Opening Remarks – National Cabinet

Prime Minister

: Well thanks everyone, and thanks for coming to Canberra, except for Andrew, who lives here, everyone for making the effort. And welcome to Lia, to your first National Cabinet meeting. We know that ending gender-based violence is a priority for the Commonwealth and for every single jurisdiction. There are too many stories, tragically, almost no week goes past without there being a tragedy, which is something that then flows on to intergenerational issues as well. We know this is an issue not just for government to solve, but for the whole of society as well. We need to change culture, we need to change behavior, but we have a responsibility to act. Which is why we called the first National Cabinet meeting a while ago, and then today, we’re working through a range of solutions of how we support critical frontline services, how we target perpetrators, stop violence from escalating, how we break the cycle of violence with stronger focus on children and young people who experience trauma, and how we also make sure that we provide legal services, which we know can be a barrier to people escaping. We’ve introduced the payments for people to be able to, women to be able to leave, leaving domestic violence payments, but we also know that there’s more that we can do. And today, I’m very confident, after our discussions that we’ve had over a period of time, we’ll have some practical measures going forward that will make a difference. And we’ll keep working until violence against women and children is something of the past. We know that it won’t be achieved immediately, but we know that we can make a difference today, and that’s a responsibility that we have with the different positions that we hold. So welcome very much. I look forward to furthering our discussions following what was a really constructive engagement that we had last night.

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