Mrs SALLY QUINNELL (Camden) (12:38): My question is addressed to the Deputy Premier and Minister for Education and Early Learning. Will the Minister inform the House why educating children about respectful relationships is crucial in ending the scourge of domestic and family violence?

Ms PRUE CAR (Londonderry—Deputy Premier, Minister for Education and Early Learning, and Minister for Western Sydney) (12:39): I think it goes without saying, and many Ministers and members have spoken about this already today, that the past few weeks have certainly been a wake‑up call that despite how far we have come as a community, despite all the actions that successive governments of various political colours have taken, it has not been enough. We have to be honest about that; it has not been enough. Domestic, family, sexual violence against women, gender‑based violence against women, is our national shame, and we must do more. We heard the Minister and the Premier speak a lot about some of the crisis response investment that this Government is proudly making. Realistically, we are saying to the communities of New South Wales that this is an emergency response for right now, but in answering the member for Camden I want to talk about some of the work that we know we need to do in primary prevention and in driving cultural change in our communities. That cultural change has to be tectonic in its scale.

When people say, "Where do we enact cultural change when we're trying to drive that in our communities?", naturally, we look to our schools. Before I say what we are doing in our schools and what we can do in our schools, I want to acknowledge that this is not a problem for schools alone to fix. I need to say that to our teachers, our principals and our schools. Schools are a microcosm of communities. Schools are safe places, where children who are living in violent families might go to their teacher as their safe person. The teacher might be able to pick up that something is not quite right without the child saying anything, because that is their expertise and the love and care they have for their students.

This work has to be done with schools, and I acknowledge that there is not one teacher who I have met as Minister who is not doing work around respectful relationships each and every day, anyway. Half an hour in the hall on a Thursday morning is not going to change the culture of this country—what will is investing in helping teachers to do this work. They are doing it each and every day. When they see things happen on the playground, they say, "That is not how you should talk to your peers. When you're having a disagreement, that is not a respectful way to relate to another human being." I have to make the point that that is being done by teachers every day, and I appreciate that as their Minister. [Extension of time]

At our emergency Cabinet meeting we heard about primary prevention being a very important part of what we need to do. Rosie Batty said to us, "If you focus too much on the women at the bottom of the cliff then you're not going to get the women who are about to fall off," so I am really proud that we have invested $38 million for the implementation of the first dedicated primary prevention strategy in New South Wales. We have heard from the Minister that this will be done in partnership with Our Watch. This is a significant investment in the history of this State, because we have not invested enough in primary prevention. We have largely focused on the crisis response, which we must do better at as well, but we have to get to the prevention part. I do not think any State, jurisdiction or government around the world has cracked how to prevent domestic and family violence, but we have to do better on primary prevention.

I can report to the House that we have updated the current personal development, health and physical education syllabuses to strengthen the focus on respectful relationships. They are age appropriate. In primary school the focus is on how to deal with bullying and in secondary school, as students navigate becoming teenagers, it is on learning about relationship issues and developing the skills for identifying and challenging abuses of power, and things like that. That is the stuff our teachers are doing now that we will work with them to expand. We will continue to work with our schools and invest in our schools to make that happen. We are also investing $8.1 million in the "All in" early childhood pilot, a unique program delivered by the Women's and Girl's Emergency Centre. Teaching respectful relationships can start very early if done by expert practitioners, based on evidence. We need to drive that cultural change. It is something that I will continue to drive as Minister, because the people of New South Wales need that cultural change to help make women safer in our community.