Page 1372 - Week 05 - Thursday, 26 April 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
in all socio-economic groups and that there is still a high level of tacit community acceptance of at least some forms of domestic violence.
The ACT provides some high-quality services to help survivors of domestic violence. The Domestic Violence Crisis Service celebrates its second birthday today. It is a comprehensive service operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It works closely with the ACT police, refuges and all arms of government. It is of particular credit to that service that it works so effectively with a range of agencies.
The Domestic Violence Crisis Service, through the courts, helps women and children stay in their own homes. This is done through exclusion orders which force the perpetrator of domestic violence to move out of the family home. This is an important way of maintaining the dignity, safety and comfort of domestic violence survivors.
Canberra also has a range of women's refuges and halfway houses, which play a vital part in helping women survive the crisis of domestic violence. Domestic violence survivors also need long-term counselling services to help them regain their self-worth and quality of life. Canberra has a range of generic services in this area based at community health centres. There are also specialist services operated by the Rape Crisis Centre and the Incest Centre. Professional organisations, trade unions, police officers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, clerics, teachers and community groups are also playing important roles in dealing with domestic violence, as well as those directly involved in working in refuges and crisis services.
I have visited the Domestic Violence Crisis Service and was impressed with its professionalism. I would like to publicly congratulate it on its second birthday. Unfortunately, figures on the use of the Domestic Violence Crisis Service show that it is meeting a real need in Canberra. It has over 500 telephone calls each month and its workers intervene in over 70 crisis situations a month. In terms that we can understand, it means that six Canberra women in every 100 are strong enough to admit that they have been abused in their homes. Many of these women will be our friends and our neighbours.
More significantly, the figure that I find most disturbing is that one woman in every three will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. This brings home to me the true horror of the situation. At this level we are not talking about friends and neighbours; we are talking about our closest friends and, indeed, ourselves. Every woman in this chamber today either has faced domestic violence or runs a real risk that she will do so in the future. (Extension of time granted)
Today, being National Stop Domestic Violence Day, I have concentrated on the horrors of domestic violence. It is a
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .