Recording: The Choice: Violence or Poverty

Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, this land was never ceded and we want to pay respects to elder's past and present for their continuing ownership and custodianship of the land upon which this university is built. So my name is Verity Firth. I'm the Pro Vice Chancellor of social justice and inclusion here at UTS. I'm also at that stage of life where I can never work out whether I need to keep my glasses on or not, maybe I should put them just perched on my chin like this, on my nose like this. It's my real pleasure to have you all here today. We're also live streaming this event, so that we've got all of you in the room. But we've also got some people online, who were really keen to be able to access the event online. So it's my pleasure today to be joined by Professor Carl Rhodes, Dean of the UTS Business School, a panel of speakers, Anna Bligh and Leanne Ho. And we also have, of course, our keynote speaker, Professor Anne Summers AO with us and I will introduce you properly to her shortly. There is a couple of housekeeping though we do have to go through. So today we're going to be talking about the implications of Professor Summers findings, in her report, The choice: violence or poverty, revealing the stark choices and consequences for women wanting to escape domestic violence. We will discuss how we can remove barriers facing women looking to escape partner violence. We will also discuss the national plan to reduce violence against women and their children, how it seeks to encourage and support women to leave violent relationships. But of course, whilst you can be supporting women to leave violent relationships, there's no point encouraging them if there's absolutely nowhere for them to go. And this is what Anne's report points out so well. The truth is that the Australian welfare measures ensure that as many as half the women who choose to leave violent partners will end up in poverty. As Professor Summers writes, the government may not be able to immediately stop domestic violence, but it could stop poverty, and it chooses not to. I really do want to urge everyone to read and compelling and powerful report. Not only does she painstakingly comb through ABS data to discover the truth about the link between violence and single motherhood, she also outlines the shifts in discourse around single motherhood. In her words, quote, single mothers have been transformed in the eyes of the federal government, from being mothers to being seen as economic units to be forcibly funneled into the workforce as soon as possible. When I read the report, I really, really want you to read it because it's deep in data, right? So she's gone and she's looked at the ABS stats, and the data is there and the proof is there. But she has such a compelling narrative style, that you absolutely get swept up in the power of her argument. The most powerful for me was in fact, the final chapter which talked about the history of parenting payments in Australia, and how far we thought we had come. And yet how far we have now fallen and the way that single mothers have been increasingly demonized rather than supported, particularly since the 90s. But I'll leave it to her to elaborate further. I'd also like to acknowledge that in today's discussion, it will include topics that may distress some people it may be triggering. So if you have at any time, feel uncomfortable or have discomfort or just a bit overwhelmed, just leave, it's fine. Don't force yourself to sit through distress and you can always join us again later. But to officially begin today's event, I am now going to introduce Professor Anne Summers. She has just joined the UTS Business School and we're extremely excited to have her as part of UTS. It's a huge coup for us. Professor Summers is a leading feminist and renowned journalist and researcher. In 2021, she began work with us as a Paul Ramsey foundation fellow where she undertook her original database research that informed her groundbreaking breaking report, The choice: violence or poverty. So I'd now like to welcome Professor Summers to give us a keynote before the panel discussion. Thank you.

 

04:31

Thank you so much for that terrific introduction. I'm still not used to hearing the word professor in front of my name. So I think who's that who are they talking about? So I haven't quite got used to this, this this honor. Before I begin, I too would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on unseeded Aboriginal land, the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and wish to pay my respects to elder's past, present and emerging. You've no doubt already heard the headline findings of my research disturbing data about the extent and the consequences of domestic violence in Australia today. Tonight, I'll just summarize the main findings and add a couple of new observations that I think are especially relevant for business so that we have plenty of time for questions and discussions. Before I do, I just let me remind you that these findings are based on never before published data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the ABS. The data has been customized for my report by the abs in response to my request for information about single mothers and their experience of violence. I had been surprised to discover that the ABS does not identify single mothers as a specific data set. In its Personal Safety Survey, the PSS which is study, which is conducted every four years into violence in Australia, including partner violence, which is the term the ABS uses to designate domestic violence infected by a cohabiting partner. In response to my requests, they were able to extract from the PSS 2016, which is the most recent one available, a data set that comprised 311,000 Women in single parent families or with children aged under 18. This data set is amazingly comprehensive, providing a massive amount of data on the experiences of violence of these women and its consequences. And which is able to be compared with women in other household formations, who did or did not experience partner violence. The data is available for you to look at yourselves, if you wish, as it is linked to the appendix of my report. There's a lot more information there than I used in the report because it dealt with a huge range of matters that were not directly relevant to my purpose, but may be of interest to you. My purpose was to measure the prevalence of domestic violence in Australia today and to examine at least some of the consequences for the women and children affected. I present my overall findings in the form of a proposition, which is also of course the title of the report. That proposition is this: Australian women who are experiencing violence have two choices. One is to stay and live with violence, the other is to leave. Now, this might sound like a statement of the bleeding obvious, but it has in fact never before been measured with authoritative data as to its prevalence and the consequences of each of these choices. In 2016, an estimated 275,000 Australian women suffered physical and or sexual violence from their current partner. These women were currently living with violence. To give this number of context, the combined populations of Hobart and Launceston in 2016 was 287,013 people. So these 275,000 Women at 1700 made at least one effort to leave the relationship, but subsequently returned. They returned for various reasons, they'd love their partner, he promised to stop the violence. They missed their home, they didn't want their children's lives disrupted, all those sorts of reasons. But around 15% of them came back because they had no money and nowhere to go. In addition, there's another 90,000 of these 275,000 Women who wanted to leave, but didn't. The reasons they didn't want to leave a set out in detail on the report. But they include wanting to work things out, wanting the violence to end. But for 22,000 of these 90,000 women, the reason was they had no money and no financial support.

