Page 1364 - Week 05 - Thursday, 26 April 1990
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Opposition so churlishly referred to as having been delayed by this Government have been agreed to by the Alliance Cabinet and they are with the draftspeople at this stage. Despite the very great pressures on the Legislative Counsel's office, I truly hope that we will have a Bill by the end of this autumn session.
There can be no question that the Attorney-General of this Government - me - and the rest of the Government are not committed to getting those amendments in. The Chief Magistrate said at that forum that I mentioned earlier that the amendments had been agreed to and largely drawn up before self-government. I put to the Leader of the Opposition that she had seven months to get the drafting done and get the Bill before the house, and she should give us a chance to finalise the process without unnecessary, churlish criticism which I regard as quite personal in the way she put it. It was extremely personal criticism and she knows it is totally wrong and unfair.
The Government has adopted the recommendations of the committee which comprise the background to those suggested amendments. Although the Leader of the Opposition catalogued the defects in the current law, she did not indicate what amendments she knew are just around the corner. They are major amendments that will extend the categories of persons who are eligible to apply for a domestic violence protection order.
This will make ACT legislation consistent with that of New South Wales so that protection will be extended to family and household based relationships. This will include a person who is living or has ordinarily lived in the same household as the perpetrator and a person who is or has been a relative of the perpetrator, as well as children of these people. This means that the protection under the Act will extend to people such as parents, grandparents and adult children with mental or physical disabilities.
It is also proposed that the Act will be amended to allow a child to apply for a protection order in his or her own right and for the provision of legal assistance in these cases. This is particularly important where children are in the age range of 16 to 18. There may well be occasions when they are separated from their parents but still wish to have the protection of a domestic violence order. This particularly arises where allegations of child abuse are involved, as in the series of the "Louise" articles so graphically published by the Canberra Times recently. Other amendments will also be supported to improve mechanisms for protection under the Act. The Government is committed to introducing these amendments as soon as possible, and I hope we can bring them in before the end of this autumn session.
The ACT and the Commonwealth governments jointly provide funding for the ACT Legal Aid Commission. None of my comments on this topic could pass without recognising the
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