Yvette Berry defends spending safer families levy on government training

Opposition spokeswoman on the prevention of domestic and family violence Elizabeth Kikkert said community services had been forced to turn down people who had sought support due to a lack of government funding.

Mrs Kikkert said, in budget estimates, organisations had raised concerns about the government spending money from the safer families levy on domestic violence awareness training for public servants.

But Ms Berry said money from the levy had to spend on a range of different areas and that organisations, including YWCA Canberra, were given funding to conduct these sessions.

"Domestic and family violence is a complex issue and it needs to be approached from a range of different fronts and that is what the family safety levy as well as other funding that the government provides is about," she said.

"The training you refer to the public service, that training is conducted by those community service organisations including the YWCA so the funding is going to them to provide that training."

"But training isn't just about training around domestic and family violence, it's actually raising awareness and where people can go, or direct people within the public service to support or support people who have experienced domestic and family violence who are in the public service."

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The safer families levy is paid by all homeowners in the ACT as part of their general rates. The money goes towards supporting measures to prevent and respond to domestic and family violence.

The levy increased to $45 annually for a household this financial year and is expected to raise $8.4 million over the year. It will increase to $50 a year from 2024-25.

The levy raised $7.2 million last year and about $567,000 of this went towards training for ACT government frontline workers to respond to family violence.

The largest single portion of the money, $1.8 million, went towards a family violence safety action program.

YWCA Canberra expressed concern about the safer families levy in its budget submission. YWCA said it was unable to secure funding for a client after being told the funding pool had been exhausted.

"If a core aim of the safer families levy is to improve outcomes for victims of domestic violence and their families, it seems illogical that the increasing pool of funding being drawn from ACT households does not support the ongoing availability of this vital payment," YWCA's submission said.

"YWCA Canberra urge the ACT government to realign its funding priorities with the core rationale of the safer families levy and aims of the national plan to end violence against women and children, and to ensure mechanisms such as the escaping violence payment, which are fundamental to a woman's ability to leave violence, remain perennially accessible."

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