 

09:10

We also need to note that almost 110,000 of these 275,000 women were not in employment or are not are not in employment, meaning they have no financial resources of their own, making them even more dependent on the violent partner. So in support of the first part of my proposition, the numbers show that 275,000 Women in Australia are living in violent relationships, and that as many as 34,805 of them would like to leave, but have no money and nowhere to go. So if for example, we had a national target of reducing the incidence of violence in Australia by say 100,000 a year, we could reduce that target. We could achieve a third of that target immediately by providing money for this 34,805 Women to leave. As a result, these women are choosing to remain with the violence, we can help them to leave if we wanted to. Now let's look at the women who left. The ABS customized data shows that in 2016, there were 311,000 women with children under 18, who were living as single parents. Of these 311,000 Women 185,700 has experienced partner violence. That translates to a shocking 60% of single mothers who have experienced violence from a previous partner. This is the headline finding of my report. And to understand just how shocking it is, I need to provide some context. Whenever you read about domestic violence in Australia, via newspaper articles, or even government documents, the rate that is usually cited is the major finding of the ABS personal safety surveyed 2016. And that is that one in six or 17.3% of Australian women aged over 18 have experienced partner violence since the age of 15. Now the trouble with that figure is it includes all women in Australia, including those who've never had a partner. And let's not forget that the ABS definition and partner violence is violence perpetrated by a cohabiting partner, ie someone you live with. So it's not really very useful to include in our prevalence figures, women who by definition, could not have experienced partner violence. Yet we do, even the government does. It makes more sense if we look at women who've ever had a partner. And when we do that, that figure increases to 22%. Now that's a pretty terrible figure 22%, or almost one quarter of Australian women who have ever had a partner have experienced violence. I don't think most of us knew that. I certainly didn't. There's another group who've suffered terrible rates of partner violence, and that is women who were once partnered, and who now live alone. There are around 800,000 of them, and 40% of them experienced violence from a previous partner. Now, this is a truly shocking figure, and this group deserves urgent investigation so that we understand more about the consequences of experiencing domestic violence in Australia. I mean, who are these 800,000 women? I mean, I've never heard of them. They're not single mothers. They're not. Who are they? And I really hope somebody decides to make that a research topic. And I'm not doing it because my focus was on single mothers. And then to start astounding 60% of the single mothers in my study have experienced partner violence. This is almost unbelievable. In fact, when I first saw the biggest I didn't believe them. I thought that I was reading them wrong. But I because I'm not a statistician, so what would I know? But then I asked some statisticians and they actually asked the abs, correct figures, right. So the key thing for us to know that is that these women were not single mothers at the time that they experienced the violence, they were married, or in a de facto relationship, because as we have already seen, the ABS‘s definition of partner violence is sexual or physical violence or emotional abuse, which is inflicted by a cohabiting partner. So what we have to understand is that these 185,700, women are single mothers, because they lived violent relationships. In fact, as the ABS customized data shows, a full 75% of them say that the main reason they separated permanently from their partner was because of his threats or actual abuse, or his emotional control, what we now call coercive control. You will note that the number of women who stayed is greater than the number who left

 

14:04

my report contains an enormous amount of detail or provided and verified by the ABS. In other words, the ABS read my report when it was finished, to make sure that I'd got everything right. They would they didn't give it the sort of the tick and say they loved it or anything like that. But I think they did, really, they don't often get this much attention. But what they did verify was that I had quoted and interpreted the figures correctly. And so we have the reassurance of the ABS on that. There are details in the report that have never been published, and many of which are very hard to read. We learn a lot about these women and what they have suffered, how the violence so often begins when the woman is pregnant, how it impacts on their daily lives and on their children. I'm not going to go into the details here because you can read Report. It's just download it go to violenceorpoverty.com. And it's available and it's free. And you'll see the terrific graphics and the data visualizations that really underscore the dire situation. Instead, what I want to concentrate on tonight as some of the consequences for these women of having endured this violence, these are facts that we didn't know, until we ABS provided this customized data, I will look mostly at the financial impact of having suffered violence. But first, I just wanted to make the important point that 67% of the women who experienced violence while living with a partner, and that is a total of 113,300 women had children in their care at the time. And 88,600 of these women said their children saw or heard the violence. One of the things that's very troubling about this is that we know that there is a high rate of a high risk of intergenerational transmission of violence. Children who have either witnessed violence themselves against a parent, particularly against a mother may themselves grow up to be either a victim or a perpetrator. Without intervention, or at least some at least some of these children might grow up to be either perpetrators or victims of violence themselves. So this is a very important finding in itself. And for what it tells us about the likelihood of violence being transmitted into the future, unless we take immediate and drastic action. Now. This is an area that deserves a lot of further investigation. And as a society, we bear responsibility for ensuring that it does not happen. But what I'll be presenting now and the financial consequences for these women of having left violent relationships. perhaps the most dramatic and consequential changes are to their employment. The ABS figures show that of the women who had been assaulted by a previous partner in the past 10 years 51% were not working at the time. 33% of them did not take time off work, although 15% did. In other words, as we saw the champion 75,000 Women who remained with violent partners, there appears to be a lower rate of employment among women who experienced violence. I've been very fortunate to have Professor Bruce Chapman of the ANU and his colleague Matt Taylor contributed to this report via some truly groundbreaking work they have done using Hilda data on the income consequences of living violent relationship. As we know the PSS, Personal Safety Survey is a cross sectional survey. A cross sectional study giving us a snapshot of a situation but unable to track what happens to the women were concerned about. Hilda is a longitudinal study, meaning that experiences can be tracked over time. Bottom line is that women who separated because of domestic violence suffered far greater drops in income than women who separated for other reasons. Perhaps the most startling finding is that women who are single mothers due to living in a violent relationship suffered a 45% drop in household income, compared with an 18% drop for childless women who did not experience domestic violence. Why is this the case? Is it because having experienced violence robs women of their confidence or their self esteem, makes them reluctant or fearful of re engaging with the world. The fact is, we don't know that we have to find out both for the sake of the women themselves and for the economy. And this is going to be my next project. Chapman and Taylor at the School of Business, thanks to Carlos

