Pledge to get aid to victims of domestic violence

Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth has flagged reforms to reduce the waiting times for women receiving payments when they leave a dangerous ­partner.

Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth says ‘one of the challenges that I’m already looking at is how we ­improve the escaping domestic ­violence payment’. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth has flagged reforms to domestic violence support in an effort to reduce the waiting times for women receiving payments when they leave a dangerous ­partner.

Ms Rishworth said she wanted to improve the $5000 escaping ­violence payment, with applications taking 20 business days to be approved causing a backlog of more than 4000 unresolved cases at the end of April.

“One of the challenges that I’m already looking at is how we ­improve the escaping domestic ­violence payment,” she said. “This is something that seems to be very rushed by the previous government. It almost seems like they felt they had to do something, so we actually have problems in that program that need to be ­addressed, wait times in particular.

“There has been a lot of delays. It was very rushed in its ­implementation and so what we face is an overwhelming need and delays in that payment.”

In last year’s budget, the Morrison government committed $145m to establishing a two-year trial of the program, to be rolled out by Christian social services provider UnitingCare Network.

The former government ­initially estimated there would be demand for 12,000 EVP packages each year, but there have been 13,000 applications since the trial began in October.

Ms Rishworth said another ­priority in her portfolio would be delivering the national plan to ­reduce violence against women and children.

In a clear break in policy from the former government, Ms Rishworth’s first major decision as minister was to abolish the cashless debit card.

She said a Labor government would bring a different attitude to the portfolio, accusing the ­Coalition of resenting people who received government support.

“They seem to be, in this portfolio, relatively resentful about supporting people,” Ms Rishworth said. “There are times where they have certainly demonised people who were requiring social security payments. That is not something that I’m going to do. I see this portfolio as really an opportunity to lift people up and to get them back on the road to reaching their ­potential.”

“Whether that is payments, whether that is programs, this is all about supporting people – sometimes when they are at their most vulnerable.”

But Ms Rishworth said budget constraints would ensure the ­social security system remained “very targeted”, pouring cold water on a big expansion of the welfare system. “I very much know, along with Labor, that we have a difficult budget circumstance, more than $1 trillion of debt. So every decision is going to be a difficult one,” she said.

“I’ve already started discussions with my department about ensuring there is enhanced evaluations on programs, that we make sure that money is spent to actually improve the lives of people.

“Equally, we need to make sure we are spending taxpayers’ money in a way that delivers good ­outcomes.”

With Treasurer Jim Chalmers flagging the need for savings in the October budget, Ms Rishworth said she was examining whether there was wasteful spending in the portfolio.

“Just as every minister is, I’m going through and looking at what money is being used for and all of the programs,” she said.

“I have not completed that process yet so I will continue to be working with the Minister for ­Finance and the Treasurer.”

She said the rate of JobSeeker payments would be examined in an ongoing way through the budget processes.