Media Releases - Archive
4-Dec-2009
On the eve of the release of the national white paper on homelessness and the national plan to prevent violence against women and their children, the nation’s peak body on domestic and family violence is calling for government action on several critical issues.
4-Dec-2009
The launch of "The Road Home - National Approach to Reducing Homelessness"
4-Dec-2009
Australia’s peak body on the prevention of domestic and family violence has described as groundbreaking the Federal Government’s National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children
22-Oct-2008
Australia's peak body for domestic and family violence services today announced a series of grants worth $500,000 to fund innovative and creative projects aimed at early intervention and prevention of domestic and family violence.
21-Nov-2006
Co-author of the report "Womens Refuges, Shelters, Outreach and Support Services in Australia: from Sydney Squat to complex services challenging domestic and family violence" Julie Oberin, said the research shows there continues to be an urgent need for improvements in the availability of services responding to the issue of domestic and family violence. This research shows that there is a persistently high number of women, many with accompanying children seeking the safety and security of SAAP funded refuges and domestic violence services. Too many are turned away because of the lack of appropriate safe places.
4-Oct-2006
In recent times we have seen a range of - unhelpful at best and down right dangerous at worst - comments from the members of the ruling political party. The comments “boys will be boys” from the Prime Minister and “sleep deprivation is not torture” from the Attorney-General, although in relation to different issues, both rate a collective intake of breath from members of WESNET, the peak body for domestic and family violence organisations.
30-Aug-2006
The Body Shop has once again demonstrated their commitment to the safety of women and children with their recent Stop Violence in the Home Campaign.
24-Aug-2006
The results of the Personal Safety Survey undertaken by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and released last week supported existing evidence that Australian women are continuing to bear high levels of violence in their intimate relationships.
22-Jul-2005
WESNET raises concerns about the Government's media campaign.
21-Mar-2005
Womens domestic and family violence services across Australia await the outcome of the SAAP V negotiations between the Commonwealth and State Governments. WESNET member services anxiously scan the news to see the future for women and children who are abused in their own homes.
16-Dec-2004
How many more deaths will it take? asks WESNET Chair Pauline Woodbridge, before the Commonwealth seriously tackles the systemic violence suffered by Indigenous women in Australia. A recent Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report shows that Indigenous Women are 12 times more likely to be murdered than non-Indigenous women.
29-Oct-2004
More than half of the people who need help from Supported Accommodation and Assistance Programs (SAAP) do not get it and are turned away because agencies lack resources.
24-Oct-2004
How ironic that on the day the devastating costs of domestic violence to the Australian economy are released to the public we find out that the Howard Coalition government has downgraded the Office for the Status of women to a division within the Department of Family and Community Services
8-Oct-2004
"Where is violence against women on the election agenda?" asks WESNET, peak body for womens domestic violence services across Australia. "Domestic and family violence, rape and killing of women has gone on unabated, undebated and largely unnoticed in this election campaign" said Pauline Woodbridge, National Chairperson of WESNET, the Womens Services Network.
30-Jul-2004
The proposed changes to the Family Law system will result in even more deaths of women and children, unless the new Family Relationships Centres to be established across the country prioritise safety of women and children above all other considerations, according to WESNET (the Womens Services Network), peak body for domestic and family violence services across Australia.
1-Jun-2004
"This Commonwealth Government just doesnt get it. It goes from bad to worse" said Maria Hagias, National Chair of WESNET the national peak body working on behalf of women and children who experience domestic and family violence. "WESNET is dismayed that the Commonwealth Governments planned media campaign to address domestic violence is now a watered down version of its original hard hitting message which in its original form was potentially internationally ground breaking" said Ms Hagias.
13-May-2004
WESNET The Womens Services Network is pleased to see the Labour Partys Plan to Combat Violence Against Women released today at Australian Parliament House.
This comes at a time when the Howard government for the first time in 20 years failed to release a womens budget statement at all.
19-Feb-2004
WESNET, the national peak advocacy body working on behalf of women and children who experience domestic and family violence, is dismayed that the planned media campaign to address domestic violence has been apparently stopped by the Commonwealth Government.
7-Sep-2001
More than 450 participants at Australia's Inaugural Domestic and Sexual Assault conference today condemned the decision of the Victorian Government to refuse Heather Osland's petition for mercy for the killing of her abusive partner.
29-Nov-2000
Why do women live in refuges when the perpetrators live in the comfort to which they are accustomed? Why must we three eke out a living on a pension of $330 per week of which $130 goes in rent while my husband lives on his salary of $750 per week of which $85 goes on the mortgage and lives alone in a four bedroom, two bathroom house.’
(Woman with two children who had experienced domestic violence)
