On average, every 14 days a woman in Australia is killed by their current or former partner. To date this year, 68 women overall have lost their lives. Gender based violence is indiscriminate. It affects people of all ages, all cultures and all backgrounds. Violence against women and children, though, is not inevitable. We need to take serious action to address the drivers of gender based violence before it occurs. Our government is taking that serious action.

We have invested $2.3 billion in women's safety, including more than $326 million in prevention initiatives. We have a goal—it is an ambitious goal, but it is a necessary goal—of ending violence against women and children in a generation. Every woman and child in Australia deserves to live safely and without fear. This is an issue the government has treated with absolute urgency. One of the first things we did as a government was introduce family and domestic violence leave for all workers, including, critically, casual workers.

We will continue the hard work of doing what we must to eliminate gender based violence in a generation. I think this is one of the most important things a government can do, and I'm delighted to be part of a government that is committed to addressing this national problem.