Here's why the last thing I want is royal commission into violence against women |
The very last thing this country needs is a royal commission into violence against women. The absolute last thing. According to one researcher, royal commissions routinely cost somewhere between $300 million and $600 million.
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I can tell you clearly where that money should be spent. It should be spent on funding what we already know works to stem violence against women. We know what the problems are. We need to fund the answers.
It annoys me to have to agree with Anthony Albanese on this - but he's right. Royal commissions fund lawyers. But that money should go to where it's needed. I'm trying to imagine how it could fund housing, or the lawyers supporting kids in the family court, or specific therapies or shelters. It would be transformational.
Let me introduce you to Patrick O'Leary who worked for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which began in 2013. He says the Commission in itself was very successful and needed.
But here's what happens with all royal commissions - the findings are not acted on instantly. In some cases, they are left to languish - let me think, Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody anyone?
As O'Leary points out, maintaining the rage and action nearly a decade after the recommendations were released is one of the biggest challenges. Governments routinely implement recommendations they agree with and lag on anything that's hard or costly.
"Even today the implementation of recommendations has not been completed and some have been ticked off as implemented when they have not been actioned as intended by the royal commission," he says.
O'Leary is now the co-director of the Disrupting Violence Beacon and chief investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence against Women at Griffith University.
He's done the hard yards - along with so many other researchers in this country - and he's clear on this. Addressing gender inequality is one part of it but not the only part we need to address other issues as well to make the elimination violence against women sustainable.
Government after government spends money on what Australia needs. Hospitals, schools, infrastructure. We pay taxes (could someone please tell the whining entrepreneurs) to fund these crucial needs.
Australia's most basic unit of infrastructure........