Page 715 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 31 March 2021
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samples can be taken. Again, that is the point of a motion like this one. We need to get to a position where all these things have been discussed and carefully considered proactively and we are confident that we have done all in our power to get the evidence preserved for the empowerment of survivors.
Some survivors may be too afraid to even take themselves off to hospital, which is why I think it would really assist if we considered a mobile service. If that is not found to be possible, I understand, but it is a reasonable thing to consider. Police have told me that, in their view, best practice is to allow the survivor to leave the site of the offence. When police are involved, that process is managed by taking survivors in an unmarked police car to the Canberra Hospital. However, when police are not involved, are we making things as smooth for survivors as possible? If one is elderly or has a disability, can they easily get to a facility like the Canberra Hospital, or is a mobile option for them at least a possibility? These questions we should ask and answer.
Turning to funding for the Canberra Rape Crisis Service, I understand that this service was funded to have a counsellor on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That is not the case now. For whatever reason, the funding has changed and the service has been reduced to 7 am to 11 pm daily. This must be rectified immediately. As I said earlier in this speech, there must be a single, professional and completely appropriate point of contact for those who have just been assaulted. It must be a simple number, very well advertised and known, that will necessarily involve our specialist counsellors in these situations.
The Canberra Rape Crisis Service is our expert service. It cannot completely be available for those in this city if it cannot get to those who need it 24/7. I would suggest that the Canberra Rape Crisis Service be funded for two counsellors on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Counsellors cannot easily attend people’s homes unless there are two of them and in some cases, like for those people with disabilities and in aged care, this is still necessary. Therefore, as I said, I would ask the minister to fund two counsellors 24/7.
To recap, in relation to the Forensic and Medical Sexual Assault Care service, which operates out of the Canberra Hospital, and the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre counsellors, I am asking that a single phone number be available for those and that it be accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week for people in Canberra who have lived through sexual assault or rape. I am asking that this service be geared towards giving survivors the empowerment of having samples taken and appropriately stored, if that is their choice, and analysed so that, should they choose at some time in the future to take a matter to court, there is every chance of a conviction. Because of the nature of forensic sample collection, survivors need to get to this service as soon as possible after the assault and they need to preserve the evidence; they cannot change their clothes, wash or eat before samples are taken.
Let us do everything in our power to get this information out into the mainstream of our community so that it is known that rapid response after a sexual assault is absolutely vital. Every friend, every flatmate, every manager, everyone who is a bystander immediately after an assault, as well as the security service personnel at Parliament House: this is something we must all be aware of. Let us get it into every
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