Press conference with Assistant Minister White, Launceston – 8 December 2025

JESS TEESDALE, MEMBER FOR BASS: Good afternoon and welcome everybody to the amazing Summerdale Medical practice up here in Bass, just across the way from Lyons, which is fantastic. It's wonderful to have the Assistant Minister, Rebecca White here, to talk about a program that really will help both to change and to save lives moving forwards. I've had the pleasure of speaking with one of the doctors here at the practice who has been working with people who are unfortunately suffering from family and domestic violence, and the training that we're going to be talking about today has helped her to help these people. And it's not just that physical safety that we look at, it's also that long-term safety. So really pleased that everyone could be here to celebrate this with us today. 
  
REBECCA WHITE, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING: Thanks, Jess. So what we're announcing today is a grant for the Primary Health Network of Tasmania to deliver services with commissioning partners that's about supporting our frontline health workers to assist people who are presenting with family and domestic violence cases. We know frontline health workers are sometimes the most trusted person that somebody might disclose an incident of abuse to, but often they are unable to support them as best as they'd like because they haven't had the training that they feel confident they can rely upon so that they can give them either the right advice or refer them to the right service. This is a $5.4 million grant that the Primary Health Network is using to commission services with Safer Families, Engender Equality, and Laurel House so that we can support health professionals in our GP practices whether they are allied health professionals, nurses, whether they are the receptionists to be able to support people who might disclose an incident of family or domestic violence. 
 
Ultimately, we know that across the country, we are seeing far too many cases of gendered violence. We are trying to make interventions so that we can lower the incidence of gendered violence, but also where there is a disclosure, support those people who are on the front lines so that they can provide the right advice or refer to the right service. This is a pilot program that we're really proud to be offering here in Tasmania because we've got such skilled professionals who can work alongside our families to support them to access the services they require. And I'm really excited to be able to ask Susan Powell, who's the acting CEO of PHN, to talk about what this will look like.  
 
I think it's also important to note that this training will be free for health professionals, whether they're an allied health professional, the doctor, a nurse, or a receptionist. The practice manager is best suited to identify those in their practice who are going to be coming into contact with people who are at risk or might have been a survivor of family violence and for those professionals in their service to then be able to access this training, which is free of charge, to be able to provide them the care and support or referral to a service will make a difference. It will help people get the right information in a way that is sensitive to their needs and provide our frontline health workers with the confidence to be able to assist them to the best of their ability.  
  
SUSAN POWELL, PRIMARY HEALTH TASMANIA: Primary Health Tasmania is partnering with the Safer Families Centre to help build stronger pathways for people who are experiencing family, sexual, domestic violence, and child sexual abuse in Tasmania. This is really important work because primary care can be the first and sometimes the only place that people will disclose their experience in violence. It's really important that primary health providers feel supported, equipped, and confident to be able to act early and to be able to refer people to the support they need when they're ready to access that support.  
 
We're really pleased to be able to offer this training through the Safer Families Centre, both online and also through face-to-face whole-of-practice training, as we believe that makes the training as accessible as possible to all providers across Tasmania as well as those practices who really want to take that next step and look at how their whole practice is supporting people who experience family violence. And we really encourage all primary health providers to undertake the training so that they can be best equipped to support people and to respond appropriately when people do make that really important first disclosure. 
 
JOURNALIST:  What will this pilot program mean for victims of violence? 
 
POWELL: For people who are experiencing violence, it's really important that they feel they have safe and trusted places to be able to disclose what they're experiencing. General practice and primary healthcare providers are highly trusted in communities and therefore can be a really safe place for people to be able to make that disclosure. It's also important to note that people may make that disclosure but not necessarily be in a position or want to act at that time, so to be able to go back to a trusted provider and to be able to seek support when they feel ready is really important. 
 
JOURNALIST:  Could you walk us through what's involved in this training, how long is the course, and what is being taught through it as well? 
  
KITTY NOVY, SAFER FAMILIES CENTRE: Well, the program is going to be face to face and online. This is a very strongly evidence-based training package that has been resourced, been developed by GPs for GPs on a whole of practice approach. We've also embedded lived experience into the training, which is a very important part of- lived experience people know and they'll be able to give a lot of assistance in delivering the training.  
 
So it's 2 hours, you’re doing workshops, one-and-a-half hours of face to face across the state. So, we're going to be working with the PHNs and other – Laurel House and also Gender Equality to see where those practices are, and they've already developed an expression of interest to our practices across Tasmania to get that interest already. And luckily, we've already had a lot of interest in that particular training.  
 
