The extraordinary cabinet meeting will hear from experts,including former Australian of the Year Rosie Batty,as the Minns government grapples with how to tackle violence against women following the death of Molly Ticehurst in Forbes on April 22.
In regional NSW towns,more women are sleeping rough or in their cars to escape violent homes.James Brickwood
Deputy Premier Prue Car said that nothing is off the table,and all options will be considered.
“We need to take meaningful action and use every lever available to government.
“This means also focusing on prevention,early intervention and holding perpetrators to account.”
The flyer for a service assisting women sleeping rough in Newcastle.Supplied
Annabelle Daniel,the chief executive of Women’s Community Shelters,said there was such a chronic shortage of emergency accommodation that services in regional NSW were forced to hand out tents to women,so they would have somewhere to sleep.
In Newcastle,where Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data shows that the rate of domestic violence assaults rose by 20 per cent in the two years to December 2023,emergency housing supply has become so stretched one service provider has begun allowing women fleeing violence to sleep in a secure car park three nights a week.
The service,which theSydney Morning Herald has not named to protect the privacy of those using it,is running a pilot program which sees women fleeing violence given access to food,showers and laundry in a car park staffed by security guards as existing shelters struggle to handle demand.
Kelly Hansen,the chief executive of Nova,a Newcastle-based domestic violence service provider,said women in the Hunter had been sleeping in cars before the secure car park was set up. While Nova was not running the program,it had been giving some women tents to sleep in.
“What can I say,it’s a crisis,” she said.
“Women sleeping in their cars is not a solution to housing. It isn’t,and we don’t condone it. But we don’t have another answer. The structural barriers are so great,and we just want to keep women safe.”
Housing Minister Rose Jackson,who met with a number of women’s shelter operators in Newcastle recently and heard about the pilot,said the need for the service showed NSW was still on “Band-Aid solutions” when it came to housing.
“It broke my heart. I think it breaks their hearts,too. They’re mortified in a way that they have to do this. It’s not acceptable that this is where we are,” she said.
NSW Premier Chris Minns and Housing Minister Rose Jackson at the march against violence towards women in Sydney on Saturday.Getty
The Minns government has placed easing the wider housing shortage at the centre of its agenda,but Jackson said generating a greater supply of long-term affordable accommodation for women fleeing violence also had to be part of the government’s response to domestic violence.
“I support the conversations around the legal system and the courts and police. It is important. But in terms of practical solutions right now we know there are women who don’t leave violent homes because they have nowhere else to go,” Jackson said.
In 2021,the former Coalition government provided $416 million for 75 new women’s refuges across the state. Two of those are scheduled to open in the Hunter,but Daniel said that so far only two had opened their doors,both in greater western Sydney.
We know there are women who don’t leave violent homes because they have nowhere else to go.
Rose Jackson,NSW Housing Minister
“While the sector was so grateful for that investment,it involves capital builds and the post-COVID construction delays means a lot of projects have not come to fruition as soon as we would have liked,” Daniel said.
Daniel met with the Minister for Women Jodie Harrison this week to urge the Minns government to follow Queensland’s lead,which has bought disused motels in Brisbane to use as emergency accommodation for women.
“We need to look at repurposing disused residential buildings so we can quickly deploy more safe housing for women,” Daniel said.
The housing shortage is particularly acute in regional parts of NSW;the residential vacancy rate in the Hunter was 1.1 per cent in March this year. Hansen said the reality was that providers “simply have no accommodation left”.
The housing crisis,along with cost of living pressures,was also affecting women grappling with the legal system. Anna Baltins,the acting director of Legal Aid NSW’s domestic violence unit,said the service had seen an increase in domestic violence reports and requests for help,particularly in the regions.
“We’ve had clients who have said that they won’t leave a violent home because they have nowhere to go,” Baltins said. “They can’t afford to find new housing or there’s no housing available. There’s no emergency accommodation,or it means they’ll have to move their children’s school because they have to move a long distance to be able to afford to meet their expenses,put food on the table.”
Premier Chris Minns,who attended Ticehurst’s funeral on Thursday,has also ordered a review of bail laws and has not ruled out a royal commission.
On Thursday,a senior police constable was bailed after being charged with multiple domestic violence offences.
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