Page 3756 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 28 October 2015
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MR RATTENBURY: I would need to take some advice on that. It is true that ACTION does need to provide bathroom facilities in a range of places for our staff. That is one of the ways we have been able to improve the running performance while installing new facilities, and are continuing to do so. Whether there is a specific requirement on how that applies to Oaks Estate, I would need to take some advice.
Crime—domestic violence
MS PORTER: My question is to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services.
An incident having occurred in the gallery—
Mr Rattenbury: Don’t you point at me in the chamber.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! I cannot hear Ms Porter.
Mr Rattenbury: I am being heckled from the gallery, Madam Speaker.
MADAM SPEAKER: If there is any heckling from the gallery, that would be extremely disorderly. Members in the gallery need to remain silent. I call Ms Porter again.
MS PORTER: Minister, on 8 October you and the Chief Police Officer launched the new community safety and family violence teams to operate within ACT Policing. Can you provide the Assembly with an overview of these new teams?
MS BURCH: I thank Ms Porter for the question. As many in this place would know, one in three women, sadly, will experience violence in their lifetime. In the next 20 minutes, somewhere in Australia three women will have been assaulted by a current or former partner. Family violence is the most prevalent form of violence experienced by women anywhere. In this country this year alone, the cost of family violence has exceeded $20 billion. This does not even begin to calculate the family violence that is not reported.
These figures are, indeed, alarming. This year, sadly, we have lost four members of our community to family violence. There has never been a more urgent time than now to focus our community and our resources on tackling this issue. On the eighth of this month I was very pleased to join with the Chief Police Officer to launch two new teams within ACT Policing to tackle family and domestic violence.
The family violence team and the community safety team are the new teams that were launched. The family violence team will undertake a coordination role to ensure that front-line response to family violence incidents is timely and comprehensive. This team will develop and deliver training to its front-line members in relation to family violence. Over the next six months, the team will deliver an intensive training package to all front-line workers.
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