Page 1163 - Week 04 - Thursday, 17 March 2005
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make a personal protection order, not a domestic violence order, in respect of that person.
The removal of personal injury from the amendments would result in an inconsistency between the definition of domestic violence and personal violence and other ACT legislation, including, as I indicated, the definition of injury in the Victims of Crime (Financial Assistance) Act 1983. That act defines injury as physical or mental injury and includes mental shock or nervous shock. The removal of personal injury from the amendments would result in an inconsistency in the recognition of mental injury as one of the potential outcomes of crime, as personal injury would not be recognised as a sufficient basis for a domestic violence order, which is an order intended to prevent the commission of a crime.
The removal of personal injury from the amendments would result in victims of domestic violence who have suffered verbal abuse, taunting or threats and who are suffering from mental distress not being able to obtain a domestic violence order. The recognition of a wider range of harm and the inclusion of personal violence as a form of domestic violence are consistent with the definition of domestic violence in the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which includes psychological violence. It is for those reasons, Mr Speaker, that the government will not support the amendments.
Amendments negatived.
Bill, as a whole agreed to.
Bill agreed to.
Sitting suspended from 12.32 to 2.30 pm.
Questions without notice
Health—radiation oncology
MR SMYTH: My question is directed to the Minister for Health. In July 2002 an estimates committee inquiry was told by the then director of medical services at the Canberra Hospital, in relation to some funding provided under the appropriation bill of December 2001, that:
We hope that by the end of this year we will have state-of-the-art equipment in most of the areas of radiation oncology. In particular, we now have a planning system that is one of the best you can get. It’s a three-dimensional system and it enormously improves our ability to plan the radiation therapy of our patients.
Minister, was this system ever installed? If so, when was it installed?
MR CORBELL: I am happy to take the question on notice.
MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question. I find it absolutely inconceivable that, after three days of questioning, the minister knows nothing about this subject. Minister, why then did you tell the Assembly on Tuesday that you were
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