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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-03-05 Daily Xml
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Domestic and Family Violence

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:29): My question is to the Minister for Human Services.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! I need to be able to hear the Hon. Ms Lee. The Hon. Ms Lee.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: My question is to the Minister for Human Services about supporting victims of domestic and family violence. Can the minister please provide an update to the council about how the Marshall Liberal government is delivering better services for victims of domestic and family violence?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:29): I thank the honourable member for her question. We have a range of initiatives which were driven from the state election and which are now being implemented to improve services for people who are experiencing domestic and family violence. I have talked previously about the round tables that we held which have enabled us to test, with regional communities particularly, what our election commitments were and to establish some changes to those policies, and also to establish some new services.

Some of the things which I think are worth highlighting in terms of some of those commitments and the way they are progressing includes the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, which enables an individual who is concerned about their partner or former partner or prospective partner or a family member or friend of that person to make an application to check the history of someone to see whether they have a history of violence. In terms of the people who use that scheme, we anticipate that they will be people who have not previously been in contact so, in effect, we are reaching out to people in the community who otherwise might not be receiving any services.

The summary of applications between October 2018 and December 2019 number 316, and 212 were taken for further consideration. We have held 17 meetings with those who SAPOL determined were at imminent risk of harm with urgent disclosure meetings, and there have been 99 disclosure meetings held.

We have also had some great numbers through the first safety hub, The Haven, at the Murray Bridge Community Centre. That opened last year and the six-month data shows that we have had some 697 contacts through that particular safety hub. Again, these are people who may not know much about domestic violence; they may not be able to identify that what they are experiencing is potentially domestic violence as well.

In addition, we have a personal protection app which is determined by women's safety services as to the level of risk. It is applied to those people who are at high risk and enables those people who have access to that app to contact police very quickly. So far—this data is at 30 September last year—75 women were granted access to that app, which give them some peace of mind that if some emergency event is to occur then they can access police very quickly.

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