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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-05 Daily Xml
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Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence in South Australia

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:05): My question is to the Attorney-General. Will the minister inform the council about the recent announcement of who will lead the Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:06): I thank the honourable member for his question, and I will be more than happy to do that. The government was very pleased to announce yesterday that Natasha Stott Despoja AO has been appointed to lead the South Australian Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence.

Ms Stott Despoja is a highly respected South Australian advocate, author, former diplomat and senator, with extensive experience in the field of working to prevent domestic, family and sexual violence. Ms Stott Despoja was named the founding chair of Our Watch in July 2013, the national foundation to prevent violence against women and children, and was appointed live patron of Our Watch in August 2022.

Adjacent to that involvement, Ms Stott Despoja served as a national ambassador for women and girls from 2013 to 2016, and was a member of the World Bank's Gender Advisory Council from 2015 to 2017. Currently a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, Ms Stott Despoja served on the 2017 UN High Level Working Group on the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents. An author, Ms Stott Despoja wrote the book titled On Violence and, of course, also served as a Leader of the Australian Democrats as a senator for South Australia in the federal parliament.

As recently announced, the royal commission is expected to take 12 months, and will have the powers to recommend policy, legislative, administrative and structural reform. Ms Stott Despoja will begin immediately with the preliminary work, with the formal commencement from 1 July. The royal commission will examine five key themes aligned with the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children:

1. Prevention: how South Australia can facilitate widespread change in the underlying social drivers of domestic, family and sexual violence.

2. Early intervention: how South Australia can improve effective early intervention through the identification and support of individuals who are at high risk of experiencing or perpetrating domestic, family and sexual violence.

3. Response: how South Australia can ensure best practice response to family, domestic and sexual violence through the provision of services and supports.

4. Recovery and healing: how South Australia can embed such an approach that supports recovery and healing through reducing the risk of retraumatisation and supporting victim survivors to be safe and healthy.

5. Coordination: how government agencies, non-government organisations and communities can better integrate and coordinate efforts across a spectrum of prevention, early intervention, response and recovery.

The royal commission will have a strong focus on empowering the voices of survivors and will help shift community understanding and discourse about domestic, family and sexual violence. The royal commission adds to significant reforms already being progressed, including:

a commitment to criminalise coercive control, with extensive consultation being undertaken with the community and the sector;

making the experience of domestic violence a ground for discrimination in the Equal Opportunity Act;

already having enshrined 15 days' paid domestic violence leave for workers engaged in the state industrial relations system;

committing $1 million to the establishment of southern and northern domestic violence prevention and recovery hubs;

providing $800,000 to restore funding to the Women's and Domestic Violence Court Assistance Service; and

reinstating funding to Catherine House.

I am very excited, and I think many members will be very excited, when Ms Stott Despoja commences in this important role and immediately begins the preparatory work for that.

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