Page 938 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 30 March 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Berry: You are a joke, Dennis. Even the people in Chinchilla realise it.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Berry makes comment after comment, yet when he had time to do something about the pornography in Canberra, about the fact that every State in this nation has banned X-rated video pornography, the fact that - - -
Ms Follett: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Mr Stevenson, I think, is reflecting on a vote of this Assembly.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Stevenson, your time is up, anyway. I would caution you not to reflect on a vote of the Assembly in future speeches.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (8.51), in reply: Madam Speaker, in closing the debate, I thank those members who have spoken seriously about the report before us. I found most of their comments very interesting. I reiterate the comments I made in tabling the national strategy late last year. Could I say right at the start that I believe that the national strategy is an important document because it recognises, as a couple of the speakers have said, that violence against women is endemic in Australian society and that violence against women is a crime. It must be treated as a crime, regardless of the circumstances in which it occurs.
I was interested in Mrs Carnell's comments about the increase in unemployment and whether that is a factor in domestic violence. I think it is probably accurate to say that domestic violence may be one of the range of tragic outcomes, tragic consequences, of unemployment in domestic situations, but I do not know that that proposition by Mrs Carnell has been tested. It is open to us to say that in the ACT, where our unemployment rate is substantially below the national rates, our domestic violence ought also to be below the national rates. I do not think that is the case. You could also say that women are subject to unemployment, and in fact they are subject to it in rather larger numbers than men, for the most part; yet we do not find an increasing incidence of domestic violence by women against men. So I find it hard to support that sort of scenario. There is a range of circumstances in which domestic violence may occur. The fact is that, wherever it occurs, it is a crime and it has to be treated as one.
The national strategy is also very important because it provides directions for governments to follow in order to tackle that underlying culture of violence in Australian society and particularly to tackle it by promoting a universal intolerance of the use of violence. That has to be our aim. These directions for action range from the continued development of comprehensive crisis services and improved training for service providers to the need for community education, and there is clearly a need for that. It is important to note that the strategy was presented to the Prime Minister in October of last year, and it received very strong bipartisan support. The strategy also asks all heads of government to set aside time each year to discuss the national strategy and to make it an agenda item for the newly formed Council of Australian Governments. I raised the national strategy at the inaugural meeting of the council, which was held in December of last year, and the council agreed that governments would give timely and appropriate consideration to the implementation of the strategy's recommendations. I believe that consideration of the strategy at this level is vital to its effective implementation.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .