Page 1375 - Week 05 - Thursday, 26 April 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
that this is a political issue, and I had hoped that it would never have to get to that level. I hope that we can develop, as we have in other crucial areas, a bipartisan approach to these very difficult problems.
I want to emphasise a few points made by Mr Collaery in the course of the debate. He indicated the Government's need to investigate ways to keep survivors of domestic violence, particularly women, in their homes. I think that is a very important feature of any successful framework for dealing with domestic violence. We need to keep the perpetrator away from the home and leave the wife, in particular, in the home in those circumstances. The authorities in New South Wales are examining similar proposals. I hope that we can work out ways of doing that in the ACT and perhaps lead the way in that respect.
The second thing to which Mr Collaery referred, which I think is worth referring to, is that this Government places a very high priority on amendments to the Domestic Violence Act. We simply cannot let the omissions, which have become glaringly obvious, remain. As such, a number of things will have to be done. We will have to extend protection to the whole household where the householder is under threat. We will have to provide for children under 18 to have the right to apply for domestic violence orders in their own right. I do not need to remind members of the significance of the "Louise" articles by Marion Frith. We have to provide for an extension of orders to cover the child of an applicant and we have to provide for the court to be able to specify in the order conditions about approaching or contacting a person mentioned by the order.
Mr Berry said in the course of his remarks that little is being done about education against domestic violence. I cannot accept that. He is obviously not up to date with what is going on in our schools. Considerable work is being done in this field in our system. There is also the point that was made by Ms Maher, that we have significant national education initiatives going on at this time. She referred to the national forum on domestic violence training initiatives which is being held in Adelaide and to which the ACT has sent people. It will be an important part of equipping our armoury to deal with these situations. I am pleased to see that the non-government sector will also be involved in that. It will be an important contribution to getting a comprehensive arrangement in place to deal with the situation.
I finally want to refer to child abuse, which is an important part of the domestic violence scene, unfortunately. I am pleased to note that, despite Ms Follett's worst fears, money that was put aside in the 1989-90 budget is being spent to upgrade the child abuse assessment clinic at the Royal Canberra Hospital. It is a very important clinic. Its role is emphasised by the number of sexual abuse cases which are received every year. In 1989 some 92 cases of child abuse presented at that
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .