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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-26 Daily Xml
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DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:37): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women questions about domestic violence.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: This morning, a commemoration was held outside parliament to mourn South Australian women and children who have died recently as a result of domestic and family violence, and the minister addressed the gathering. Speakers at the rally highlighted the need to identify and address systemic failures in the justice and human services systems. In all the recent South Australian cases, the families involved were known to the criminal justice, health, education or human services systems.

Dr Elspeth McInnes of the University of South Australia highlighted the value of the death review model, which brings together professional and community members to analyse deaths to identify ways to prevent such deaths in the future.

An examination of the outcomes of death reviews by the Santa Clara Domestic Violence Death Review Board in California shows a significant decrease in domestic/family homicides. In that jurisdiction, over a 10 year period (1997 to 2007), there has been a 94 per cent decrease in domestic homicides. My questions are:

1. Did the review of domestic violence laws by Maurine Pyke consider systemic reviews of domestic and family violence fatalities, in the form of either death reviews or an amendment to the Coroners Act, to allow the Coroner to consider and make recommendations in relation to systemic issues?

2. If these two options have not been considered, will the minister ensure that they are considered in the development of any reform of domestic violence law?

3. Has, or will, the Pyke review be made public?

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) (14:38): It was a great privilege to attend the domestic violence rally held this morning on the steps of Parliament House as a memorial to those women and children who have died as victims of domestic violence. In fact, a large number of my parliamentary colleagues were in attendance, which I was pleased to see.

A large number of strategies are in place and have been completed in terms of addressing the issue of domestic violence. I talked about some of those yesterday, so I do not need to go through them again. However, they certainly include the reform of our domestic violence legislation, amongst other things. One element is being addressed at the moment by a group, initiated, I think, by Flinders University. That group is looking at the homicide review processes for people who are victims of domestic violence. A group has recently formed here in South Australia and is putting together research that has been done and looking at proposals that might be suitable for this state. That would, no doubt, include systemic issues around the causes of domestic violence. I commend that group for its efforts

Parallel with that, death review processes have recently been put in place (if I have my facts right) in both New South Wales and Victoria. They are two different models: one is an annex to the Coroner's Court, so it is part of that court but is a separate panel, and the other, in Victoria, I think has a council facility which is altogether quite separate from the Coroner's Court. So there are a number of ways that this sort of review can be structured, and we will be watching with great interest (as the Attorney-General also stated in his address at the rally today) to see the evaluations and outcomes from these interstate models.

As I said, they have only recently been introduced but, I have been advised that Victoria will be conducting evaluations. We look forward to considering the outcomes of those evaluations, as well as any considerations that may come out of the death review group that has recently formed here in South Australia. In terms of the Pyke report, I am not aware of its status at this point so I will have to bring back a response in relation to that part of the question.

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