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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-11-12 Daily Xml
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DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (15:38): On 1 November I was very pleased to be joined by nearly 250 people from the local community in Morialta, in particular, at a fundraising quiz night that I organised for the Eastern Adelaide Domestic Violence Service. I just want to speak briefly about the work that the service does and thank the groups and the businesses which assisted in making that event an outstanding success. For the record, the event raised about $5,000 (I think just some $20 or $30 under $5000), which will support the programs of the Eastern Adelaide Domestic Violence Service.

The wonderful staff there do a great job. They provide an accommodation service and run a number of tremendous programs, particularly for women and their families who have been betrayed—I think that is the best way to describe it—by the person who is supposed to love them the most in the home environment. Domestic violence is a very significant issue, as I think most members would be aware.

In 2010-11—and I am afraid I do not have more recent figures—1,754 people were arrested in South Australia for domestic violence-related assaults. This figure has historically been increasing. Fifty-eight per cent of sexual assaults, I am led to believe, are committed by someone known to the victim; of course, we would all be aware that most assaults against women where the victim knows the offender go unreported. This is a very significant problem, and we are lucky, I think, in the eastern suburbs to have a tremendous service that engages with the community and provides shelter and support for these families.

The service also does some terrific work in building resilience in the families, and in programs that give extra skills to these families to encourage them to have more robust mechanisms to support the work of the family going forward. It is important that, when we have a cycle of violence, we do everything we can to break it.

In increasing the awareness in our community, one of the things that this event did was to give an opportunity for local businesses and community groups to become more aware of the service, and also to offer their support. I have a local martial arts instructor who was aware that such a service existed but had not really engaged with it before, and who is now meeting with the service in my office in the next fortnight to talk about how they might be able to offer self-defence courses for the service using a program that he has run previously in a different state. That is something that I know the service is interested in pursuing.

Groups such as the Athelstone Kiwanis; the Teringie Residents Association; the Zonta Club of Adelaide; the Lions Club of Rostrevor; the Campbelltown Rotary Club; the Morialta Rotary Club; the Liberal Women's Council of South Australia; the Campbelltown Historical Society; the local Greens candidate for Morialta (Scott Andrews); the Liberal candidates for Torrens, Hartley and Cheltenham (Michael Manetta, Vincent Tarzia and Jack Batty); and a range of other people were very helpful in organising tables and encouraging people to come along.

The quizmaster was Georgina McGuiness, who did a tremendous job on the night, and I want to acknowledge the work done by Maria Hagias, who is Executive Director of the Central Domestic Violence Service, and Alison Meneaud and Kathy Lilis from the Eastern Adelaide Domestic Violence Service, in promoting it and helping it to be successful. I would also like to thank my staff, and in particular Scott Kennedy and the other people who helped in organising the night, including Priya Pavri, Helen Dwyer, Jenny Richardson, Raelene Zanetti and Samantha Mitchell. I will not list the local businesses; there were around 35 who made donations that made it work. I just want to record for the Hansard Maria Hagias's letter in relation to the people who put this together:

Dear John,

I just wanted to write to you and your staff to thank you for the efforts and commitment in organising such a successful fundraiser. The service was overwhelmed by the kindness, showed by you, your staff, all who donated their time and goods and the wonderful people that attended.

It is absolutely amazing to see what can happen when communities come together, we are very lucky to have local members who are so committed to the issues that affect our community.

The money will be used to run a number of group programs that will support women to rebuild their lives and fully participate in community as they deserve.

Your ongoing support is so valued and appreciated and we look forward to working with you to address violence against women.

Cheers and please pass on my many thanks to your wonderful staff as well...

In particular, on the issue of staff, I want to identify that my staff volunteered their time outside of work hours, as well as some time in work hours, for this community event, because it is an important cause, as demonstrated by the fact that nearly 250 people came along on the same night and at the same time as there were 10,000 people down the road celebrating the Moonlight Markets at Thorndon Park. I think that was a tremendous identification of the support for this service in our community.

Time expired.

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