Domestic Violence

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Women. Given the minister's express concern about domestic violence for women, what action has the minister taken to advance the issues paper in respect of domestic law reform, including Clare's law, which was promised by the Premier late last year?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (14:59): If I am understanding her correctly, the deputy leader is referring to a discussion paper on domestic violence which we are in the process of just finishing off—

Ms Chapman: I'm asking what she's doing about it.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —and that is—well, it's a government discussion paper, and the minister contributes, along with other members of cabinet, to this discussion paper, but I am the person who is charged with the responsibility of collating all of that and bringing it together and bringing it to cabinet.

It is very close, but it still has not been finalised. I am expecting it to be finalised soon. I can promise the deputy leader that this paper is intended to be a very informative piece of work that contains as much factual information as possible in an attempt to, hopefully, help to explain to members of our community the exact nature and extent and complexity of this problem.

It also is an interesting point that this is often seen as a stand-alone issue, but it is clear, when one looks at the statistics and looks at the material, that the children, who are the people we are very concerned about in this space, in the child protection area, often have a coincidence of living in an environment where domestic violence is an element of their home life. In fact, part of the reason some of those children wind up having an intervention is because of issues relating to domestic violence.

The more information the public can have, the more informed the conversation can be about how we collectively can put constructive policy initiatives into place which hopefully will have, at least in the parliament, broad support. Obviously, not every member of the community will agree with every policy we come up with, but I think the starting point has to be that we are put in a position where we have as much accurate factual information as possible so that people can then consider the issues. After that, we can look at the appropriate responses.

Some of the material here is actually significant because it does emphasise the multi-agency aspect of this. It is the case that the government cannot be in every part of the city at every hour of the day all of the time. Terrible things happen, but we have to have initiatives which will minimise the chance of these things happening where the government has the capacity to interfere in a positive way—and that's what this paper is directed to trying to get a discussion about. As I said, I am optimistic that we will have that out there fairly soon.

Ms Chapman: After the budget. No money in the budget.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Well, I'm not going to comment on the budget.

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader is on two warnings.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am not going to in any way comment on the budget. We will see what is in the budget on Thursday.

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The SPEAKER: How many warnings are you on, member for Schubert?

Mr Knoll: Two.

The SPEAKER: Thank you. The member for Adelaide.