DVNSW opening statements
Presented by Angie Gehle, Policy and Advocacy Manager DVNSW
Members of the Assembly,
Thank you for inviting us to here to today to represent our 200 members that make up the NSW specialist domestic and family violence workforce.
I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you that we have identified significant disparities in government investment between country and metro NSW. A reliance on a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to funding across systems like health, justice, infrastructure and domestic and family violence is undermining safe and responsive service delivery in regional, rural and remote NSW.
This is particularly evident in domestic and family violence.
Regional and rural communities experience significantly higher rates of violence – with North-West NSW, for instance, experiencing more than six times the rate of some metro regions. Safety is further compromised by escalating cost-of-living pressures, transport limitations, digital and physical isolation, inadequate and often barely operational justice infrastructure, and a specialist workforce operating on little more than goodwill after decades of historical underinvestment.
These conditions affect not only whether people can access services, but whether services can safely and consistently meet community need. Providers across regional NSW report rising referrals in services already operating well beyond funded capacity, creating unsafe service strain and significant workforce burnout risks that are not adequately captured in current performance reporting frameworks.
While we know the issues well, we also know the solutions. What we need is a government ready to take the recommendations seriously and invest in their success.
The simplest starting point is to modernise how we measure and understand the system itself. Current reporting frameworks do not capture the real pressures services are operating under. We need performance measures that reflect service strain and safety indicators – data that shows how demand compares with funded capacity, the realities of wait times, the travel required for outreach, workforce vacancies and turnover, and whether workers have access to supervision, training, cultural and wellbeing supports.
Most importantly, outcomes need to be measured by sustained safety and stability for victim-survivors, not just short-term activity or throughput targets. Because counting how many people came through the door tells us very little about whether the system is actually keeping people safe.
In the medium term, we need commissioning models that genuinely strengthen community-led organisations and Aboriginal controlled organisations and truly support place-based responses that understand local and cultural realities. Too often, competitive tendering processes fragment services, destabilise the workforce and disrupt trusted relationships within communities.
We hear the words ‘place-based’ and ‘community-led’ used constantly, but too often they have become buzzwords rather than genuine approaches to service delivery.
That has to change.
Regional communities need flexible commissioning models that allow local organisations to respond to local need, while also recognising that these are safety-critical services. Workforce supports like funded clinical supervision and wellbeing measures can’t be optional extras, this workforce deals in trauma every day – and these workforce and cultural wellbeing supports should be standard conditions of service delivery.
We also can’t talk about reducing violence in regional NSW without talking about prevention and perpetrator interventions. Right now, many regional communities are locked in perpetual crisis response because there are simply not enough early intervention and Men’s Behaviour Change Programs available. Without investment in these responses, demand on the specialist sector will continue to escalate faster than services can respond.
And in the longer term, underpinning all of this, we need meaningful investment in country NSW. Our research shows it can cost up to 9 times more to deliver a service in remote NSW compared to metro regions – yet services are often funded as though the conditions are identical. That sends a very clear message to country communities about where government priorities lie.
The consequences of that underinvestment are reflected in the headlines far too often. Another woman in regional NSW has had her life stolen. Another community has been ripped apart. More children are exposed to senseless violence.
We know what needs to be done. It’s time we stop talking about problems that have existed for decades and start working together to change the trajectory of the future.
Everyone deserves safety. It should never depend on their postcode.
Case study example
Presented by Cecilia McKenzie, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy, Advocacy and Engagement Manager, DVNSW
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
Yesterday, I attended the domestic and family violence community march in West Wyalong, hosted by the West Wyalong Aboriginal Land Council. I marched alongside community members, local services, local Aboriginal community leaders, victim-survivors and frontline workers from the region, and I delivered the keynote address at the event on behalf of Domestic violence NSW.
What stood out to me most was not just the grief communities are carrying, but the strength of regional communities when services are connected, trusted and locally grounded.
At the march, a police officer attached to Griffith Police Station and a worker from the Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Service both spoke about the impact of the co-location pilot currently operating in Griffith.
Through this program, women are able to engage first with a specialist domestic and family violence service. They are given time to process what is happening, understand their options, develop safety plans and build trust before formal police action occurs.
That matters because we know the point at which a woman attempts to leave violence can also be the point of greatest danger.
The WDVCAS co location model within police settings is one important example of how integrated responses can create safer pathways for women experiencing violence.
And the feedback the police and specialist DFV worker shared was powerful.
What they are seeing is that many women, particularly Aboriginal women in the very early stages of recognising the violence they are experiencing. At that point, going directly to police can feel overwhelming and frightening. For many Aboriginal women, there are also intergenerational fears and experiences connected to policing and systems involvement.
What the WDVCAS co-location model is creating is a softer and safer entry point.
Women are able to engage first with a specialist domestic and family violence service. They are given time to process what is happening, understand their options, develop safety plans and build trust before formal police action occurs.
That matters because we know the point at which a woman attempts to leave violence can also be the point of greatest danger.
Police responses are critically important.
Specialist domestic and family violence services are critically important.
But timing, trust and culturally safe engagement are equally important.
And in regional communities, there is another layer we must understand.
Healing and safety do not happen in isolation from community.
For many regional and Aboriginal women, remaining connected to culture, family, Country and community networks is integral to both safety and long-term recovery.
Yet too often, access to safe housing requires women and children to leave their communities entirely in order to find safety. While safety must always come first, displacement can come at an enormous emotional, cultural and practical cost.
Women can lose connection to family, community support systems, children’s schools, culture, Country and the relationships that sustain healing and belonging. In regional areas, where communities are often tightly connected, that separation can deepen isolation and trauma.
If our service systems require women to leave behind every connection they have in order to access support, then we are not fully responding to the realities they face.
Regional communities need properly funded specialist services, culturally safe responses, early intervention pathways and integrated systems that work together — not just in crisis, but in sustained support and recovery.
Yesterday in West Wyalong, I saw firsthand what is possible when communities, Aboriginal organisations, police and specialist services stand together in partnership.
That is the kind of response regional women deserve everywhere and we need to prioritise the funding to make that happen.
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