Page 1361 - Week 05 - Thursday, 26 April 1990
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Police remain reluctant to arrest perpetrators; medical practitioners appear to be equally unsupportive, often ignoring the abuse and treating the client symptomatically; lawyers and the judicial system appear indifferent and inactive; clergy are felt by victims to be the least helpful of all agencies; and ambivalence and detachment are found in other health and welfare workers.
It is not surprising, therefore, that leaving a violent relationship is a last resort. Women do not call the police lightly and they do not take their children and leave the security of a home unless there is very good reason.
It is instructive to continue with the same passage from the Institute of Criminology paper. The institute goes on to say:
The only support agencies with a consistently positive image are women's refuges. Victims feel that refuges are psychologically supportive, non-blaming, provide the practical help they need to survive, and help with overcoming feelings of worthlessness and guilt.
These are precisely the reasons why my Labor Government provided an additional $142,000 in the budget this year for an additional domestic violence refuge. That refuge is desperately needed by many women and children in Canberra. The Government is currently paying a lot of money to accommodate women and children in motels because they have nowhere else to go. The existing refuges are overflowing and always have been. It goes without saying, of course, that those motels do not provide the specialised support or counselling that a refuge would.
The attitude of members opposite is demonstrated by the fact that nothing has been done by the Alliance Government to spend the money which I provided. Just as with many of the other initiatives in the budget concerning women, they will sit on their hands and take no action. They do not have the courage to announce what is effectively another budget cut.
Yet another area where this Government has been dragging the chain is in amending the Domestic Violence Act. A review of the operation of this legislation was conducted in 1987. It involved substantial agreement by all interested parties about a number of amendments. For example, a domestic violence protection order may currently only be sought by a spouse, police officer or, in the case of violence against children, parent, guardian or household resident.
Clearly we should make the protection provided by the Act available to more people. For example, elderly members
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