7 May 2024

“Today’s Victorian Budget missed a crucial opportunity to address high rates of family violence in the state,” said Phillip Ripper, CEO of Not to Violence, the peak body for the men’s family violence sector in Victoria and Australia’s largest national peak body representing organisations and people working with men to end family violence.  

Last week Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said she had tasked key ministers with family violence related portfolios ‘to go beyond [the] state budget window’ to explore other options to make decisions. 

Mr Ripper said the state Budget window had now closed, and it was time to activate those alternative pathways. 

“While the Budget delivered $42 million for perpetrator case management, this is only an extension of funding that would otherwise have been set to finish,” said Mr Ripper. 

“In short, this Budget didn’t go far enough.” 

“You can’t 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”.   

“This Budget failed to deliver on that.” 

“In the last year alone in Victoria we have had around 54,000 breaches of IVOs. Alongside call outs every 6 minutes and a family violence arrest every 18 minutes, Victoria Police are engaging with 80 people using family violence everyday.”  

“That’s thousands and thousands of opportunities every year to head men using violence in a better direction and, right now, Victoria is missing these opportunities. This is only the men who come before the justice system, many more never do.” 

No to Violence said that if the Victorian government is serious about ending family violence, it needs to: 

• Invest in frontline services working with men to change their behaviour. Victoria needs to embed an innovative suite of targeted, effective, and timely interventions for men to 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. 
• Build the knowledge base on the root causes and risk factors that led to men’s use of family 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. 

Please contact David Sutherland at davids@ntv.org.au or 0405 354 343.