Wednesday, 27 November 2024

Family violence

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:53): (1323) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, and the action I seek is for the minister to work with the Attorney-General to consider if the laws that deal with breaches of family violence intervention orders are fit for purpose. All too often when we hear stories of women who have lost their lives due to domestic violence, they did all of the right things. These women warned police about the threats to their life and obtained a family violence intervention order, but tragically they still ended up dead.

Thanks to data from the Crime Statistics Agency on people who repeatedly breach family violence intervention orders, we know that these are not just one-offs but part of a troubling trend. I was provided with data on alleged offenders arrested with a principal offence of breach of family violence order who had previously been arrested for the same principal offence. Essentially this is data about how many people arrested for breaching family violence intervention orders are repeat offenders. Between July 2023 and June 2024, 2010 people alleged to have breached a family violence intervention order had previously been arrested for a breach. Even more alarmingly, of these alleged offenders, 873 had previously breached a family violence intervention order within 30 days. When we compare that to the data from July 2017 to June 2018, in the last six years there has been a 64 per cent increase in people repeatedly breaching family violence intervention orders. This data confirms our worst fears: family violence intervention orders are not adequately protecting victims, and their rate of failure only seems to be increasing.

We are in the middle of the United Nations’ 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence. At this time we are asked to reflect on the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls. As community leaders we have a role to play in ending gender-based violence. Advocacy is undoubtedly important, but what is more important is that we consider policies that will meaningfully address gender-based violence in our community. When we look at this damning data and we hear so many stories of women that did all the right things but still died, we are duty-bound to act. So I ask and I plead with the minister to work with the Attorney-General to consider if the laws that deal with breaches of family violence invention orders are fit for purpose.