Victoria’s royal commission into family violence has announced a further round of public hearings will be held in October, as the first 20 days of the hearings drew to a close on Friday.
While the scope of the hearings had been comprehensive, Dr Chris Atmore, a senior policy adviser with the Federation of Community Legal Centres and one of 168 witnesses to give evidence to the commission, said more hearings were sorely needed.
“There hasn’t been much focus on the system as a whole, on what aspects of the system need to be beefed up in the future to ensure services are integrated with each other,” Atmore said.
“This requires going much further than looking at how crisis services work together on the ground. There needs to be a unified understanding of best practice protocol across the board for government and other services, a memorandum of understanding written on paper that commits everyone to working together.
“Because everyone, from police to child support workers and court staff needs to have the same understanding of what family violence is and what needs to happen for victims to protect them. This higher-level discussion is yet to occur.”
Over four weeks, the commission led by Justice Marcia Neave has heard from police, doctors, magistrates, social workers and other experts working in the family violence sector, as well as eight lay witnesses harmed through family violence. Each day examined a different aspect of the system including perpetrator intervention, police responses to violence, drugs, children, housing and homelessness and mental health.
Over the next two months, this evidence will be reviewed along with written submissions made by the public, experts and institutions working in the sector.
While the commission’s work will culminate in a series of recommendations to the Victorian government at the end of the year, the chief executive of Domestic Violence NSW, Moo Baulch, said its impact would be much wider.
An estimated 13,000 people from around the world watched the live stream of the public hearings online, and Baulch said there had been intense interest in the hearings in New South Wales.
“It’s been interesting for the sector in NSW because much of what we’ve heard applies to us here, particularly issues around funding and the lack of coordination and information-sharing between services,” Baulch said.
“The commission has got a huge task to bring that together in a way that is useful, and it is going to be a challenge. But I believe it is also their responsibility to do so while we have this energy around the issue and while there is that pressure to put in place concrete next steps and to make them happen.”
Baulch said a royal commission would not be needed in NSW if Victoria’s commission could make strong recommendations. Although these recommendations would be tailored to Victoria, there should be elements other jurisdictions could replicate, she said.
The chief executive of Domestic Violence Victoria, Fiona McCormack, who gave evidence to the commission about police responses and integration of services, said the public hearings had not revealed much new to those working in the sector.
“But I think it has been useful in a range of ways, for example the lay witness testimonies have just been so powerful and probably the best evidence we’ve seen about where the system fails and how it can be improved,” she said.
This included evidence from a survivor who described how hospital staff sent her home after she tried to kill herself to her husband who was raping her.
McCormack said the public hearings had shown a lot of good work was being done across the sector but this was sorely underfunded. This, along with a lack of integration of services, meant even the best attempts at helping women sometimes failed, she said.
“I don’t think the hearings have revealed that the system is broken,” McCormack said.
“There’s a lot of talk that the system is broken but I don’t think that’s true, because I don’t think we need to throw everything out the window and start again. But paltry resources, unprecedented demand for services and very little new funding invested in the courts means it is a system under great stress.
“The hearings have uncovered the good foundational elements, but unfortunately they remain significantly under-resourced.”
The hearings will continue in October.
• 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) 1800respect.org.au the national 24/7 counselling helpline for family violence
• The Men’s Referral Service provides anonymous and confidential telephone counselling, information and referrals to men to help them take action to stop using violent and controlling behaviour 1300 766 491
