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It was a bad headline for the Government: deep job cuts in the family and sexual violence sector. But what will the cuts actually do, and has the prevention taskforce made any difference? Isaac Davison reports
Ten years ago, the sexual and family violence sector in New Zealand was a mess.
Rates of violence were appallingly high, there was no co-ordination between agencies, and victims struggled to navigate the system.
A series of reviews led to the vaguely-named Joint Venture being set up in 2018. It later became Te Puna Aonui, then the Centre for Family Violence and Sexual Violence Prevention.
The centre linked up all of the government responses to family violence – justice, social services, health, and others. At the time, responsibility for the Government response was spread across 10 departments and no one had a bird’s-eye view or accountability. With a new, single agency, chief executives could no longer “pass the buck”.
“The research was very, very clear,” said Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson, who was previously the Minister for Prevention of Sexual and Family Violence. “Unless there was this joint approach, coordination and clear accountability … we were not going to be able to tackle the crisis of violence prevention.”
Last week, it was reported that the Centre for Family Violence and Sexual Violence could lose a third of its workforce. The Ministry of Justice has proposed cutting its staff from 78 to 52 positions.
The potential impact of these proposed cuts is disputed. The Government emphasises they are not frontline roles. But some in the sector say they are just as important because the centre plays a crucial part in co-ordinating all of the disparate parts of the system.
