To increase women’s safety, the NSW Government will advocate to bring about cultural change in society’s attitudes and respect towards women, as well as invest in programs that support those women who experience domestic or family violence, or struggle to secure adequate housing.
In March 2020, Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins released Respect@Work, a report on the National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces.
The report made 55 recommendations to improve the safety of women in the workplace.
One of the recommendations was to include a positive duty requiring employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace.
In response to this recommendation, the NSW Government will invest $9.7 million for SafeWork NSW to establish a Respect@Work taskforce to educate employers across New South Wales on their obligations to provide safe workplaces, including preventing sexual harassment in their workforce.
The taskforce will monitor and work with major employers across the State to ensure they are complying with their responsibilities to keep their employees safe from sexual harassment.
The taskforce will provide employers with best-practice guidance on the ways to meet their obligations and prevent sexual harassment in their workplaces.
This will include a toolkit of resources for employers regarding their obligations for preventing and addressing sexual harassment in the workplace.
The NSW Government will establish a Women’s Safety Commissioner to provide expert advice to government on continuing to improve the safety of women in New South Wales.
The Commissioner will strengthen cross-government efforts to prevent and respond to domestic and family violence and harassment.
The Commissioner will also play a role advocating for wider reform and efforts to address domestic and family violence outside of government.
The Safer Pathway program is the NSW Government’s overarching response to domestic and family violence.
The Safer Pathway model provides wraparound services to victim-survivors of domestic and family violence from a single point of contact.
After reporting their situation, each victim-survivor is contacted by one domestic and family violence support worker who connects them with the various supports and services that they require.
This may include legal counsel, housing, medical and psychological attention, and early childhood education and care.
This model ensures that victim-survivors do not have to visit multiple services and retell their story multiple times to receive the support they need.
The NSW Government will invest $18.0 million to establish audio-visual links in court and tribunal rooms across the State.
Access to audio-visual links can reduce trauma for victim-survivors of domestic and family violence by allowing them to appear remotely and avoid being in the same room as their abuser.
The Criminal Procedures Act 1986 was recently amended to prohibit self-represented defendants in domestic and family violence criminal proceedings and related Apprehended Violence Order proceedings from directly cross-examining complainants.
This amendment was designed to prevent victim-survivors experiencing the trauma of being cross-examined by their own abuser.
The NSW Government will invest $8.0 million to allow examinations to instead be conducted using court-appointed questioners or technology in a new service to be delivered by the NSW Government
The NSW Government will invest $30.0 million to tackle street harassment and improve women’s safety across public spaces in New South Wales.
Funding will be used to address street harassment by researching and co-designing solutions with women including infrastructure upgrades such as lighting, CCTV and other initiatives to boost foot traffic in key public spaces.
Funding will also be used to launch an anti-street harassment campaign and consider other policy solutions to stamp out street harassment.
“We’ve all done it, held the keys between our fingers when walking to the car.”
Focus group participant, commissioned research (March/April 2022)
Single mothers and older single women are cohorts that are disproportionately likely to have trouble in achieving homeownership.
Without safe and secure housing, the physical safety and financial security of women is severely compromised.
The NSW Government will help to address this problem by running a two-year trial of a shared equity scheme, which will help vulnerable single women own their own home.
The trial will be open to single parents and older singles with an income of less than $90,000.
These design parameters, while gender-neutral, will support vulnerable women.
This scheme is partly intended to assist a growing cohort of women that do not qualify for social housing but are unable to buy their own home.
Under the scheme, the NSW Government will take a minority ownership stake of up to 40 per cent in a property alongside the home buyer.
The Government’s equity contribution reduces the size of the initial deposit a home buyer needs and the size of their ongoing mortgage repayments.
There will be up to 6,000 places available during the trial, shared across single parents, older singles and key worker first home buyers.
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