 

18:50

Chapman and Taylor have postulated their data suggests that the experience of partner violence impacts negatively on a woman's ability to or maintain employment post separation. They propose to investigate this further. Their findings ought to be of particular interest to business because business needs to involve itself in finding ways to bring these women into or back into the workforce. It is not enough just to have domestic violence leave important and necessary as that is. We also need to come up with ways to help women who are not in the workforce. And for 60% of the 185,700 women who left violent relationships are in employment, but most of them are in such marginal employment, that they do not have sufficient earnings to support themselves and their families. As a result, a full 50% of them rely entirely on government benefits as their main source of income. And this is where the poverty comes in. Because as we know, the payments for single parents are very low, and have been made much worse by policy decisions by governments since 2006. I have adopted the term policy induced poverty, an extremely active expression coined by Dr. Susan Mary of Good Shepherd, to describe the financial situation in which single mothers find themselves in. Perhaps the most confronting figure from the ABC, that from the ABS story shows that 48.1% of the single mothers are in the lowest quintile for equivalised weekly household earnings, meaning their weekly income is $460 or less. The consequences are that these women are living in incredible financial stress. This is documented in various ways in the report. But I would like to just draw your attention to some figures that look at the cash flow problems that these women experienced in their households. Over the previous 12 months. 60% of them have had one or more cashflow problems, for example, 78,000 couldn't pay a utility bill on time. 24,000 couldn't pay the rent or the mortgage on time. 20,500 were unable to heat or cool their houses 16,000 couldn't pay their credit card, minimum, and 17,400 went without meals. But to me, the most heartbreaking and revealing number is the 36,300 women who could not pay their car registration or insurance. We all know that it's almost impossible, particularly if you're a single parent, to have employment, if you don't have a car. If you can't drive to work, if you can't drive the kids to childcare if you can't do all the normal things associated with most suburban lives. Not all of us live in the inner city. with public transport, most of the things involved in suburban living in this country requires a car, and you're excluded from society, from society in so many ways that make it very hard for you to get back in if you don't have a car. So, that is a particularly poignant finding and one that we did not have that one that we have not been able to quantify until now. So we've seen that the income of law is low, we've seen that women are having a great deal of trouble getting by something like 27,000 sought assistance from welfare organizations, while others were able to seek help from their families. These women so many of whom left violent relationships and help who and now single mothers are living in poverty, in some cases, extreme poverty because of government payments policy. Starting in 1973, when the Whitlam government introduced the supporting mothers benefit single parents were treated with dignity, their payments gradually increased to the pension rate, and they were not required to seek employment, as it was recognized that their single parenting was in itself a job. Now, there are various changes over the decades, but none so drastic, or so cruel, as the 2006 welfare to work so called reforms, whereby the Howard Government decreed that once your youngest child turns eight women on what was then called the parenting payment, would have to go on what would have to go on to the doll, then known as new start, which paid considerably less. From now on, these women were no longer seen as seen or treated as single mothers. They were unemployed. Current recipients were grandfathered, but all new applicants fell under the new system.

 

