Page 1070 - Week 04 - Thursday, 1 April 1993
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I certainly stand by that attack on Mr Stevenson. Mr Stevenson's claim is that I misled the Assembly. What I said was this:
I did not attend the meeting because the "invitation" for me to attend the meeting was in fact a demand that I immediately repeal the domestic violence laws in this Territory or face a High Court challenge to demonstrate their illegality, and, by the way, would I like to come to this meeting and explain why I failed to repeal them. When I get that sort of extremist ratbaggery directed to me I politely decline the invitation.
I think Mr Stevenson heard the "politely decline" to the invitation. He in fact read out my "politely decline" to the invitation. Some of my colleagues on this side of the chamber have suggested that perhaps I was a little too polite. I certainly did not say to Mr Williams, "I am not attending your meeting because of the threatening nature of your letter to me". I said to the Assembly, "When I get that sort of extremist ratbaggery directed to me I politely decline the invitation", which I did. I guess that it is a question of judgment as to whether members would agree that this letter contained extremist ratbaggery. Most members received this invitation. This is a situation where, I guess, when you read a letter you can form a different impression, and most members may have had the impression only of that first page. What it basically demands is that we must change the domestic violence laws so that there is what he calls this right to justice, this right to a response.
Members would know that for many years assaulting one's spouse has been an offence. The Chief Minister, in her opening remarks in the debate, pointed out that in old legal history, a century ago, it was not. The law allowed a husband to beat his wife. But for many years now the law has taken a different view. Assault has always been an offence, but that has not protected women against domestic violence. The simple ability to lay a charge and then have that charge brought before a court days or weeks later, with both parties present, is no protection to a woman. What we refer to as the domestic violence law is the ability of a woman to immediately get an order which is effective immediately to provide immediate protection, and the husband, the spouse, can later dispute whether that was validly presented. Absent that immediacy, absent that ability to go to a magistrate, even over a phone, and get that order immediately to protect the woman, you do not have domestic violence law; you simply have assault law. The demand that we change that is, in effect, a demand to repeal the domestic violence law, because without that immediacy it is nothing.
If it was just a demand to do that I would not have worried; I would have regarded that as a view with which I profoundly disagree, but a reasonable view. I would not have described that as extremist ratbaggery. But it must be tempered with this statement:
Should the law and the ACT government not yield to our request, -
that is, the request that the law be fundamentally altered so that it is no longer instantaneous protection for a woman; it is a situation just like an assault case where you say to the police officer, "My husband assaulted me", the police officer charges the husband with assault, and days or weeks or months later that comes before a court for hearing -
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