Bills

Intervention Orders (Prevention of Abuse) (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 6 May 2015.)

Mr DULUK (Davenport) (12:43): I rise to speak in support of this bill—but, no, I am not the lead speaker on it. This bill seeks to amend the Intervention Orders (Prevention of Abuse) Act 2009 and other related amendments. The act provides for intervention orders commonly known as DVOs. I would like to preface my remarks on the bill by saying that I believe that domestic violence is a terrible blight on our society and that I live in hope that one day we can eradicate it. 2015 has been a year in which domestic violence has been front and centre of our national agenda.

Australian of the Year, Rosie Batty, is the human face of someone who has suffered horrific domestic violence. The murder of Rosie's son Luke at a suburban cricket ground last year shocked Australia into action. In the words of our Prime Minister, Rosie Batty is someone 'who faced an unimaginable tragedy and has become an inspirational campaigner against domestic violence'. I would also add that Rosie Batty has been a strong voice and an excellent advocate for pushing Australia to eradicate domestic violence.

The domestic violence figures are frightening and very concerning, and some of these figures can be referred to in my contribution to this house in regards to Australian National Domestic Violence Remembrance Day. Recent statistics tell us that on average a woman is murdered at least every week in this country and another is hospitalised every three hours at the hands of domestic violence. At the moment, a woman being abused will suffer 35 assaults, on average, from a partner before she goes to the police to report that abuse.

I would also like to add that this act acknowledges that intervention orders extend further than just violent physical abuse or controlling behaviour. Intervention orders can be made to protect victims from psychological harm as well as non-consensual denials of financial, social or personal autonomy.

This bill aims to strengthen our intervention order framework by closing some legal loopholes. This bill is as a consequence of the 2004 decision of Justice Peek in the Supreme Court case of Police v Siaosi. In the Siaosi case, the decision of Justice Peek found the term 'in the vicinity' was not within the powers conferred in this act, and since then the system has been in what one may call a bit of legal limbo. Justice Peek concluded that it was a case of 'elementary fairness to a person the subject of an intervention order' but the terms are 'specific and certain'. SAPOL and the chief magistrate have asked for these amendments so that intervention orders can be issued, by both the court and the police, that contain the term 'in the vicinity of'. This bill removes any ambiguity from previous legislation by prohibiting a person from being on or in the vicinity of a certain premises or locality. In particular, this bill contains a transitional provision in schedule 1 of the act to validate any existing intervention orders, which is very important.

I welcome that section 31 of the act is being amended by this bill to give courts the power to compel perpetrators of domestic violence to pay for their own intervention programs. Currently intervention programs are fully funded by the state. We need to change communities' attitudes that too often place responsibility on government for the actions of others. We see this time and time again, and I am glad that in this amended legislation we are seeing the onus being put back on perpetrators and individuals to be responsible for their actions. Ultimately, it is individuals who are responsible for their actions and behaviours and not government.

This bill will give courts the power to order that a defendant, once convicted of a breach of an intervention order involving physical violence or threat of physical violence, make a payment toward the cost of any treatment program as ordered as a term of their intervention order. As a parliament, we must encourage wrongdoers to take responsibility for their own actions, and this includes not only the physical, mental and emotional toll taken on the victims of their crimes but also the financial consequences of their crimes on society.

The amendment will also function as a deterrent to no-shows. If a perpetrator does not show up to an intervention program then the money will be coming out of their pocket, not the pocket of South Australian taxpayers, once again putting the emphasis on the individual being responsible for their own behaviour. This move should deter those who avoid programs in place to assist them reform, and indeed their reformation as a person. The amendment has been drafted so that courts will provide a warning that if the person subject to an intervention order breaches it they will be liable to pay for the rehabilitation program.

Currently, domestic violence intervention programs are run only in metropolitan Adelaide. The programs are run by providers such as Offenders Aid and Rehabilitation Services (OARS) and the Kornar Winmil Yunti Indigenous service. The extra funds raised by this amendment will allow these programs to be rolled out into our regional areas as well, which I fully support. This is a welcome move, as rehabilitation and education are important tools in domestic violence prevention. This government needs to do more than just talk the talk on this very important issue.

A logical change to section 18(7) of the act is contained in this bill. At the moment a person who has a police interim intervention order out against them is required to notify the Commissioner of Police of their change of address, but there was no legal consequence if they did not. This bill rectifies that problem. The bill will assist the police in locating and prosecuting those who breach their intervention order.

This bill will help move SAPOL, the courts, and other relevant public sector agencies into the 21^st century by permitting 'prescribed details' of an order being sent electronically as well. Paper-based processes, which are full of duplication, easily cost this state tens of millions of dollars each year, and the more services that can be moved online within government the better in terms of streamlining our processes. There are a lot of very worthy amendments to this bill, and I look forward to its passage through this house.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:48): I rise to speak on the Intervention Orders (Prevention of Abuse) (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2015, and indicate that I will be the lead speaker for the opposition. I confirm that the opposition will be supporting this bill which, essentially, provides amendment following the request for clarification by various agencies in the field to the Intervention (Prevention of Abuse) Act 2009.

