Family and domestic violence—Refuges
525. Hon Michelle Hofmannto theminister representing the Minister for Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence:
I refer to the minister's response to the member for Vasse during estimates in the Legislative Assembly on 2 July 2025 in which the minister confirmed there is no up-to-date data on unmet demand for refuge beds in Western Australia.
(1) Can the minister confirm whether existing refuge capacity is sufficient to meet current demand?
(2) If the answer to (1) is no, what steps is the government taking to address the downfall?
Hon Jackie Jarvis replied:
I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. The following response has been provided by the Minister for Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence.
(1)–(2) As explained during estimates hearings in the Legislative Assembly, data is collected nationally and is publicly available. Since 2017, the state government has invested more towards the prevention of family violence than any previous government. This includes increasing crisis accommodation capacity by 41%. WA now has 45 refuges and safe houses providing 315 crisis accommodation rooms or units per night. An additional 88 units are in the pipeline for delivery over the next four years.
In addition to crisis accommodation, the state government has invested in a range of community-based supports and services and other types of legal responses to assist with supporting victim-survivors to stay safely in their own home or to access safe accommodation. This includes an amendment to the Residential Tenancies Act to enable victim-survivors to remove themselves from a tenancy agreement or to seek to have the perpetrator excluded from a tenancy agreement; family violence restraining orders, which can prevent a perpetrator from accessing a home; Safe at Home programs that work intensively with victim-survivors to enable them to remain safely in their own home after the perpetrator has been removed; the Rapid ReHousing and Family Housing programs, which support access to private rental accommodation; the Safer Pathways program, which assists victim-survivors to maintain public housing tenancies; brokerage or flexible support package funding, held in multiple specialist services, which can support access to short-term accommodation like hotels or motels; and domestic violence helplines, which can also support access to short-term accommodation.
