DVCS CEO Sue Webeck, Senator David Pocock and CRCC CEO Tiffany Karlsson. Services may have to be reduced if more funding doesn’t come through. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
Canberra’s frontline services for domestic violence and sexual assault victims are in crisis as demand continues to grow and funding fails to keep pace, despite a new deal from the Albanese Government and election promises from both the major parties.
Independent ACT Senator David Pocock has joined the Domestic Violence Crisis Service (DVCS) and Canberra Rape Crisis Centre (CRCC) in calling for the current short-term funding cycles to be replaced by five-year deals that would provide certainty for services.
Senator Pocock praised the $4 billion National Plan to End Gender and Domestic Violence for its intention to achieve this goal within a generation, but “it’s another thing to actually ensure that we do that”.
He said the concern was that the promised money to boost frontline services was not reaching its intended recipients.
“After years of appalling statistics of violence against women, 24 women already murdered this year, we’ve seen the Parliament take some really welcome steps and the government step up with long overdue investment for frontline services,” he said.
“I’m concerned we’re not actually seeing that flow to frontline services.”
Senator Pocock said that services such as DCVS and CRCC were still not receiving the necessary resources to effectively assist all the victims and families who come to them.
They also needed longer-term funding to ensure they could plan and retain a specialist workforce to do this much-needed work.
“The challenge for the next government and the next Parliament is to actually ensure that we deliver the resourcing that’s necessary,” he said.
Senator David Pocock said there was no doubt Australians want this to happen, after receiving more than 2000 emails in 24 hours from people in Canberra and across the nation calling for more urgent action.
DVCS now receives 1100 requests each month, up from 850 two years ago, and despite a funding extension out to next year, they are still operating at an almost $1 million budget deficit as demand for services outstrips investment
CRCC has insufficient funding to meet current demand and lacks funding certainty, as all current funding is set to expire in June 2026.
The Albanese Government’s $4 billion National Plan to End Gender and Domestic Violence is yet to make a difference on the front line. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
CRCC has around 8000 clients conducting hundreds of crisis calls, texts and callouts to police and hospitals, and hundreds of face-to-face specialised counselling sessions each month for women, men and child victim-survivors and their families.
Around one in five women have experienced sexual assault in Canberra, and more than one in three girls and one in five boys have experienced child sexual abuse. Demand for specialist frontline sexual violence crisis, education, hospital and police support, court advocacy and counselling services is growing in Canberra.
DVCS CEO Sue Webeck said that people are waiting longer to get the help they desperately need, and services may have to be cut.
“It makes it a very hard place to be in to turn up to work, knowing that we’re not going to be able to answer every phone call and we’re not going to be able to service every person who is in need of support and in need of a response that may be the difference between them being safe tonight or not,” she said.
CRCC CEO Tiffany Karlsson said Canberra was in the middle of a silent sexual violence crisis, and yet the centre was not currently funded sufficiently to meet the demand for its 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, 365-day frontline services.
“We are definitely in a dire financial situation,” she said.
“The demand for our services, our education, our counselling, our crisis, our advocacy services, is not meeting the funding that we currently have.”
Ms Karlsson said the service had waiting lists for counselling and had to triage cases.
“For example, if a child comes in, then we prioritise that child, but I want us to be in a position where we have sufficient funding that anyone can call us or walk through the doors, and we can get them into counselling immediately.”
Ms Webeck said the DVCS was yet to see the benefit of the ACT Government’s decision to ensure all funding from the the Safer Families Levy went to frontline services after last year’s damning audit report.
She said the test would be what was in the June budget, noting that the Territory had decided to roll the National Partnership Agreement money into that budgetary process as well.
“It’s going to be a little bit hard to compare to see where there’s been advancement, but at the moment we are not seeing on the front line a larger flow through of money following that audit, but I’m hopeful for this budget,” Ms Webeck said.
She was also encouraged by the commitment from the new Minister for the Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence, Dr Marisa Paterson, to reform the levy.
ACT Minister for the Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence Dr Marisa Paterson has said the government was developing a comprehensive, evidence-based ACT Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Strategy. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
DVCS needed an additional $1 million per year to strengthen its programs and $2 million upfront to shore up the infrastructure for them.
However, Ms Webeck said DVCS had only submitted a bid for a rescue package of less than $1 million to help it through the next 12 months, although the government had committed to core funding by the end of June 2026.
Ms Karlsson said CRCC had also sought a rescue package to see it through to the end of the next financial year.
The centre would like to do more in the prevention area, but it is not currently funded sufficiently to do so.
“We’re going out to schools and organisations on an ad hoc basis to give consent training and to give responding-to-disclosure training and so on,” Ms Karlsson said.
“We would like that to be more of a focus for us.”
Senator Pocock stated that there was a need for increased funding for prevention and intervention programs for men, and that men should be included in the conversation, particularly as advocates for change in Parliament.
But there was not even enough money for the frontline services dealing mainly with women and children, let alone providing services that can stop men from acting violently.
Senator Pocock said access to existing initiatives, such as the Leaving Violence program, needed to be faster and easier, noting that only 28 per cent of applications proceed to payment in the ACT, with an average assessment time of 15 days.
Ms Karlsson said the Canberra community expected more to be done to prevent and respond to domestic and sexual violence.
“After the Me Too movement, after having a child sexual abuse survivor as Australian of the Year, that following the biggest sexual assault case that we’ve had in this nation’s history with the biggest media coverage in this country that started in this town in Parliament House, there’s an expectation that our frontline services will be adequately funded to respond to the increased demand that those conversations have generated,” she said.
Senator Pocock said that, in the end, properly funding these services would save money, in health, the legal system and economic participation.
