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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-12-01 Daily Xml
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DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:49): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question about domestic violence.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: On Wednesday 25 November, the Mount Barker Courier reported on a forum on the rising domestic violence trend of children abusing their parents. The forum was organised by the Mount Barker Family Violence Investigation Unit's Senior Constable Sam Massey and Child and Mental Health Services counsellor Martin Gare. The Courier quotes psychologist, social worker and family therapist Eddy Gallagher as follows:

'While the assumption is that teenagers will act out and rebel against their parents, violence and abuse should not be the norm.' Mr Gallagher said while other types of violence were declining, he believed violence by children towards parents was rising...He added that women were leaving their abusive husbands, only to deal with similar behaviour from their children...Mr Gallagher said one of the main reasons this type of domestic violence went unnoticed was parents felt 'guilty' about asking for help with their children's behaviour when it was seen as their responsibility.

My questions are:

1. Do government statistics and feedback from services confirm an increase in domestic violence against parents by children and young people?

2. Does the government consider that domestic violence prevention and response measures and legislation are flexible enough to deal with issues of parental abuse by children and young people?

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) (14:51): I thank the honourable member for his most important question and indeed am delighted to report that our new intervention orders act successfully passed through the lower house today in completion. It was substantially dealt with in our last sitting week of parliament, but a few minor amendments had to be dealt with today. So, this very important reform legislation is though through both houses.

One of the very important elements of that legislation is to increase the scope of those persons who are capable of the offence of abuse. The honourable member might recall that traditionally that scope has really only included domestic partners. The new reform legislation increases that to include children and grandparents. There are also some indigenous kinship rules in there and it also covers carers who are non-employed, that is, volunteer carers who for instance might be living in as friends or companions.

The reason that we added particularly the children into that legislation was to address what we understand to be the very real issue that, most unfortunately, young people are involved in the abuse of their parents, particularly mothers. Young people, particularly 16 and 17 year olds, can be very well developed physically, and they are in a position where they can cause significant threat and physical assault and abuse, particularly to mothers. I am sure there are instances of assaults on fathers as well, but we know that women are more commonly involved in domestic violence as victims than men. I am very pleased that we have accommodated that in legislation.

I also point out that our response to domestic violence has been a multi-pronged approach. Not only does it include legislative change around domestic violence but also fairly recently we have reformed the legislation around sexual assault and rape. We are already in the throes of conducting a public awareness campaign around domestic and other violence. That campaign is particularly targeted towards young people. We are particularly trying to reach those people and influence their attitudes towards respectful relationships at an early stage.

A series of educational grants are also part of that campaign—up to $10,000 for any group or organisation—in an attempt to ensure that the message reaches as many people as possible. We have those grants to enable those groups that may not be as affected by the mainstream message as others to translate or ensure the message is delivered in a culturally appropriate way to a range of other groups.

This government has been very active in terms of its approach to domestic violence. We have also rolled out our family safety framework to three more police areas, I am pleased to advise. That family safety framework is a case management type service to those women and their families at high risk of domestic violence. That strategy wraps services around those people at high risk and ensures that the appropriate services needed by that particular family are put in place and followed through. That framework would also have the capacity to address the issue of children perpetrators, I am advised.

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