We're going to be doing a whole-of-practice approach. We're going to be doing clinical staff separately from the non-clinical staff. So, it'll be tailored for Tasmanian practitioners and primary health providers, for the particular needs of their community. And so we'll be looking at different parts of the state. They're all quite different. They have different needs and a different community, so that's – we'll be tailoring with Laurel House, with Gender Equality, with the PHN, to get those specific needs for those particular areas.  
 
JOURNALIST:  Kitty, if a patient's come to a GP and they've expressed their concerns and their issues, what actually happens after that?  
 
NOVY: What often happens, what we find is a doctor will be trained in this particular area, they'll get that training, that sort of deeply rich embedded training, and then they'll be able to hold that patient and work with that patient until they're ready to go to another service, if required. And get them in contact and give them all the resources and the tools, which is specifically for Tasmania, to go to get extra help.  
 
JOURNALIST:  Is Tasmania Police going to be involved at all?  
  
NOVY:  Not that I know of. I don't think so. But Safer Families deal a lot with the legal profession and the police force. We, in fact, offered to do some training within the police force to give them some ideas about what they need to be – I suppose, to have that confidence to work with people who are victim survivors. And this training will give that confidence, tools and also resources for a GP or a nurse or an allied health professional to have that sort of, I suppose, that confidence that they can work with people that might be experiencing family violence.  
 
JOURNALIST:  So, is it quite common for victims to disclose to their healthcare workers if they're dealing with violence?  
 
NOVY:  That's a great question. Yes, look, a full-time GP will see 5 people a week disclosing. Now, 1 in 10 people coming into a general practice setting will have had experienced some form of family and domestic violence or sexual violence. So, it's a large number of people coming in. So that GP that's a full-time GP, getting them to ask that question to feel confident, look, what's happening at home today? Is there anything you'd like to say? Giving them those little sort of, I suppose, levers that they can ask that question, feel confident to, can open up quite a – can be wonderful for a patient.  
 
And that's why our lived experience component of the training which we've been developing for a long time and we're working with Laurel House to get some lived experience trainers, will be able to help, you know, help GP’s and their nurses.  
 
JOURNALIST:  I guess, what are some of those things in the training will – I guess, what are some of the things people or GPs will be looking out for? What are some of those identifiers?  
 
NOVY:  Well, I suppose getting them to ask it, learning to ask that question, you know. There's a lot of women come in with a lot of depression, pelvic problems, all sorts just clinical issues that they might think there's something that's not right. Why are they coming in with chronic headaches? Why is this depression not lifting? And so, it's getting those doctors to just ask a simple question. Is anything happening at home today? And that woman might not disclose for a long time, but she knows that that doctor knows something. And that – it opens up, it just opens up – that question.  
 
JOURNALIST:  Would you expect that someone who's been through this training might be able to pick up on those red flags compared to someone who hasn't?  
 
NOVY:  Yes. Look, absolutely. We did a training Melbourne about a month ago and the GP texted me and said – he was a registrar, and he said – look, I had no idea. The next day somebody came in and I asked the question. And he said, look, I would have had no idea what to say or what to do, but that training the night before – we did the training the night before – he was able to use those simple sort of tools we give them to help. And he actually emailed me and said, look, thank you.  
 
JOURNALIST:  Do you know how many people are expected to pass through this pilot program? 
 
NOVY:  No, we don't. Look, we don't. Fingers crossed, we get as many GPs and nurses in Tasmania. But we will be offering an online learning modules as well. Some GPs might not be able to come to the training, but we really encourage as many people here as possible. The PHN will be supporting this,  they've got a fantastic team, and they're across Tasmania to get that message out. And, I mean, we're really lucky to be working with them. You know, we're very, very lucky to be working with you, because it's really a unique opportunity. And we've had such wonderful collaboration with them and continue to. 
 
JOURNALIST:  Is this modelled off, you know, programs in any other Australian states, or is it a first? 
 
NOVY:  No, this is not – well, this is going to be a first, their particular model. We've been doing training across Australia all through the pandemic, and we did our first pilot in 2018. And it's based on a lot of work that Professor Kelsey Hegarty has been developing over many, many years with a lot of input from various doctors, nurses, and lived experience. And so we've rolled out the National Readiness Program, which is a little bit different from this. This is going to be a different model. This is going to be workshops and – face-to-face workshops and interactive workshops, but it’s based on a lot of global evidence, global evidence which we’ve been developing for many, many years. Yeah. 
 
