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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-25 Daily Xml
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DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:40): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question in relation to domestic violence.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: On 6 March the minister jointly issued a press release with the Attorney-General entitled 'Protecting victims of domestic violence'. In this release the minister spruiks the government's commitment to women's safety in South Australia and states:

Family violence is a serious crime committed by partners, relatives and other family members—those who are supposed to love and care.

The minister foreshadowed laws which 'will ensure that neither gender can use violence, or the threat of violence, to control another person'. That was on 6 March 2009; 10 days later a child was killed and his mother and a sibling were seriously injured in a violent attack by his father, who was on a mental health licence at the time.

In a statement today, Ms Vicki Lachlan (who chairs the Coalition of Domestic Violence Services of South Australia) said that South Australia needs 'to examine the systems that these families are in and how the systems they turned to for help and protection failed to avert these senseless and preventable murders'.

Following the deaths, the Parole Board Chair (Frances Nelson QC) said that the Davoren Park deaths could have been avoided if the government had acted on law reforms she has been asking for since 2003. The Attorney-General responded by saying that laws to deal with people on mental health licences who are a threat to public safety are not a priority for his government.

I ask the minister: what credibility can the government have in its professed commitment to women's' safety when the state's chief law officer gives such low regard to dealing with the causes of domestic violence? Will she ensure that the laws on mental health licences are reviewed to prevent violence, particularly in the home and particularly against women?

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 Assisting the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Energy) (14:42): I thank the honourable member for his important questions. Indeed, domestic violence is an issue that has a very high priority in my mind. A great deal of work has been done around the review and reform of domestic violence laws. A review was conducted some time ago to consider a range of different issues, and some proposals were put forward. At this very moment, we are looking to develop new domestic violence legislation.

The sorts of issues that we are looking at are quite profound within the area of domestic violence and they are, indeed, quite complex and difficult issues. We are looking, for instance, to shift the onus when there is evidence of a domestic violence incident or situation. Under current provisions, the woman and her children are usually removed from the family home and found shelter and protection. We are looking at ways of changing that onus so that the perpetrator would be removed from the family home and the wife and children could be secured in the family home.

As the Hon. Stephen Wade would know, having a legal background, these are quite significant shifts and proposed changes and they need to be dealt with in a very sensitive and careful way. That is exactly what we are doing: we are making sure that we get it right so that we do not end up creating another set of legal problems for ourselves. We are looking at quite significant changes, and that is just one that we are looking at. That is well under way.

I know I have raised this matter in this place before so I will not go through it in detail, but there is a range of other initiatives that this government has been very active in taking. One of those is the reforms to the rape and sexual assault legislation that are already in place. I think it was in April 2008 that we passed legislation to deliver major reforms in that area that made the perpetrator more responsible for their actions and provided greater support for victims of rape and sexual assault, and these laws are already in operation.

We have also put in place a trial for a family safety framework. We trialled that in three separate locations. That is a framework that provides case management, if you like, and risk assessment for those women who are at higher risk of suffering domestic violence, and it provides very quick and timely services around that woman and her family to support her and her family. We have trialled that, and the results from that evaluation have found that to be very successful. At present that framework is still in place in these three locations, so it is continuing, and we are now looking at the next step in terms of the further development of that framework in South Australia.

One of the other initiatives is that we have committed over $800,000 to an anti-violence public awareness campaign, and that campaign is aimed at informing and educating and ultimately reducing rape, sexual assault and domestic and family violence in South Australia. It is particularly aimed at young men, and it is challenging certain attitudes and behaviours around relationships that young men are involved in. That work is well under way as well, so we will be rolling that out fairly soon this year as well. So, as you can see, Mr President, this government has been far from complacent in being prepared to put its money where its mouth is and act to protect women from domestic and family violence.

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