Dr Jackie Blue MP
National Party Women’s Affairs Spokeswoman

Funding Boost For Women’s Refuge?

National Party Women’s Affairs spokeswoman Jackie Blue is welcoming suggestions of a looming funding boost for Women’s Refuge.

“This sounds like great news for Women’s Refuge, which has been struggling along with well-publicised resourcing issues for some time now. I look forward to seeing the fine print of the funding injection.”

Dr Blue says National has long-maintained a policy that Non Government Organisations (NGOs) on the frontline deserve recognition, and that building new bureaucracies should not be the Government’s automatic default setting.

“No one questions the valuable contribution that Women’s Refuge makes. It’s just disappointing that Labour has been so reluctant to do the right thing.”

Dr Blue says she hopes the Government will also “find the wisdom to finally deal with the crisis in the justice system, which is having severe consequences for some women”.

“If the right legal protections were in place, we may be able to ease some of the workload on Women’s Refuge.

“For example, even though all the evidence suggests domestic violence is on the rise, the number of protection orders is well down. Women are losing faith in the justice system.

“And because of serious problems in legal aid, some women are being forced to abandon proceedings because there aren’t enough legal aid lawyers to do the job. In one case a woman went back to be abused again by her partner.

“The system failed her. It’s past time for Labour to fix the system.”

ENDS

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