Page 1073 - Week 04 - Thursday, 1 April 1993
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The whole basis of domestic violence legislation is its immediacy. A woman really merely needs to make the complaint and show some cause to a magistrate and she will receive protection. Of course, there must be justice; there must be the opportunity for the husband to challenge that order, and the husband will have the opportunity to challenge that order after the event, after the protection has been put in place. It is that principle which makes domestic violence legislation fundamentally different from other areas of the criminal law, and indeed the civil law, where, until both sides of the case have been heard, you will not have an effective legal order. Domestic violence legislation is different. You get the order before you hear both sides of the argument, and that is because parliaments across Australia have taken the view that it is appropriate to provide women with that order of protection.
Some people in the community may differ with that view. They are entitled to do that. They are entitled to agitate. I guess that they are even entitled to make threats of legal actions to destroy the whole system if governments do not accept it; but, if they do make such threats, if they do act in such an ill-tempered manner, they have to expect a bit of stick from governments. They have to expect a bit of a lash back, and my phrase "extremist ratbaggery" directed to that type of threat, I think, is fair. I regret that I had to make that statement and I would imagine that Mr Williams would regret that he cast his letter in such a threatening manner. Madam Speaker, this is a silly censure motion. When Mr Stevenson indicated that he wanted to move a motion of censure yesterday we argued with him very strongly that it should be taken immediately yesterday. He insisted that it not occur yesterday, that it occur today. Given that it is April Fools Day it is probably a more appropriate day for this to be debated, and given that it is being debated after lunch it is not surprising that Mr Stevenson is made to look the fool.
MR MOORE (3.41): Madam Speaker, when I received what I believe is an identical invitation to that which Mr Connolly received - it had my name on it instead of his - I made a decision that I would attend that meeting. I was aware of the intemperate language that Mr Williams had used. I decided that I would go along in order to express the alternative view and perhaps then some members of the Lone Fathers Association might understand the importance of domestic violence legislation. I would say that members who attended that meeting would agree that basically that is what I did. My comments were not well received by large numbers of people at that meeting. I took a different view from Mr Connolly as to how to handle that.
Madam Speaker, the purpose of today's motion is to censure Mr Connolly for the way he perceives things. Whenever we deal with matters of law or matters like this, Mr Stevenson seems to put everything in black and white. He does not understand tone. He does not seem to understand the importance of tone in the way people speak and in the way people write. It is quite basic to year 12 literature. We spend a lot of time teaching it at that point, trying to get people to understand tone - the difference between just reading a letter as it is written on a page and the ramifications of its tone. That is why it is that on a number of occasions I have argued with Mr Stevenson about the letter of law and the way he reads the Constitution - for example, section 92 of the Constitution. If we look back at bits of legislation and bits of the Constitution where Mr Stevenson has tried to explain things to us, we realise that he can interpret it just exactly as it is although there are reams and reams of law and comment by some of the most learned people in Australia on different interpretations of what appears to him at face value to be obvious.
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