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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 3827 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

make substantive changes to the policy underlying the existing legislation, but rather consolidates that legislation into a single simple bill.

Detailed consultation, prior to the recent spate of it, did occur with the Magistrates Court, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Legal Aid Office, amongst others, during the development of the bill, and from a technical point of view the government is confident that the bill works. Officers from the department who worked on the development of the bill have also recently had discussions on the bill with representatives from the Women's Legal Centre, the Domestic Violence Crisis Service and the Domestic Violence Prevention Council. It is as a result of that discussion that our amendments to the bill have been prepared.

I note, and I think Mr Stanhope referred to this, that the scrutiny of bills committee has raised no concerns with the bill. That committee raises concerns about a lot of bills; detailed concerns; volumes of concerns in many instances. I think it is very significant that this meticulous committee and its very meticulous adviser, as is what one would expect and want, have raised no concerns.

The government is firmly focused on the need to ensure that people are protected from violence. The Protection Orders Bill will provide a more effective means of achieving this outcome. Yes, you could throw it out and it would have to be brought in again, but what would be achieved by that? The fact is that the existing legislation does not work as well as it should, and this bill presents an opportunity to deliver significantly better outcomes to people seeking protection from violence, which surely is what we are all about. This is something that the government, and I hope the Assembly, would like to see done sooner rather than later.

Mr Speaker, I mentioned earlier the consultation that has occurred in the last few weeks. I state again that this is a technical rewrite and it is not intended that we make wholesale changes. The bill does not make the types of policy changes that may be suggested by the model domestic violence laws. It might have been Ms Tucker who suggested this.

The Domestic Violence Prevention Council is currently reviewing the model domestic violence laws. It is not the intention of this bill, Mr Speaker, to impinge upon or in any way to pre-empt any recommendation that the council may make as a result of its review. The government sees the work of the council in respect of a model domestic violence law as a law reform exercise involving very important and substantive questions of policy. The council members kindly donate their time, and I think it is a good use of their resources to give priority to questions of substance rather than the technical form of legislation. At any rate, Mr Speaker, there has been consultation with them in relation to this technical legislation, and we have amendments as a result of that.

I would also anticipate that the council's report and recommendations, when they are complete, will give rise to substantive policy questions which may lead to significant changes to the legislation at a later date. The policy questions are a completely separate issue from this legislation, which is, as I think most people accept, a technical rewrite.

Pending the outcome of the council's consideration of the model domestic violence laws, the government is concerned to ensure that the orders made under the existing policy framework are enforceable. The fact is, and the courts have said this, that the existing

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