Domestic violence and justice services will receive a $21.4m boost in the Australian Capital Territory courtesy of a $30 a year levy.
The government of the territory containing Australia’s capital, Canberra, revealed the safer families levy in its 2016 budget on Tuesday.
It is believed to be the first such tax to pay for domestic violence services and prevention in the world.
Nicholas Cowdery, chairman of the White Ribbon campaign to end male violence towards women, said the levy was “a rather innovative way to raise funds” and a first for Australia.
The $21.4m package includes $3m for a full-time coordinator-general for family safety, $2.6m for case management and coordination of services for victims of family violence and $2.5m to improve child protection services.
In Australia the levy follows a national ad campaign to combat negative attitudes towards women and a royal commission into family violence in the state of Victoria, which made 227 recommendations and prompted a $572m investment in domestic violence, justice services and housing.
Around the world, there has been groundswell to combat domestic violence after a report in the UK in 2014 by the inspectorate of constabulary that condemned the overall police response and reports that find domestic violence is consistently underreported.
In December 2015 China introduced the country’s first anti-domestic violence law, which prohibits any form of domestic violence, including psychological abuse, and helps streamline the process for obtaining restraining orders.
In his budget speech on Tuesday, the ACT chief minister and treasurer, Andrew Barr, said “family violence is unacceptable”.
“It is not a police problem or a government problem or a poor people’s problem or a Canberra problem. It is everyone’s problem.
“Family violence does not discriminate; it is a national issue that touches the lives of Australians everywhere.”
The package includes $1.36m to prosecute alleged perpetrators of family violence, $1.18m for police to help victims get apprehended violence orders and $1.2m for legal aid.
It also provides a brokerage and bond fund to assist victims seeking to escape family violence with immediate expenses and $1.2m for domestic violence and rape crisis centres.
Barr said: “In this budget we take decisive steps to address coordination and communication issues to help our hardworking staff on the front line identify and prevent family violence.
“We will make the changes we need in the criminal justice system so it is easier for victims to navigate and easier to take strong action against perpetrators.”
According to reports, the Liberal leader, Jeremy Hanson, said he supported the intent of the domestic violence package but disagreed on how to fund it.
“I certainly applaud a number of the measures that have been put forward by the government,” he said.
“What we’re seeing is that instead of it being a core priority out of the budget ... the government is in a position where it has to levy home owners to pay for a response to domestic violence.
“This should be core business, it should be an absolute priority.”
Barr said recent reports by the territory government and the royal commission into family violence in the state of Victoria made it clear more needed to be done to prevent family violence “and we need new sources of revenue to fund it”.
The $30 per year family violence levy will apply to all residential and rural properties. It comes on top a 4.5% increase in general rates, followed by a 7% rise in July 2017, when rates will be frozen for three years.
Cowdery said the levy would give funding certainty to family violence services, allowing them to better plan their programs.
“The most important lesson that has to be learned by those running anti-domestic violence programs and apportioning funds is there has to be good collaboration between bodies working in the field, coordination of effort, playing to the strengths of individual organisations and combining them to provide a better overall program,” he said.
Cowdery said the coordinator-general could help achieve this coordination of programs to deal with family violence.
He said funding the justice system to deal with the consequences of domestic violence was good but “we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that when more resources are spent on prevention and, when prevention is effective, there is less demand for services to deal with the consequences”.
Cowdery said engaging men to stop domestic violence, which is one of White Ribbon’s main programs, was particularly important. He welcomed the ACT government’s pledge to spend $964,000 on a residential behaviour change program for men who use or are at risk of using violence.
The Victorian royal commission’s recommendations focused on breaking down a siloed system to increase cooperation between organisations and systems preventing and responding to domestic violence.
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