Page 689 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 17 March 2015
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that critical lessons learnt on the front line when dealing with domestic and family violence are not ignored or forgotten.
There is also the work of the Domestic Violence Prevention Council, which was established under the Domestic Violence Agencies Act 1986. It is the ACT ministerial advisory body responsible for providing advice to me on issues relating to domestic and family violence. In 2015 the council’s strategic plan aims to generate a sense of community awareness and involvement in the prevention of all forms of violence within intimate and family relationships in the ACT. This is to be achieved through encouraging and facilitating early intervention strategies aimed at the prevention of domestic violence, a coordinated government, community and criminal justice response to domestic violence, and measures that reduce recidivism and the opportunities for reoffending. The council’s activities have been aligned with the national plan, which is focused on stopping violence before it occurs, supporting women who have experienced violence, stopping men from committing violence and building the evidence base to reduce domestic and family violence and sexual assault.
To progress the national aims, the Domestic Violence Prevention Council is also undertaking a review of domestic and family violence deaths in the ACT. The death review is an important opportunity to provide a clearer picture of domestic and family violence in the ACT. It aims to provide a robust and independent picture of domestic and family violence in our community, to inform government decisions about effective measures and to assist in identifying issues that point to legislative, policy, practice or service changes across the government and community sectors. The death review, which I referred to the Domestic Violence Prevention Council last year, is founded on the presumption that domestic violence deaths can be prevented and will be a valuable tool in informing future government decisions about how to further build on our existing responses. This review is well underway and will be completed later this year. The recommendations made by the review will, of course, be carefully considered by the government.
I also have to acknowledge the work done by the family violence intervention program, or FVIP. This is a coordinated criminal justice and community response to criminal family violence. It is a coordinated interagency response which was first recommended by the ACT Community Law Reform Committee in 1995 and it commenced in May 1998. Since its inception, the FVIP has been recognised by the Australian violence prevention awards on three separate occasions. In accepting the law reform committee’s recommendation for the establishment of the FVIP in 1996, one of my predecessors, Attorney-General Gary Humphries, spoke about the FVIP’s philosophical underpinnings. He described the model known, as the Duluth model, as referring:
… to a comprehensive, collaborative interagency approach involving interlocking agency procedures, case flow monitoring, feedback and information sharing, with the response being monitored by an independent coordinating body. It operates in a legislative and procedural environment by establishing explicit procedures which prioritise safety for victims above all other concerns and operates to encourage agencies to take the most effective actions possible at all levels of the justice system.
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