

• Invest in frontline services working with men to change their behaviour. Victoria to develop and embed an innovative suite of targeted, effective, and timely interventions for men to end their use of violence and keep victim-survivors safe. The diversity of men using violence requires diverse responses to ensure meaningful behaviour change. These must include trauma-informed therapeutic 1-1 work, whole-of-family responses, and expanding and embedding targeted interventions for specific groups, such as high-risk men, men with complex needs, including drug and alcohol use, and culturally appropriate pathways away from violence.  
• Develop a comprehensive statewide perpetrator strategy that builds the knowledge base on the root causes and risk factors that led to men’s use of family violence and their pathways into and out of using violence.  We need to know what interventions work for which men.   
• Grow a strong, sustainable, specialist men’s sector to do this work. Government funding must reflect the real cost of meeting demand. Current funding is not enough. A lack of longer-term funding is making it hard for the sector to train and retain highly specialised staff that are need to stop men’s use of violence.