Walking the Walk: Next Steps Against Family Violence

The Wheeler Centre, in partnership with the Women's Legal Service Victoria and the Human Rights Law Centre, presents a panel discussion on policy responses to Family Violence

Date:     Thursday 2 July 2015
Time:     6.15pm – 7.15pm
Venue:  Melbourne City Conference Centre, 333 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Cost:      $20 or $12 concession
RSVP:   Trybooking

After her eleven-year-old son, Luke, was killed by his father in February 2014, Rosie Batty became one of Australia’s most visible advocates for victims of family violence. Her advocacy has led to a royal commission into family violence in Victoria; in January 2015, she was named Australian of the Year.

Batty has succeeded in placing family violence squarely at the forefront of the national conversation. But, as she wrote in a recent article for The Saturday Paper: ‘…policy is what we need. Changing community awareness and being passionate are great things, but the problem also requires nitty-gritty stuff.’

We’ll investigate what this real, practical change in Australia’s relationship to family violence might look like – and grapple with questions of policy – with Human Rights Law Centre executive director Hugh de Kretser, sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick, and co-chair of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples and the National Justice Coalition, Kirstie Parker.

Alongside Rosie Batty and host Joanna Fletcher, they’ll explore what a proper and nuanced response to the complex issue of family violence might entail, and weigh up the roles of law enforcement, government, communities and the legal profession.