Page 1713 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 June 2016
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This bill therefore establishes the legal framework for the protection of people from domestic, family and sexual violence by implementing 22 key recommendations made in the report of the Australian Law Reform Commission and New South Wales Law Reform Commission titled Family violence—a national legal response. The reforms progressed in the bill include expanding the definition of family violence and preventing a self-represented respondent from personally cross-examining an applicant for a family violence order. The bill also implements the scheme for national recognition of family violence orders.
The bill expands the definition of family violence to expressly include a broader range of behaviours, including emotional, psychological and economic abuse. The inclusion of these behaviours in the definition is consistent with the ACT government’s commitment to reduce and prevent family violence in our community. This definition covers commonly acknowledged forms of family violence and reflects well-established research into the nature of it.
Allowing self-represented respondents to personally cross-examine the person they are alleged to have committed violence against risks the re-victimisation of the person affected by that violence. Giving evidence can be intimidating and distressing and if the victim has to face cross-examination from the person alleged to have used violence against them, they are, we know, often discouraged from applying for an order. This bill prevents self-represented respondents from cross-examining applicants themselves.
Importantly, the bill implements recommendation 26-6 of the ALRC report by allowing police interviews with an adult victim of sexual assault to be used as evidence-in-chief in a criminal trial. This will bring evidence law into line with the approach already taken in relation to victims who are under the age of 18 years. The amendments in the bill will not limit the right of an accused to examine witnesses or adduce evidence for their own submissions.
The bill also includes after-hours orders which have been modelled on the emergency orders currently available under the Domestic Violence and Protection Orders Act 2008. The grounds for making an after-hours order have been updated to ensure language is consistent across the bill and to provide clarity about when the orders should be available.
The new after-hours orders will ensure that police and the courts can put in place appropriate measures to protect the safety of the affected person or prevent substantial damage to their property, particularly where an arrest for a family violence offence cannot be made.
This bill therefore builds on the work currently being completed at a national level to improve responses to family violence. On 11 December last year the Council of Australian Governments agreed to introduce a national domestic violence order scheme to allow domestic violence orders issued in one jurisdiction to be automatically registered and enforced in all of the others. The bill introduces the model domestic violence order scheme laws agreed to by COAG to facilitate this new national scheme.
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