Page 1201 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 24 June 1992
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Let us trust that those jurisdictions which have not yet acted to provide reciprocal arrangements with respect to protection orders will take a lead from our action on this matter, to ensure that the women of Australia feel that they have all the protection that can be afforded by our courts and the recognition that domestic violence is no more acceptable than any other assault.
MR MOORE (4.10): For many years, the police in the ACT have cooperated with domestic violence crisis workers in this area - the workers providing support and assistance for those having to deal with violence in their own homes and the police dealing with the perpetrators of violence. Although enormous changes must be made to the very disturbing and escalating problems of domestic violence in this society, this cooperation at least was a step in the right direction.
Madam Speaker, for the sake of saving time it is appropriate that I address my comments now to the first four Bills listed under orders of the day today, rather than addressing each Bill as the in-principle stage is reached. My comments on each Bill are very similar. It is only recently that police have really changed their approach to the criminal offence of domestic violence by not giving crisis workers the information they require to perform their duties. This has not only placed crisis workers, and naturally the victims, at a great disadvantage, but on occasions placed the workers at great risk. Workers, on one occasion, I understand, were not told that guns were in a house when they were called on to assist. It is a great step forward that the police are demonstrating a changing attitude. It is a changing attitude that we should feel very positive about, but there is still a long way to go.
The situation highlights the need for greater awareness and understanding by the police of the whole problem of domestic violence - and, of course, greater understanding and awareness on the part of all the community. A change of attitude to the phenomenon is urgently required. The change has started, and I hope it will continue. The police, the courts and the public need to focus more on the perpetrators, the law-breakers, in these situations. One small but obvious step, by way of illustration, is for the police to charge the perpetrator as if he had just assaulted a stranger on the street. For the police to press charges of assault rather than asking the woman to press those charges, often in front of the assailant, would be a major step forward. The police really should be there to inform the perpetrator of his position with regard to the law - and I use the term "his" because in about 97 per cent of the cases the perpetrator is a male.
These simple actions, which are not performed routinely at this time, would go a long way towards preventing those terrible revenge attacks - and some of us may have read of a case in this morning's paper - by informing the victims that they are witnesses and are required by law to provide evidence. The current situation really places a woman, often a wife, or a partner - or even a child - in the position of perceived betrayal, of dobbing in. That is a totally unacceptable process in the general order of our society. Women are also placed in a position where they are perceived as not protecting the very person that they have vowed to love and protect.
The police can and must make some fundamental changes in their underlying assumptions on this subject and their resultant treatment of both the assailants and the victims. I am speaking about the police because they are the people most involved and with a most difficult job to do. But, of course, assumptions need to be changed right across our community. A massive education program
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