23:30

Two things happened after Labor came to power in 2007, which made things even worse. First, in 2009, Kevin Rudd changed the indexation arrangements, decoupling the link to male weekly earnings and instead tied the dialed in indexation to the CPI, which was lower. The result was that the gap between parenting payment and the unemployment payment widened even further every six months, and has been doing so ever since 2009. And then, in 2013, the Gilad government removed the grandfathering which resulted in some 80,000 Women immediately being forced onto the New start what's now called job seeker. This catastrophic move radically changed the system that previously had acknowledged these women were parents not unemployed workers. It decreased their fortnightly incomes immediately by about $200. And via the new indexation arrangements by increasing amounts every six months. So at the moment, the current rates of bass payments this is of March 22. For the parenting payments single is $892. a fortnight $892 Parenting payment for job seekers single with dependent children and that is a single mother whose youngest child is eight or above the rate is $691. a fortnight you can compare that with the age pension a couple who are on 1448, a fortnight almost $1,500 It's a fortnight everyone says, age pensioners do it hard. But the age pension couple does not have kids who grow out of their clothes every six months, who, especially if they are boys eat massive amounts, and who demand the latest sneakers want mobile phones and all the rest of it. Even when you take into account that the woman on jobseeker, with two children aged 10 and 12 will get some extra money, some family payment benefits a bit of rent assistance if she's renting, and an energy supplement of $9.50 which is fairly meaningless given today's energy prices, the total amount she receives is $1,189.66. a fortnight. I know I'm throwing a lot of things that she but this really is about the numbers. And just to spell it out the amount of money that this single mother with two boys or two children, sorry, aged 10 to 12, she receives $258, a fortnight less than the age pension in a couple of games, you can buy a fair bit of food for that. So what this means that these women are trying to get by on very low payments, while at the same time being subjected to the humiliations. And I would say the cruelty of the mutual obligations while trying to raise kids, I won't go into the details of that. But we all know about that. Of course, we all know about single mothers, the stigmas are so so often attached to them the income difficulties they have, that so many of them that their kids are living in poverty, what we didn't know. And now cannot unknow is the connection between that poverty and the fact that a very large number of these women are single mothers, because they have left violent relationships. We say to women who are in violent relationships, why doesn't she leave? Well, this is one reason she doesn't leave a lot of those 275,000 women that we talked about in the beginning, they know they know what will happen if they leave. And so they have to make this terrible choice about enduring the violence, knowing it could escalate in intensity, and frequency, it could put their very lives at risk. We know from the N rose study of social attitudes to violence that some 32% of Australians think that a woman who stays in a violent relationship is partly responsible for what happens to her. So as well as the violence, these women also have to deal with the stigma of being a victim. And we also know that was so few of those women working full time are working at all, they had very few financial options, and so are therefore pretty much stuck in that situation. On the other hand, those women who have left the 75% of them leave 75% of those who leave, leave without taking any property or assets. That means clothes, household goods, like washing machines, but it also means kids school reports, family photos, the stuff that tells our story, and which in an ideal world we would pass on to our kids and their kids.

 

27:56

Those women who have chosen to leave often for fear of their lives, they simply pick up the kids and run they've gone to a refuge if they can get in. We know that women shelters currently TURN AWAY 50% of the women who seek emergency assistance, they've gone to the family or friends. We have figures that show a lot of these women and their kids have slept rough. They've slept in caravan parts or in abandoned buildings, or in their cars. It's a shocking situation. This is what what we say are saying to Australian women who experienced violence, stay and put up with it with the violence and the stigma of being an abused woman or leave and have a 50% chance of living in poverty. The thing that's particularly galling and the thing that shocked me the most about doing this report and the findings is that because of the indexation arrangements, the situation gets just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. What I've tried to show tonight is that the consequences of leaving a violent relationship have been demonstrated by the ABS data to put women and their children into a very precarious financial situation. They may have escaped the violence, although in fact 36% still continue to experience violence from their previous partner for the first year after leaving, but around 50% of them are burdened with this policy induced poverty. Whatever policy reforms solutions we arrive at, we still have to look at the overall situation and ask ourselves whether we are happy as a society to be trading off violence for poverty. That is the proposition and is one that's not one that any of us can no longer ignore. The challenge for all of us is what are we gonna do about it? Thank you.

 

Professor Carl Rhodes  29:55

Thank you so much, that for that keynote presentation and My name is Professor Carl Rhodes. I'm Dean here at UTS Business School. And on behalf of the school, and our friends at the Center for social justice and inclusion at UTS, we really is our honor to be hosting this really important, important discussion. I also extend our thanks to the Paul's Ramsey Foundation for their support of and research into what is clearly an urgent and important issue. I also acknowledge that we are here in a business school perhaps not the place, you would normally expect to have a discussion like this. But to draw attention to, as Anne has clearly showed, unequivocally, domestic violence is intertwined with economic and financial justice. And it's very much an economic issue, as the report is entitled, you know, resulting in the choice for many between violence and poverty. Anne’s very clear in showing that this issue of domestic violence with single mothers is far worse than we may have imagined. And this clearly is no time for ethical by standing. The report is a harrowing read. If you haven't read it, I suggest that you do, but also a call to immediate action, what can be done? So this evening, we're delighted to welcome guest panelists to join Anne and invite them to join me here with Anne on stage. Firstly, we have the honorable Anna Bligh, and is CEO of the Australian Banking Association. She's a respected Australian leader, and former Premier of Queensland. He'd been an advocate for education and the role of women in public life and services for the non for profit sector. welcome Anna. We also have Leanne Ho. Leanne is the CEO of economic justice, Australia. She is a human rights lawyer and leader in the community and pro bono legal sectors. He has previously worked as the Legal Adviser to the United Nations peacekeeping missions, and its human rights advisory panel. Welcome, Leanne. So we're going to spend about half an hour or so talking about some of some of the issues raised by Anne’s research and Anna, I might start with, with you, if you don't mind. Financial institutions are clearly a key part of the economy and of and of the fabric of our society. Financial institutions are a key part of the economy and the fabric of our society. Do you think financial institutions have a role to play in helping tackle violence against women and their children or other forms of domestic violence?

 

33:18

Absolutely, not only do I think they have a role to play, they actually are playing a very significant role for many women. There's certainly much more that could be done. But well, first of all, let me say, I think there are a few better ways to control someone than to ensure that they have no access whatsoever to money. I worked in a Women's Refuge in 1981, in 1982, in Brisbane, which is 40 years ago. And I can tell you how surprised I used to be about how many women would call and say, I've got an hour, he's out of the house, I've got an hour to get out of the house, I don't have any money. And we will just say come get on get in a taxi, we'll pay it when you get here. And it was I mean, I was a very, you know, young worker at the time, I didn't have much money either. But we're literally talking about women who didn't have five cents, and didn't have a bank account, they didn't have a single coin in their purse. And that really means you can't do anything. In those days, it meant you couldn't use a public phone. It just complete it really is a way of complete control. Then there are plenty of women in these circumstances who have some of their own money, but it's caught up in things like joint accounts, which you know, then controlled by their partner. These are all things so the role of financial institutions, particularly banks and credit unions, and the like, I think it's fair to say have really evolved over the last 20 or so years and are evolving further. Australian banks now have a they started in 2016. put in place a sector wide guideline on dealing. So basically saying this is not an issue on which banks should compete. This is something it shouldn't matter who you bank with, you should be able to walk into the door of any bank and expect that certain you'll be treated in a certain way and be entitled to certain rights and entitlements. So the guidelines sets out a whole lot of details, some ways are kind of really boring, but can actually, you know, really make a woman's life much worse if she's leaving. So you know, things like commitment, banks will not pass on to debt collectors, any debt that's associated with a family that's experienced violence, they have abilities to do things like freeze accounts, particularly freezing, sorry, freezing joint accounts, so that they can until they can work out whose money is this before that account gets strain, and the woman ends up even closer to poverty. But the other interesting thing that I think has really confronted banks in the last couple of years is anyone who's worked in this sector will know that perpetrators can be incredibly relentless in the way that they will pursue and stalk and, and really threatened and terrify people and control. But banks have found in 2019, the Commonwealth Bank identified that perpetrators were using their banking, their online banking platform, as a vehicle of abuse for victims. So for any of you who've ever made a transaction, you can put in the reference, you can put a little note to yourself, no money to my friend for the concert. What they found was that there was very high numbers, they found it through one of their customers they were reconstructing accounts for. And they thought, well, if it's happening to one of our customers, let's go and have a look, they found 8000 of their customers who were experiencing sometimes 100 of these messages a day. And the perpetrator, they couldn't identify that it was not friends, etc, it was people perpetrating it by sending 10 cents, they were using really low value transactions, the purpose of the transaction was clearly not to transfer 10 cents, it was to send a you know, a very abusive, threatening message. And so every bank has now working to basically the terms and conditions have changed, if they identify that they will remove you from their banking platform, if you are the perpetrator. So, you know, it's not only that banks and financial institutions, including insurance, and superannuation, I think have all got to think about the role that collectively they can play. I think they've got to know what their role is. It's not I think, to work through with the woman, some of the very complex emotional issues around leaving or the experience of the violence. But on the other side about how what can we do to make sure you get you are kept as far away from abject poverty as you possibly can be, then banks are really well placed. These are people who know how to do this, who can really assist women who might really basic things, we had to get AUSTRAC agreement. AUSTRAC is the regulator that regulates money laundering law, any of you who've opened an account or gone and got a new credit card, you'll know you have to take 100 points of identification.

 

38:10

The number of women who leave a violent relationship where she doesn't have access to her passport, she doesn't have access, she doesn't even have a driver's license. Or if she does, she doesn't have access to it. Almost impossible to go and get a bank account for the bank to be consistent with the 100 points requirement. But last year negotiated with austrac, that banks can use other forms of identification sort of statutory declarations from relevant people to get up because if a woman doesn't have a bank account, she can't get as meager as it is. It's better than not having anything. And so that was a quite a stumbling walk. And it's those things. They're all little tiny things. But if you've just left a really violent relationship with no money, no bank account, or money in the bank account that's controlled by a violent partner, or it makes it much much harder to make a life for yourself and your children. So yeah, absolutely critical role to play.

 

Professor Carl Rhodes  39:11

Look, thanks. Thanks. Thanks so much. I might turn to you now, Leanne and move from the private sector, to the public sector. I mean, Anne's report very much highlights how we have an inadequate Social Security system, which means that many women don't leave violent thing will have to return to them, or else face homelessness, or you know, what's referred to as policy induced poverty. I mean, from your experience and from an economic justice point of view, our welfare measures perpetuating violence or re traumatizing women.

