Page 3356 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 12 October 1993
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The reason this paper was tabled in the Assembly and was the subject of a ministerial statement was the extensive nature, in some ways landmark nature, of the research. I felt that this was a paper of such importance that it should be brought before the chamber. I am sure that the authors of this paper and the committee will be heartened by the enthusiastic way it has been welcomed. Mrs Carnell made the point that it was a first-rate piece of research that was rather unusual in the history of domestic violence publications; that we had looked hard at the issues; and that in that sense it was worth bringing this preliminary paper before this Assembly.
There are not substantive recommendations for the change of substantive law. There are some suggestions as to how the research may go forward to the next stage with the Community Law Reform Committee. Ms Szuty made some reference to the sensible suggestions for collection of further data. The intention is that the Community Law Reform Committee take all that on board. It will probably bring forward its report on domestic violence not as a single document but in two or possibly even three stages. The work is of such importance and such magnitude that it may be prudent that we bring things forward in a couple of stages.
In the mid-1980s the ACT set the pace in Australia on reform of domestic violence laws under Commonwealth administration, and we have maintained our place as the model jurisdiction for domestic violence laws in Australia. But that is not to say that we should rest on our laurels; we can clearly continue to improve on the way we do things. The interaction between the Domestic Violence Crisis Service and the police and the courts is crucial to the working of the system. There is no doubt that one of the main factors in the success of the domestic violence arrangements in the ACT is the fact that we are able to get crisis workers, funded through a community based group that relies on government funding, to every potential violence situation very rapidly.
Ms Ellis referred to a woman who appeared to have been subject to fairly serious domestic violence being apparently coerced into pulling out of a matter in court and being left with no support resources. A clearly overworked, hassled and stressed legal aid lawyer was trying to take instructions from the client. The client was getting heavied by the spouse, and it was clear that, despite all the good intentions of the legal aid lawyer, they really were not in a position to provide support to that woman. In the ACT the Domestic Violence Crisis Service would have intervened at an earlier stage, would have taken that woman in as a client and would have provided her with some ongoing support and assistance. That is not to say that there are not situations where a woman may be pressured into withdrawing an application for an injunction when an injunction should properly be granted. I am sure that that has occurred and probably will occur again, but at least in the ACT we are able to provide some support for a woman in those circumstances, and that makes it far less likely that that sort of coercion will apply.
The point that Ms Ellis made about the police attitude survey is very important, and it bears referring to again. One of the problems with domestic violence has always been that the community attitude in many cases has been that it is a private matter; it is not a matter for the law. The Institute of Criminology did a survey of attitudes among officers of the Australian Federal Police, who probably could be regarded as a fairly typical sample of Australian blokes.
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