Page 670 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 23 March 1993
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Madam Speaker, we are becoming more aware as a society of other issues that have been highlighted by the debate on domestic violence. While there may be laws which prohibit the abuse of a family member - de facto, or by marriage - by another, this does not mean that our structures have caught up with our legislation. The perceived inequities of women before the law have led to terms of reference being given to the Australian Law Reform Commission to review legislative and other, non-legislative reforms which would remove any unjustifiable discriminatory effects towards women of Commonwealth laws or of their application. While the inquiry is only just getting under way, it points to the fact that we as a nation still have a long way to go before women have equal status before the law. We still have the situation where a woman who loses her capacity to work in the home is not compensated. Her loss is still looked upon as a loss of leisure or recreational capacity.
There is some movement towards a recognition of the importance of allowing women to have some control over family finances. In most cases where a woman stays at home to care for her children the only income into her bank account is the fortnightly family allowance payment, and then only if her husband's income is below the income test. Under a Federal election promise she may also get the converted value of the old dependent spouse rebate, but most women are still seen as a secondary partner in financial matters of the family unit and, in a society where a person's worth is often measured by their financial power, women are often left in a worthless position. So the circle returns and is completed. Madam Speaker, I will have another opportunity to address this issue when I address the national strategy on violence against women, but I urge and ask every concerned person, whether they agree or disagree with the content of the discussion paper, to put forward their views to the Community Law Reform Committee so that its members have the greatest range of views before them before they take on the task of turning issues and responses into legislative and other solutions.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (8.12): Madam Speaker, I am also pleased to be speaking on the discussion paper put out by the Community Law Reform Committee. I would like at the start to say that domestic violence is an evil which is still with us and which every government and every community, I believe, does have a duty to address. In the ACT we are addressing the issue, but I would like to comment on and take issue with some of what Ms Szuty has said. I would like to comment that I believe that it is overwhelmingly the attitude of men which perpetuates this evil in our society. The offence is overwhelmingly an offence of men against women and children, and that is undeniable on the evidence. When I speak of the attitude of men I do find it quite depressing to observe from time to time the lack of change in that attitude.
The report draws attention to an interesting point, the origin of the term "rule of thumb". The origin of the term "rule of thumb" is a ruling by a judge in the nineteenth century that it was lawful for a man to beat his wife, providing that the rod he used was no bigger than the thickness of his thumb. Hence the "rule of thumb". Madam Speaker, I find that ruling of the nineteenth century not so very different from the recent ruling in South Australia by a judge - Judge Bollen, I think - that a certain amount of force, a certain amount of violence, by a man against his wife in order to secure her sexual favours was acceptable. More than a century separated those men in time but I would put it to you that less than a hair's breadth separated them in attitude towards a woman's right to safety and to a peaceful existence in her own home.
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