 

39:51

Anne’s done such a fantastic job of going through all of the figures about the way that domestic well Aren't victims survivors and up in poverty, that I really wanted to paint a picture using some of the case studies that come from our Community Legal Center work. But before I do that, I just wanted to really dispel this idea that the supplementary payments on top of the base rate of Social Security payments makes the inadequacy, okay, because this is something I hear over and over again. And, as I mentioned, when you look at rent assistance, and supplementary payments and family assistance payments, a single mom with two kids under five leaves on the poverty line. And as those children get older, or falls further and further and further below the poverty line, and a single woman without children lives $100 per week below the poverty line. I just wanted to add that to the you know, the inadequacy ask. So, Anne also talked about the hoops that we make women go through in order to get these meager payments. And let me add some color to that with some stories. So, at the parents next inquiry, we provided some of these examples. A mum with a severely disabled child, couldn't go to a job service provider appointment, and had her payment suspended until she could come to one of our community legal centres to have her payment reinstated. And also to get an exemption, it boggles the mind that someone with a severely disabled child couldn't get an exemption on their own, and needed that kind of support. And imagine the traumatization of not being able to provide food or medicine for that child when they were so unwell. Another case was a Mandarin speaking woman who didn't speak any English, experiencing family violence. And she was only able to get an exemption from her mutual obligation requirements after the intervention of a support worker. Again, imagine the trauma. But it's not only these hoops that we make women goes through that are traumatizing them the actual process of claiming payments, because the rules don't make sense because they don't take into account domestic violence and those experiences. They actually in themselves traumatize women experiencing violence. I'm just gonna give you some examples around something really simple to understand, which is crisis payment. So if you're experiencing domestic violence, and you go to Centrelink to apply for a crisis payment, you have to or the violent partner has to leave home permanently. So we've had a case recently where the victim survivor was very hopeful that one day she'd be able to go back home, no crisis payment. We've had another case is a bit further back, where the perpetrator actually got sent to jail because of the violence. And because he'd be paroled in 15 months, she couldn't get a crisis payment, because she was he was going to come back home. Now home is defined as a fixed residence. So if you're in temporary accommodation in a Women's Refuge, you can apply for crisis payment. And finally, and this isn't the only problem was crisis payment, but you have to apply for it within seven days. Now, my husband is in the audience, and he can't get his stuff together for a tax return within seven days. How do we how do we expect someone leaving a chaotic, violent situation to get everything they need together to apply for crisis payment within seven days?

 

44:43

These are the kinds of rules that don't make sense. That re traumatize victims survivors and economic justice Australia. We're pushing to change

 

Professor Carl Rhodes  44:58

that thanks so much. have flatly and really terrible, terrible stories. And Anne just turn it turning to you now in your report, you make six recommendations, five of those relate to suggested actions that need to be taken by the Australian Government. I mean, your reports been out for some weeks now. What's the reaction been? And How hopeful are you that your recommendations will be adopted? Three weeks today?

 

45:27

I have this is working. I have to say. How’s that? I have to say I've been very, very kind of gratified and very pleased, obviously, that the report has been

 

45:53

as widely received. I mean, it's had fantastic publicity. Most of it positive, had a bit of bit of stick from a few people, but mostly positive, mostly people are kind of reeling in shock. As as I certainly was the first time. I've been living with these figures now for 18 months. And so I'm not as shocked as I first was when I first saw them, and just literally didn't believe them. So but I'm, I'm really pleased that the, the report has been given the distribution, the media reach and everything, the numbers are just absolutely phenomenal. And people are even downloading the stats, which is crazy. Hundreds and hundreds of people are downloading the stats and looking at them, which I think is very important. And, I mean, what's been very interesting is we hold a fact sponsored by UTS. And by Verity’s Center, a Chatham House rules, private briefing two days before the release of the report for some sets, senior bureaucrats, Minister offices and other relevant people in Canberra. And we were delighted at the turnout, we had people from Treasury, and finance from Prime Minister and Cabinet from the PMO itself. From social services, the evil people in all of this, the woman who is in charge of it all turned up, up to criticism. And it was really remarkable people were calling us the night before begging to be allowed to come. So I do sense and because the comments were all Chatham House Rules off the record, I think, you know, there are a lot more frank than you'd normally get from conversations with bureaucrats. And the the willingness with which the some of these, these advisors were to take what we're saying, to give us advice on how best to try and get change. It did give me a sense that perhaps the change of government has changed a few things. And we certainly hope so. I mean, bearing in mind that some of the worst things happened with the last Labour government, like I get to be starry eyed about this. But I do think there's also quite a degree of guilt amongst a lot of sitting Labour members about what happened. And I do hope that there's an appetite to reverse the at least the worst of them, and that is certainly support the women with kids over eight, back onto the parenting payment, and it wouldn't be much better at least to be an extra couple of $100. a fortnight, which is better than nothing. But that's to me is the minimal change. I mean, gotta go a lot more than that. I mean, what we're recommending is that the, the women's stay on the parenting payment, the parenting payment be raised to the level of the single age pension, which would give it another few $100 a week. And more importantly, the indexing would change. So they wouldn't be getting worse off every six months. So that's what we are advocating. I was very pleased to be called by the Minister for Finance and Minister for Women, Katie Gallagher. And I met with her last Monday and, and put the case for these changes. I don't know whether it's possible to get any change in the October budget. But certainly, we're trying very hard to get at least that minimal change in the October budget. I think there's a degree of of willingness. There's a you know, tough budget situation, of course, but you know that the government says they haven't got the money. Well, they don't want the money. What about these probability women and their kids? They have certainly haven't gotten any money. So I can't say what's going to happen. And I wouldn't want to make any rash predictions, but I'm just a little bit hopeful.

