Page 613 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 30 March 2021
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(5) calls on the ACT government to table a formal response to the Review, including what legislative reforms will be undertaken, by the last sitting in June 2021.
I brought this motion for debate today because victim survivors of domestic and family violence deserve better. They deserve better than the laws that are clearly not working as they should. They deserve a government that can acknowledge when they get it wrong. They deserve a government that moves quickly to fix problems when they are told about them. And they deserve a government that face up to their failings when they are told repeatedly that things are not working.
The review into the implementation of the Family Violence Act was damning—so damning, in fact, that the review sat with this government for 12 months before it was made public. Even then, it was only publicly released because of a pending freedom of information request.
The review contained criticisms about what the government had been implementing. Instead of taking these criticisms seriously and asking themselves how to address these problems, this government spent a year hiding it from the public and arguing over the critical comments.
We all agree that there is absolutely no place in our community for family and domestic violence. We have all read too many news reports dealing with and detailing horrendous acts of violence against, particularly, women and children. I am sure that none of us want to hear another story.
In February 2015, when Tara Costigan applied for a domestic violence order against her ex-partner, no-one could have imagined the horror that would unfold the very next day. As thousands marched in the streets of our city against domestic and family violence, those in this place began looking at our own legislature, and rewrote our domestic violence legislation to ensure that what happened to Tara Costigan did not happen again. The system failed Tara then; and, until we actively work to fix the problems with the Family Violence Act, we continue to fail those in our community who are victims and victim survivors of domestic and family violence every year.
It is us here in this place that are responsible for ensuring that our laws are working to protect every single Canberran from these kinds of horrific instances; yet it is this government that has buried, hidden and delayed the public release of this important review for 12 months. Only recently, a Canberra man pulled an axe on his wife, rammed a police vehicle with his children in the car, and held the axe to his young daughter’s throat. His sentence was suspended after serving four months in prison.
It is clear that the ACT’s family violence laws are not working as they should. Victim survivors have told us that they are not working. Experts have told us that they are not working. Frontline workers and those in the legal profession have told us that they are not working. In fact, this Assembly’s own Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety told us they are not working. Yet, when the review of the implementation of the act was handed to this government 12 months ago, the government did nothing.
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