It was a series of conversations – sparked by a speech by the head of a family violence charity earlier this year – that brought to the fore an issue hospitality workers have long struggled with.
What could they do if they witnessed signs of violence but hadn’t actually seen a crime take place?
According to Victoria’s prevention of family violence minister, Vicki Ward, the conversations sparked by those questions eventually reached the government. It’s led to a move for all alcohol-serving Victorian workers to receive training on how to identify and deal with family violence risks.
Ward says the mandatory training will be added to the Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) course, as part of a suite of reforms announced last month by the government to address women’s safety.
“All of this work is about creating a shift in community thinking, which should translate to safer communities for women,” Ward tells Guardian Australia in her first interview since taking on the portfolio last year.
“We will know it’s been successful when women can walk to their car without feeling like they need to have their keys in their hands.”
The updated RSA training will include ways to identify the signs of sexual assault, harassment and family violence and how to respond in a safe way, including when workers should call the police. The new training is expected to be carried out when a person first undertakes their RSA and in refresher courses, required every three years.
Ward says the idea to update the training sprang from a presentation delivered at a hospitality industry event by Deborah de Rossi, the chief executive of You Matter, a Melbourne-based charity that supports women and children who have escaped family violence by setting up their new homes.
“She had a number of people come up to her afterwards, talking to her about within the industry, how often they’re seeing people be subjected to violence and – the most disturbing thing – they see evidence of it left behind in hotel rooms,” Ward says.
“Sometimes they’re not always aware that is what they’re seeing and it might even be afterwards [that they realise].
“The hardest thing would be to see something happening in front of you, or seeing some indicators that behaviour [isn’t] right, and having absolutely no idea what to do.”
De Rossi is loath to take the credit for the reform, but welcomes the move.
She says You Matter has developed relationships with hotels and real estate agents, who donate high-quality furniture to use when setting up a home.
“It’s been quite amazing for us to work with them, to have those conversations and build that knowledge base, which is how do you create change,” De Rossi says. “But we’re just one drop in the ocean … and there’s still a long way to go still.”
So far this year, You Matter has set up 82 new homes for women and their children, with plans to expand to 140 – or three a week – in 2025.
‘Conscious or unconscious bias’
The training is part of the state government’s $100m plan to do more to tackle violence against women, the centrepiece of which is the introduction of a minimum length for court-imposed family violence intervention orders and giving police the power to extend family violence safety notices.
The two proposals, however, were met with backlash from some within the family violence sector, who fear it could worsen outcomes for victims who are misidentified as perpetrators by police.
Ward acknowledges the criticism and says no changes will be introduced before consultation with the sector to ensure reforms won’t inadvertently “hurt” women.
She says it has been estimated that 10-12% of women have been misidentified as perpetrators. This figure was higher for First Nations women, the majority of whom experience violence from non-Aboriginal men.
“You’ve got not just the conscious or unconscious bias that might be their gender, but also bias around race,” she says. “So there’s some real work that has to be done to fix that because it’s just so wrong.”
Ward has been tasked with leading the government’s work on cultural change and resetting how young people approach issues such as consent, gender and violence, both at home and in school.
Creating positive role models for men and changing attitudes will be important aspects of that work, she says, pointing to the appointment of the MP Tim Richardson as parliamentary secretary for men’s behaviour change.
She concedes this work could take decades to filter through into young people’s intimate relationships. But she notes “how far we’ve come”, in response to a recent case where two students at a school in Melbourne were expelled over a spreadsheet rating female classmates.
“People would have scoffed about a list like that … [they] would have laughed it as off boys being boys, say it’s meaningless,” Ward says.
“We always knew it was not acceptable. But now we’re actually doing something about it.”
• In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. International helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org.