 

50:09

If we don't get an get an in October, there will be all out campaign for me. And, you know, we have time to really, really rally the troops. And the fact that so many people are responding to the report suggest to me that we could mobilize a very, very effective campaign, that the government would find it very, very difficult to ignore, because I mean, the levels of cruelty involved in this. I mean, you're talking about parents next and when we parents next just has to go with there's absolutely no question has to go one of the stories that you're telling some terrible stories, the and the one of the stories that's in my report that I you know, really stuck with me is that, and again, it goes back to the thing about having a car, you don't have a car, and there's this woman, she's on parents next. And she didn't have any car registrations has she? And they said to her, Well, you you register it, and we'll reimburse you, but she didn't have the money to to pay the money to get reimbursed. Kid was sick. She had to take him to hospital in the pram at night, along the side of the highway to get to the hospital. I mean, that's that sort of thing is just, I mean, what, who allows that in a rich country like Australia to treat women and kids who are industrious to treat them so abominably. So, you know, I think we will try arrays. And if that doesn't work, we'll try. Shame. If that doesn't work. It'll get really ugly, I can tell you.

 

Professor Carl Rhodes  51:39

Thanks. We might take this opportunity now to take some questions from the audience. We've got a hand here first, then here.

 

52:02

Thanks. Hi, I'm Tony Wren from anti poverty week. Thanks so much. And for the report. Many of us have actually been working on this for many years. And I really want to acknowledge Therese Edwards, from the National Council for single mothers and their children. She actually took this issue to the United Nations in 2018, and took a single parent who was subjected to this with her. There's been a lot of advocacy, as fantastic. Your report has ramped that up, because we've been talking about it to deaf ears for years, literally years. And obviously, the issue that really concerns my organization is the impact on children. We know that children who grow up in poverty have three times the chance of living in poverty as an adult, they also it really affects their life, right them in terms of education, health, everything. So the fact that we have about 600,000 children with a single parent mother on these low payments, that's a large proportion of all the women, all the children living in poverty in Australia. And we really need to take action because we are one of the world's wealthiest countries in the world. And it's just not right. And we can do better. I'm glad you're hopeful. I'm glad you've had those meetings. We've been very disappointed in the last few years because the labour opposition hasn't been prepared to commit to any changes, to increase job seeker to change the age, the myriad of other things that you've recommended that we've all recommended. So we really hope there will be a change now they're in in government, because it really, absolutely has to. So thanks very much, and thanks to their panelist.

 

Professor Carl Rhodes  53:49

Thank you very much. It will take that more as a comment than a question but well said we'll go here.

 

53:57

Right. Thank you. Thanks so much, and for your important research and the panel. Hi, Leanne. My name is Jane Hazara. I'm a sociologist, and I'm a passionate advocate for preventing domestic violence. I'm also an ambassador for safe haven for safe haven, which provides emergency accommodation for women fleeing domestic violence and the children. You were saying in that campaign, if it's not released to enough money at the Blake's budget in October, we should start the campaign now, because quite frankly, they should all be in shape, what's been happening, the lack of the lack of money that's been given to women and their children living in poverty, and they're having to have that horrendous choice between the two. So there was a meeting last week between Amanda Rishworth, Federal Minister for Social Services and the Attorney General's was there a discussion about we need to do something this is an emergency and we need to treat it urgently. Do you know were you there at that at that meeting, and I think And I'm speaking to Leanne about it. Do you know what happened there? I mean, it's so obvious that we need to have the economic focus there to lift it. They're living below the poverty line. And I believe personally, as an advocate, we need to be jumping up and down right now for the campaign to increase it by does anybody else feel that? Yeah, definitely. By October, we don't wait to see if they put it in the budget. We do it now. Yeah. And what can I do to comment about that?

 

55:33

Can I take this opportunity to say that we need to get this issue into the national plan? Or have another 10 years of not addressing it? So? Yeah, exactly. And there was a tiny, tiny mention of Social Security in relation to migrant women. And that was out one little to keep banging on about this to government. And there was no consequence to not even addressing that issue.

 

56:06

I mentioned of single mothers and then draft were not even mentioned. No, so all I know, I'm and I haven't, we didn't know anything about what happened to that meeting on Friday

 

56:17

night, I've only seen the press releases, which were largely about a good atmosphere of cooperation on the states.

 

56:29

I mean, I that was a meeting about the national plan. The two of you. And, you know, I I have said, you know, that I think that the kind of data that I've collected and others have been collecting for years, that kind of data should inform the national plan. And the fact that it hasn't in the past is just absurd. It's just absurd. I mean, so, you know, and we all know, it's got to have targets, realistic targets, and it's got them they've got to be met, there's gonna be penalties. We're not meeting, it's got to be a proper plan. I'm heartened by the fact that Amanda Rishworth is holding the plan back, and he's not going to release it for some months. I don't I haven't met with her yet. I'm hoping I might be able to. But from what I've heard, is she, the new plan was supposed to start on the first of July. And and she took the view that it's better to be late and and try and get it a bit better get it? Right. Well, right would be great. So I don't really know what's going on there. But we certainly I think needs are making a lot of noise about that as well, because it's stupid to have a plan that doesn't address these issues.

 

57:38

Yeah. And I just wanted to mention Jesse Hills books, which made me do that explains a lot about the the inadequacies of that 12 year plan. If you haven't read it, please read it, read it. And there are a lot of holes there. And as you said, No ta you know, lack of targets, lack of strategies. And we need to really do something about that, why starting another 10 year plan when the jury's back on what we have to do. And that just makes me furious.

