DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:51): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question relating to domestic violence intervention orders.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: In the context of Police Association concerns about the impact of police budget cuts, Mr Nigel Hunt reported in The Advertiser on 29 March 2013 that:

Domestic violence interventions...can consume a patrol for an entire shift in some cases, but a minimum of 90 minutes if an arrest is made.

SA Police has made it clear that it is struggling to meet its budget cut targets and that initiatives such as the domestic violence intervention orders, though welcomed, do take additional resources. My questions to the minister are:

1. What additional recurrent funding was provided to the police to enable them to take on the responsibility of the new domestic violence intervention orders?

2. Can the minister assure the council that implementation of the orders will not require a winding back of other police operations?

3. Can the minister advise how many arrests and other actions have been made since the introduction of the domestic violence intervention orders?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (14:52): I thank the honourable member for his most important questions. Indeed, the legislative reforms that we have made around domestic violence and sexual assault have been very good reforms. We made changes in terms of our rape and sexual assault legislation that ensured that victims were more comfortable giving evidence and found it easier to get through the system, whilst at the same time making sure that perpetrators had to answer for their actions.

In relation to our intervention orders, these have been—as I have outlined in this place—highly successful reforms that have been well supported by not only SAPOL but also right across the board. There are many agencies that are currently involved in providing services and support to the victims of domestic violence, agencies like housing, education, health, etc., as well as corrections and the domestic violence services themselves. So, these reforms have been supported right across the board and are seen as a very positive way forward to improve the protections made available to victims of domestic violence.

Indeed, the intervention orders have been highly utilised. They have been utilised at a much greater rate than the previous restraining orders they replaced had been used. I have brought figures into this place before (but I do not have them with me today) that show quite clearly that the uptake of these orders has been quite high, which is very encouraging. At the same time, the figures have shown that the rate of breaches of these orders has not grown at the same rate as the uptake, so that has been a very positive trend as well.

The police have indicated that this does take resources. It is basically a new responsibility in some ways. What used to happen under the old legislation was that an incident would occur, typically in a domestic residence, the police would be called out and, if the victim was at high risk, they would be required to remove often the woman and children from that family home, find a safe house for them and wait for the system involving restraining orders to be put in place for the perpetrator.

Now when that scenario occurs, the police have the ability to put an intervention order in place right there and then, basically on the spot, and remove the perpetrator from the family home, and there are now support services that can go in on the same day and secure the family home for the victim to make sure that they are left in a safe environment.

The police have been very supportive of these new responsibilities, and although it has required some new responsibilities and a considerable increase in uptake, nevertheless there are components of activity that are reduced—for instance, having to find a safe house, and follow through with that side of things, has now been replaced.

Also, what the police have said to me in conversations is that one of the reasons they are so supportive of it is that there was the problem that often similar complaints were made over and over from the same people—incidents would continue to occur, the perpetrator would be a repeat offender, the police would go out and, because their restraining order often took a considerable amount of time, within a very short period the woman would decide not to proceed with the complaint. They were often intimidated and there are lots of reasons why that might occur.

It does not take much to see why it would be difficult, still living in the same residence or having access to the perpetrator, and a person's resolve might diminish. The next thing is that in a week's time or two weeks' time the police would be back out again to the same residence, dealing with exactly the same people, and that is a very time consuming thing to do. Although there are new responsibilities with intervention orders, there are also areas where police have less activity and responsibility.

In relation to the funding, the funds were made available in the last budget. I do not have the figures right here in front of me, but new funds were made available for the implementation of intervention orders, and I have outlined those funds here in this place before.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: It may have been training. As I said, there are swings and roundabouts with these, but the police overall speak very highly of the intervention orders. They are very supportive of them and, although they are very early figures, they show us that it appears that they are working very well, that women are accessing them more regularly and that there is less chance of perpetrators breaching them.