Domestic Violence

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (14:52): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking questions of the Minister for Police regarding policies and practice of SAPOL in relation to reporting and file keeping regarding domestic violence issues.

Leave granted.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: Issues regarding communication between SAPOL branches and record keeping in relation to specific cases have come to my attention in recent times, following a constituent issue that my office has been following for almost five months now. With this matter, we have found inconsistencies in the way care and concern reports are recorded within files and so on. My questions are:

1. What SAPOL procedures are in place when a care concern report is made about an adult with an intellectual disability in particular, where they are known to reside with a person who has been charged with domestic violence offences?

2. Is the IT used within SAPOL up to date enough adequately to reflect the complexity of policing in 2016?

3. What record-keeping procedures are in place around known domestic violence perpetrators who may reside with potentially vulnerable people?

4. What upgrades in information technology are planned for the near future for SAPOL?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:53): I thank the honourable member for her question. I have already, today, made a number of remarks regarding domestic violence in terms of the government's commitment to ensuring that we are a state which has been at the cutting edge of the development of policy and practices to ensure that we are trying to have a positive effect on the rate of domestic violence that occurs within the state.

The police commissioner on the radio earlier this week—and I think this is well known throughout the community—stated that we have seen a spike in the level of reporting of domestic violence events throughout the state. I think it would be naïve to assume that this is somehow a reflection upon a dramatic uptake in the incidence of domestic violence, rather than the fact that we as a community are only just beginning to learn of the severity and the high level of incidence of domestic violence that exists within the community. I think it is a positive event that people, mainly women, are having the courage to report incidents of domestic violence and put their name to the fact that this is not acceptable behaviour.

Regarding policing and IT, we are a state government that wants to make sure that the South Australian police force has the best available equipment that we can provide them with to ensure that they have all the tools they need to be able to effectively police the South Australian community, and that goes to all issues, but particularly domestic violence. There has been a range of investments the government has made over a sustained period of time to equip the police to be able to do that.

An investment in MAPS in and of itself is a good example of cutting-edge policing methods and effort, not just within SAPOL but across government agencies, to ensure that we are sharing data and information, and there is an innovative IT platform that exists within MAPS that actually enables that to occur. So, whether it be facilitating record keeping out on the front line or in the back end, we have been a government that is trying to make sure that we are investing in SAPOL's efforts and capacity to be able to deal with record keeping regarding domestic violence more generally. Your last question?

The Hon. K.L. Vincent interjecting:

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: In terms of upgrades coming forward, of course there is a whole range of areas of technology that SAPOL is looking at in terms of policing generally, things like body-worn video and facial recognition technology. There is a whole range of different technologies that are constantly coming online across the globe when it comes to resourcing policing, and we are committed to being a government that makes sure that we are working with SAPOL, in the context of the state budget, to ensure that we are investing in new technologies.

Any time that SAPOL becomes aware of an innovative new technology that they think would assist them in being able to better police the South Australian community, whether it be in the area of domestic violence or otherwise, then of course they should bring that to the government's attention and we will be all too ready to sit down with the police commissioner and ensure that we can try to accommodate any request of that nature, where it is possible to do so.