CONCERNS have been raised about conflicting plans between state and federal governments on the delivery of domestic violence services.
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At a time when the federal government launched its national youth campaign The Line, envisioning "an Australia where women and their children live free from all forms of violence" the state government rolled out reforms forcing the last Lake Illawarra frontline domestic violence service to shut its doors.
Noting what she believed was a dire lack of spending in last week's federal budget on family violence, Australian of the Year Rosie Batty said that inadequate funding for frontline services continued to debilitate crisis services.
She suggested rebranding domestic violence as "family terrorism" to seize the attention of the government.
"If we look at the money that we spend in terrorism overseas, for the slight risk that is poses to our society, it is disproportionate completely," Ms Batty told the ABC.
The state government had announced last year that funding for the Lake Illawarra Family Violence Support Service (LIFVSS) would be cut from next month as part of its It Stops Here reforms.
However a funding extension was later granted until July 2016.
Under these changes, LIFVSS officers would move out of their role as victim crisis support and referral points from June, and move into an educational and group work-based role for the remaining funding period (July 2016).
This would be done via the Wollongong Women's Information Service (WWIS).
Recent Labor candidate for Kiama Glenn Kolomeitz said the "diversion of funds from frontline services to education is inappropriate" when state and federal governments had openly advocated that domestic violence was a problem in this country.
"Both have admitted that domestic violence is a critical issue," Mr Kolomeitz said.
"These coalface services are critical and are proven to work. You can't just divert funding to education, which is clearly important, but not immediately address the issue."
On average, Lake Illawarra Local Area Command had more than 300 domestic violence cases a month - Lake Illawarra is one of the top three regions with the highest rates of domestic violence in the state.
The aim of the reforms is to centralise domestic violence services, making information available between all government agencies such as police, health, housing and women's services, thus removing existing Domestic Violence Pro-Active Support Service (DVPASS) or police referral points.
LIFVSS officer, Michelle Trenga argued that this would severely impact on those victims who presented through police systems and weren't at the stage of wanting to report it.
The Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) maintained that thereforms would "enhance" referral methods and "improve victim safety" via a co-ordinated inter-agency approach.
"The introduction of Safer Pathway means that existing referral mechanisms will need to change," a FACS spokesperson said.