JOURNALIST: Isn’t this something that maybe health professionals should be trained to do during their studies? 
 
NOVY:  I’ll just put a plug in for Safer Families, but we have just been developing this with dentists, medical students, they were getting one hour in their training. So we’ve now developed more training, working with dentists, nurses, physios and also medical students to just give them a little bit more of an understanding of just the problems in – what to look for and – which has been really exciting, actually. Yeah. 
 
JOURNALIST: What changes do you think you’ll see on the frontline here once this training has been, yeah, implemented? 
 
NICOLE TURNER, PRACTICE MANAGER: For us, it’s about empowering our frontline staff to feel more confident. As sort of the first point of contact, I guess, sometimes it can be tricky to ask those sort of questions. So again, giving them the confidence and knowing what to ask and, yeah, I guess trying to create a more welcoming, safe environment for victims and survivors. 
 
JOURNALIST:  Is this also something you’re going to talk to your other staff about maybe identifying or being able to pick up on anything? 
 
TURNER: Yeah, so I’m excited that it’s being offered to the non-clinical staff as well because there’s so much training out there for the practitioners themselves. The non-clinical staff, obviously not having the medical training, sometimes it’s hard to access this kind of thing for them so having something that’s easily accessible and can be worked around sort of their day with online modules and stuff like that. Yeah, it’s a great opportunity. 
 
JOURNALIST: And I guess what kind of demand do you think a service like this is needed for in Northern Tasmania? Do you think there's a demand and this is needed? 
 
TURNER: Absolutely. I think it's certainly an issue in our community that we would deal with, as you say, up to 5 women a week presenting. 
 
JOURNALIST: Do you expect that having health professionals who are more confident to deal with this issue might result in victims reporting cases more frequently? 
 
TURNER: You would certainly hope so. If they're feeling more comfortable being able to open up and these, I would love to have all the staff to do it, that would be great. We will absolutely get as many people on board as we can. I think more knowledge is always better. The more people we can empower, the better. 
 
JOURNALIST: Great. Thank you. I guess, yeah, so initially, so this is just in Tasmania, this pilot program and how much is it costing? 
  
WHITE: It's really exciting that we have one PHN in Tasmania, which allows us to deliver these pilots to every practise anywhere in the state. This is part of a program that's happening across the country, which is a $48.5 million commitment for 11 PHNs, including Tasmania. 
 
JOURNALIST: How was Tasmania identified as one of those 11? 
 
WHITE: Well I have to give credit to our Primary Health Network who've been recognised for the work that they want to do to support health professionals to gain further training. It is about working in tandem with our PHN to understand what the needs are for our community and also recognising the priorities of our government. We know that rates of gendered violence in Australia are still far too high. We are still seeing far too many people present with family and domestic violence issues and the prevalence across our country doesn't seem to be decreasing at the rate we would like, which means we need to have services to respond. We need to be able to empower our trusted health professionals to have the skills they need to be able to support people if they do disclose and that's where this pilot program will be so impactful. 
 
JOURNALIST: But was Tasmania identified as one of those places that may need a bit more of a service like this? 
 
WHITE: Not that I understand. Tasmania PHN was successful in getting a grant of $5.4 million to deliver services over a 4-year period. So our hope is that many of the practises in our state, whether they are GPs, nurses, allied health professionals, reception or admin staff, will be able to undertake training so that they feel confident to support anybody who might disclose an incidence of violence in their life. 
 
JOURNALIST: And, sorry if I am a bit ignorant here, but when is this supposed to be kicking off and I guess when are the first people going to be accessing this program? 
 
POWELL: The online modules are available now for primary health providers and the face-to-face training will commence in early 2026. 
 
JOURNALIST: And how will the program, I guess, be monitored or evaluated to I guess determine whether it's actually helping? 
 
POWELL: So all of our education and training is evaluated carefully and that includes evaluation for those participating in the online modules and the face-to-face training and we're also part of the broader national program so we'll be participating in a broader evaluation as well. 
 
JOURNALIST: Are staff that go through this program accredited or receive any kind of diploma or anything like that? 
  
NOVY: Well, all the staff, including the non-clinical staff, receive professional development points for the hours and also the – and also the clinical staff will receive CPD points through RACGP and it’s all been evaluated and accredited.