DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

The Hon. S.G. WADE (16:02): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question about domestic violence.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: On 9 April, the minister announced the creation of a new position of an officer to assist the Coroner to look at the circumstances of domestic violence deaths in South Australia. A media summary on this issue states that the minister said, 'the new position will help identify gaps in the system'. The summary then includes a quote from the minister's comments on radio stations 891 and 639 as follows:

They are able then to look at services, service gaps that might be occurring and provide information to assist the coroner in his recommendations.

I note that in the Supreme Court judgment of Saraf & Anor v Johns, the Supreme Court held that, in relation to the Coroner's powers:

The power to make a recommendation extends only to such matters as might prevent or reduce the likelihood of recurrence of a death in like circumstances.

Accordingly, the court held that the Coroner is not permitted to make more general recommendations about systemic issues. My question is: given the Supreme Court's judgment, can the minister advise the council whether the new officer to assist the Coroner will be able to provide to the Coroner advice on systemic issues which the coroner will in fact be able to use in coronial reports?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (16:04): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. Indeed, we were very pleased to be able to announce this new position—a position to assist the Coroner in investigations of deaths relating to domestic violence. In terms of the details of responsibilities and the job description of this position, that work is still being done with both the Attorney-General and the Coroner, Mr Mark Johns. So, those details have not been resolved as yet, in terms of the full scope of that particular position. Obviously, we are looking to maximise the impact of that position to assist the Coroner in all ways possible in his findings and deliberations.

We are looking at the issue of retrospective case analysis and a wide range of other possibilities as well. As I said, the details of the scope of that position are yet to be finalised. I have already met with the Coroner on one occasion, and officers have also met with him, to start to work through some of those details. However, I think what is important is that this is just one more plank in this government's commitment to address domestic violence.

As I have put on the record in this place before, in terms of reforms to the domestic violence legislation, that legislation has passed and we are now in the process of rolling that legislation out. Our Don't Cross the Line public awareness and education campaign, a series of community grants so that our message reaches a wide range of other groups that might not have access to mainstream information and, indeed, the rolling out of our family safety framework to other areas are just some of the wide range of different measures that this government has put in place to address the issue of domestic violence. The position to assist the Coroner, as I said, is just one more plank in our fight to try to stamp out domestic violence.