My colleague the member for Davenport has outlined a number of aspects of the bill which I will not repeat. Specifically, I want to respond to Justice Peek's decision in the case of Police v Siaosi (2014 SASC 131) hopefully to clarify reference to intervention orders which include a restriction of being in the presence of or in the vicinity of certain premises or localities and, secondly, to comply with a Labor Party election promise to require perpetrators to bear the financial costs of programs which they fail to attend. Hopefully, that will be an instrument to do two things; one of course is to ensure that the taxpayer is not meeting the cost when there has been a failure but, secondly, hopefully to be some instrument of discipline for them to attend because the ultimate objective here is to ensure where possible that there is attendance.

I suppose the third area is to tidy up the provision for the apparent reluctance of the judiciary to grant orders that are inconsistent with Family Court orders or superior court orders, notwithstanding that the current legislation clearly gives them the capacity to do so. These are all tidy-ups. They are necessary and meritorious, it appears, at least on some of these occasions.

I think it is fair to say that whether the distribution and notification of the terms of an intervention order is either in a summary form and electronically transferred, or attached to an email message and electronically transferred, is probably of no consequence. However, I am advised, and I expect this advice to be correct, that it is going to be quicker, more efficient and more reliable to summarise in some kind of pro forma way the terms of an intervention order and that that would be distributed. I expect in the first instance that it will take some time to do that; even to fill out a form online takes time.

I am not always greatly in favour of trying to summarise the effect of these things, but I am told that this will be then a consistent form that can be distributed to the various agencies because the fundamental flaw that it is attempting to resolve is the fact that other support agencies, when it comes to the enforcement of these matters, are actually familiar with the existence and terms of an order. The downside of this is that it leaves it open to important information being omitted in the course of that being distributed. In theory, it will be short and simple and available to the agencies to act upon. In any event, as I say, the member for Davenport has outlined a number of those aspects.

There are a number of areas I wish to traverse today, and one is the history in recent years of domestic violence cases in this state and how they have been dealt with. Members will probably be delighted to hear that I do not propose to go back over the last 15 years of failings on behalf of the government as I did in the previous bill; however, without inciting some fear or trepidation in those listening to this debate, I am going to refer to the Magna Carta of 1297, which is the version I want to refer to, and I trust that is the one that has been delivered to me.

I think it was 1215 that started all this, and members would probably be immediately familiar with the fact that King John I was on the throne and that the barons and earls of the day were outraged about how they were being treated, being raped and pillaged of taxes and having property confiscated and the like, and how their rights and liberties were being imposed upon. I think that is very familiar, actually. It has a familiar sound to it at the moment, doesn't it?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: History repeats itself.

Ms CHAPMAN: Indeed it does, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I had the opportunity to reread the Magna Carta recently and its translations, for another reason—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: As we all have done!

Ms CHAPMAN: I have a sorry life. I should place on the record that, of course, this is a document on which the foundation of our democracy sits. I would urge all of those who have not read the original, or copies of some of the originals, because there were multiple publications up to the late part of the 13^th century, to do so.

Essentially, this was a log of claims from the barons and the earls to King John I of the day. Apart from being a foundation of a number of aspects and pillars of our democracy, one of the things they considered in it was the right and entitlement of widows to have occupancy of a property, usually for a period of days. If they lived in a castle, they had longer and had a right to a substitute dwelling.

One of the other things that they sought on behalf of women, given that there were no female barons or earls in those days, was the right to be able to give evidence, in respect of the reliability of their evidence being taken, if their husband was murdered. They could not and were not allowed to give evidence, reliably, to corroborate the death of any other man, but there was an exception for the husband.

How the wheel turns! Now we are in an era where we are seeking to protect women, more often than not, from their husband or partner in this environment. So, things do change. I am not going to go through the last 800 years, you will be pleased to hear.

Members interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: I would enjoy doing so, but I want to make this point: women have come a long way in the protection of themselves and frequently their children in domestic environments. They have had advances in respect of remuneration for their employment, not quite as far as I think it should go; nevertheless, equality of pay is another matter which still eludes us completely. They have had advances in respect of the opportunities to have publicly funded education. In fact, South Australia was one of the first states to introduce compulsory education for its citizens.

We have had advances in respect of protections that we seek in the domestic environment, and the credibility of our capacity to give evidence apart from being against a husband, which still has some protections under the Evidence Act, has developed as well, but domestic violence in the household has created a silent killer. We have heard statistics of one a week. I heard more recent statistics a few months ago that it is now the equivalent of about 1.5 per week, if we are to keep it consistent with the weekly figure, by a person who is either a known partner, a family relative or former partner of the victim.

It is particularly important that we deal with this legislation to tidy up other aspects, but it is also a reminder to us of what we are not doing. I have read in recent days a plethora of claims that we need to reform the law in respect of the partial defence of provocation. That was sparked by the case of Lindsay v The Queen in the High Court recently. On our side, we are proposing that the current Legislative Review Committee—a standing committee of this parliament—should receive a term of reference in respect of the investigation of the outcome of that decision, particularly as it made a very comprehensive review only in the last couple of years of this area of law reform as to the future application of the partial defence of provocation.

For those who might be following this debate, in short, the law of provocation allows for persons to plead that they were provoked into the killing of another party and, if successful, are able to reduce the conviction of murder to manslaughter, obviously with a significantly different penalty. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.