The anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-working class and pro-big business government of NSW Liberal premier Mike Baird is hell-bent on destroying vital life-saving services for women.

Funding for women’s refuges and specialist domestic violence and women’s homelessness services is being slashed and “restructured”.

It is a deliberately convoluted and complex maze of changes – but the outcomes are crystal clear. At least 20 women’s refuges in Sydney, some operating for more than 40 years, and scores of other homelessness and women’s services across the state, have had their funding cut. What’s even more horrifying is that these cuts are just the latest. Over the past two years, 80 services have been lost; more than 400 providers of specialist women’s domestic violence and homelessness services have been reduced to fewer than 70.

These services have successfully catered to the diverse and specific needs of women – including Aboriginal women, women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, survivors of torture and trauma, women with addictions and mental health problems, homeless girls and women with histories of sexual abuse.

Some regions of NSW, such as south-west Sydney and the Central Coast, are now completely without women’s refuges. Areas such as Kempsey and Taree, some of the most disadvantaged in NSW and with the largest Aboriginal populations, have lost their only refuges. The closest are now hundreds of kilometres away.

The Liberals have justified the cuts by “repackaging” funding to organisations such as St Vincent De Paul and Mission Australia. They say that these “mega” welfare organisations can partner with or subsume existing specialist services. That is a lie. Not only have many of the proposed partnerships already failed, but the mega agencies have religious affiliations that are often at odds with the ethos, professional practice and proven success of women-only services. They also do not have the specialist knowledge and resources required to offer the diverse range of services established over the past 40 years.

The bottom line is that vital specialist services with a proven track record are being shut down. There is no doubt that women will die as a consequence. Their children will be placed at risk, emergency departments in hospitals will be even more stretched, women and children will end up sleeping in cars and on the street, and there will be more intervention by police and child protection agencies in the lives of women and children.

This will be disastrous.

Already in NSW and other states police and child protection services are being handed more statutory power to punish women for being victims of domestic violence and hardship. Police and the criminal “justice” system, particularly the Family Court, routinely make women’s lives harder and more dangerous because of the deep sexism embedded in their practices.

This is clearest in the case of Aboriginal women. Their children are being removed at a rate higher than during the time of the Stolen Generations. They are more likely to end up being incarcerated when trying to escape violence or other problems associated with homelessness.

The white-ribboned hypocrites in the Liberal Party who loudly condemn violence against women are nothing but a pack of sexists. With one hand they slash vital services that have proven successful in supporting and keeping safe poor and working class women and children. With the other hand they sign off on lucrative developments like Barangaroo on Sydney Harbour, so the likes of James Packer and his rich developer mates can line their pockets.

What we need is a union fightback. Violence against women is union business. The loss of women’s jobs in the sector is union business. We need to rebuild fighting unions to face down these sorts of attacks now and into the future.

[Simone White is a domestic violence and sexual assault counsellor and member of the Australian Services Union.]