October 31, 2014
Purse should match policy on family violence
Outgoing Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia is calling for the minister of finance to share responsibility for the Government’s response to family violence.
The former Te Tai Hauauru MP will pass the baton of leadership to new MP Marama Fox at the party’s annual meeting in Whanganui tomorrow, but she says she will continue to champion issues relating to families and children.
She told the national women’s refuge conference in the city last night that as Whanau Ora Minister she was disappointed the expert advisory group report on family violence did not lead to a new statute aimed at the prevention of and responses to family violence.
She says the Domestic Violence Act is well and truly outdated in the ways it divides families into victims, perpetrators and children rather than taking a whole-of-government, whole-of-whanau response.
Mrs Turia says Government needs to accord priority to family violence through putting the Minister of Finance in the picture so the policy and the purse work together.
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