 

58:05

Can I also say about the national plan that a lot of it seems to be about putting responsibility back onto the states and territories. And that something that we can all advocate about is that the Commonwealth through the Social Security system should be taking some of that responsibility as well. And that's something that State Women's Safety ministers would want to hear.

 

Professor Carl Rhodes  58:37

I think we had a question up here as well. Sorry, we're making you do the full exercise here.

 

58:49

Hi, I only just heard about this a couple of days ago. I'm a social worker. And I'm in a unique position where I actually work in a childcare center. So it's not very common to have that happen. So I'm quite curious to know your thoughts around childcare, we have childcare costs that are probably most expensive, like one of the most expensive in the world. I work with a lot of families where they access additional childcare subsidy. So it's free childcare for a certain amount of time, and then it drops back down. And just to give you a figure, it's 140 a day at least, and we're a long day care provider. So I'm wondering, with the report, I haven't been able to read it but I was just wondering the panel's thoughts around how our childcare subsidy works in Australia. Yes, we have some things in place, but financial hardship only goes for 13 weeks. So you can upskill a mother for maybe 13 weeks if she has the capacity to get in to see a counselor to see her GP. I think it's just quite difficult for these families when I speak to them. The other question I had as well is around the data. I'm quite curious to know, once children are in school, does that change the data at all. So once that the age of five, I'm just wondering how that changes for families as well, because with families like women leaving or being not leaving, being able to escape the violence, does that change at all when the children are older, whereas when they're younger, a lot of families can't access childcare. So they don't actually have any spot to get their stuff together. To be able to make a plan, it's much more difficult when you have your children with you 24/7 rather, if they're at school, at least, there's some time to be able to collect your thoughts, or I'll make a plan or make appointments or attend them.

 

1:00:55

I don't really deal with childcare in the report. And there's not a lot I can say. I've been out of country in the last five years, I did most of this work in New York. In fact, one of the beauties of just working with data is you just need a computer. And childcare policy is something that I used to be very involved with when I worked for the Keating government. In fact, I was involved in the design of the childcare rebate, which I still think was the best policy. And when the fairest, I honestly cannot tell you about the current childcare policy, I don't understand. I haven't yet educated myself about it as I know, I need to but I've been concentrating on this. I mean, all I can say is in the context of women escaping violence is that the cost of childcare is usually another factor in keeping him in poverty, because it's unaffordable. And also the whole issue about if you don't have a car, you can't get there. So, you know, I realized it's a huge problem. And I'm sorry, I can't be more specific about it. And as we think about children under five, I'd, you know, I take your point that if you've got little kids to mind, it's much harder to get out there and do what needs to be done. I mean, this is where the services offered by shelters can be very important because shelter will offer care. While you do those things. If you get a caseworker, he'll say, okay, you can leave the kids with us for the next five hours while you go and do what you have to do. But of course, there aren't enough shoulders and those that are severely over overstressed.

 

1:02:48

Like Anne it's a while since it's a long time since my children were in childcare. And it's hard. It's actually what I what I do think has happened, is it it's much more complicated. And that doesn't help. And I think that I know, the current government has, you know, one of their election commitments is in relation to improving childcare, proving the funding of it. And I hope that starts to make a difference. But I think what I wanted to say in relation to that, to your question was just, and that goes to the national plan, one of the opportunities that the national plan should do or should have is to really think holistically about the kind of safety net that someone needs when they walk out that door. And it should be, you know, how does it intersect with state government agencies, federal government agencies, Social Security Systems, the childcare system, but also the private sector, you know, people are going, it doesn't really matter if you're a mum with, you know, in a violent relationship with children who are dependent on you, whether you will have to go and deal with the bank, or the Department of Social Security, or you know, somebody else, it's all just difficult. And every single part of every single experience is a barrier, that you have to jump over. And if the national plan could think about it, or much more holistically, so that, you know, the childcare system linked up better with the Social Security system, and, you know, worked through where is there a role? You know, again, banks are a good example, but so is Woolworths. These are very big corporations. And that means they are very big employers. And that means statistically, they have a large number of employees, employees whose lives are affected by this. They probably have a large number of employees who are perpetrators as well. And you know, that for many women, their workplace is the only place they're allowed to be other than their home, which is an unsafe place. So, you know, there's a lot that could be done by joining those up a bit more. And I when I look at the national plan, it's all very siloed and actually, that's not how women's lives or parents lives, you know, it's like one continuum from you know, the minute they wake up, and how do we make that an easier experience?

 

Professor Carl Rhodes  1:04:59

You know, They say that the moral test of a nation is how well it treats its citizens who are in need. And I think if you read Anne's report and listen to what we've heard today, I think it's fair to say that Australia has failed that test. And there is a lot of work to do. We've run out of time for discussion today. So I see some hands raised, I'm sorry, we, we will be able to continue this discussion upstairs on level three, where we'll have a small reception and I welcome you to join us there. And also to assure you that this event is not just a one off thing you know, here at UTS and UTS Business School, this is something we work with and we will be continuing to work on continuing to seek progress and continuing to get to a position where Australia passes the moral test that I just mentioned. So really, thank you very much to the panelists today Anne, Anna, and Leanne, you'll have very similar names but thank you very much for for joining us today. I think we could have any more hours but again, let's continue that conversation more informally. On level three that's one level up from here and thank you all to for for coming here those of you here in person as well as those who are joining through the live stream Thank you.