The Government's made another pre-Budget announcement, this time around the prevention of sexual and family violence.
It's investing more than $114 million over the next four years across the sector, with $38 million going towards supporting and expanding community-led responses. There's also $37.5 million for prevention services. Money will also be poured into support services for victims and perpetrators.
Marama Davidson was proud of her family and sexual violence prevention mahi on Tuesday, announcing $114.5 million for the Government's strategy to eliminate the problem completely. The majority of the dosh is going to community-led responses and prevention services.
Davidson, the Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, said the announcement "builds on everyone being able to give the right support, everyone being able to receive the right support".
Sevia Saviour Nua, a youth advocate, said "it's a lot of money that could support quite a lot of people really in Aotearoa New Zealand".
While no one argues against a spend up in this space, the Opposition wants to know if it's value for money.
"New Zealand's got an absolute awful record in family violence so we do need to make sure that the programmes the Government is funding actually work," said Louise Upston, the National Party's social development spokesperson.
New Zealand's statistics are still dire: Over the last four Budgets, the Government has invested $791.9 million, but police say between 2020/2021 there were 155,300 reports of family harm. Over the last five years, family harm events have increased 60 percent and they're even predicting them to increase by a further 35 percent by 2025.
"Are you safer today than you were four years ago? Is there less harm and less violence in your family than there was four years ago? I'm not sure the answer is yes yet," Upston said.
Davidson said "we have absolutely fallen short too often in the past".
"Addressing violence and eliminating violence is not down to any one factor. It's a range of complex factors that need to be addressed together."
Complex issues like the cost of living, ongoing COVID-19 impacts and, for some, simply raising a child, which advocates say leads a lot of whanau through their doors.
"Asking for help and assistance around resourcing and also how do they cope or deal with their tamariki that they're currently facing some struggle with," said Nua.
While prevention is key to stopping the cycle, supporting victims is also where we're failing.
Many survivors of sexual harm say the ACC process for accessing financial or mental health assistance is re-traumatising, leading to some simply giving up on getting help.
"We do not pretend that the system has not caused further harm and we are very, very clear that is unacceptable," said Davidson.
The minister's hoping her multi-million-dollar spend will turn around New Zealand's unacceptable number of victims.
