New shelter handed $1m funding hike

AN extra million dollars will be spent on a state-of-the-art women’s shelter in Townsville to ensure it can grow in the future.

Mundingburra MP Coralee O’rourke and Townsville Women’s Centre co-ordinator Cathy Crawford turned the sod on the new facility today.

It was just days after a Townsville woman became the 10th woman this year to die from an alleged domestic violence-related murder.

Mrs O’rourke said funding for the new Townsville Women’s Centre had increased from $3.2 million to $4.235 million because the State Government needed to ensure they were providing the facility the community deserved.

“This will make sure they get the building they need which will allow them to expand when needed,” she said.

Mrs O’rourke said the old and new centres would be like “chalk and cheese”.

“The old centre, they operate out of an old Queenslander, that effectively is in a very significant state of disrepair,” she said.

“We’ve had some ... incidents very recently that have been horrific ... and I think that why we are delivering this project is very important.”

This funding is in addition to the $330,000 the State Government provided last financial year. The Bulletin campaigned successfully for funding for the new centre.

Ms Crawford said the fight began for the centre in 2006.

She said each day, women’s centre workers were battling the dilapidated conditions.

“We’ve really been confined by that physical space,” she said. “Already we’ve had com

Advertisement mitment from midwives that there will be two days of midwifery services in our centre, we have commitment from child services that will be providing child therapy services from the centre and there are GPS who are very keen to become involved.

“There is an extraordinary amount of goodwill (and) concern about domestic and family violence and sexual violence in our community, we still respond to a sexual assault once every three days. The need for this building is enormous.”

Townsville-based company Woollam Constructions will build the new centre at the corner of Nathan and Charles streets in Aitkenvale.

Work is expected to start next month and will be completed by mid-july this year. The North Queensland Combined Women’s Services is expected to move in shortly after.