Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to speak on the Family Law Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill 2018. As we know, family violence continues to be a scourge on Australian society. I want to talk about family violence in the Northern Territory and, in particular, its impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across the general population.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia 2018 had a number of key findings. Family violence occurs at higher rates in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities than in the general population. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have increased risk factors of family violence, such as social stresses like poor housing and overcrowding, financial difficulties and unemployment. One in seven, or 14 per cent, of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women had experienced physical violence in the previous year. Of those, one in four, or 28 per cent, reported their most recent incident was perpetrated by a cohabiting partner. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women were 32 times and Indigenous men were 23 times as likely to be hospitalised due to family violence as non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Two in five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander homicide victims—41 per cent, or 32 victims—were killed by a current or previous partner compared with one in five for the rest of the population. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were about seven times as likely as other children to be the subject of substantiated child abuse or neglect. In the Northern Territory, a third of police time is spent dealing with family violence, and Aboriginal women are victims in 72 per cent of all cases.

This demonstrates the significance and the importance of this issue in my electorate of Lingiari and in the Northern Territory generally, and it is a sad indictment. The Northern Territory's Domestic, family and sexual violence reduction framework 2018-2028, which was released in December 2017 by the Minister for Territory Families, Dale Wakefield, revealed that there were 61 incidents relating to domestic and family violence on a typical day in the Northern Territory. The victimisation rate in the Northern Territory, according to this framework, is three times higher than anywhere else in the country, with 1,730 victims per 100,000 people. This report also revealed that Aboriginal girls were most likely to be the victims of sexual assault and that 91 per cent of sexual assault victims were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. Over half of those—51 per cent—were under the age of 19. The report also showed the shocking demand being placed, in this instance, on the Alice Springs Women's Shelter. During the 12 months to March 2017, 531 women and 438 children sought safety at the shelter. Of the women who sought shelter at the refuge in Alice Springs, 96 per cent were Aboriginal women.

The framework introduced in December 2017 builds on the achievements of the previous Domestic and Family Violence Strategy of the Northern Territory government and continues the support of the Family Safety Framework across the regions—that is, across the Northern Territory. It provides: intensive intervention support for high-risk victims of domestic and family violence; additional resources for prevention programs; money for the integrated and specialist domestic, family and sexual violence hub model for Tennant Creek, in particular, to support women and their children in the Barkly region; and it ensures that the NT Public Service leads the way for Territory employers on domestic and family violence, including paid leave.

These are shocking statistics. Sadly, they lead some to conclusions which are inappropriate. There has not been sufficient discussion about issues of causation and measures for prevention of family violence across Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities throughout this country. We know a number of things. We know this data, and how horrific it is. Whilst it's easy to criminalise behaviour—and it should be—what we need to do is look at the stories of these perpetrators, the history of the family and the community that people are living within, and the issues that are confronting. We know that one issue, for example, is alcohol and other drug abuse—that's not news to anyone. I want to commend the Northern Territory government, unlike other governments across this country, for taking the issue of alcohol abuse very seriously, introducing a floor price for alcohol and looking at opening times for alcohol outlets and their prevalence.

These are important measures in addressing the issue of alcohol harm. Sadly, because of the protests of the alcohol industry by and large, there's been less than fulsome support for the idea of changing the taxation arrangements for alcohol across this country. If we were serious in this country about seeing alcohol abuse as a public health issue—which it is—then we would be saying to the community that it is important that we look at the taxation issues relating to alcohol, address those issues so that we impact upon the demand for alcohol across the country, and know—because the research demonstrates it—that, if we use these price mechanisms as a result of increasing taxation, a volumetric tax and floor price, we will have a significant impact on the demand for alcohol. We know that that will mean fewer presentations at hospitals by people suffering violence as a result of alcohol abuse and fewer presentations to the police.

That's just one issue. There are many other issues that have not been properly addressed thus far. Recently we've seen the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory. We've seen a suite of recommendations made. We remind ourselves that this royal commission was called jointly by the former CLP Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Mr Giles, and Malcolm Turnbull as the Prime Minister of this country.

The horrendous nature of the abuse which this concentrated on was there in the evidence, and the treatment of Aboriginal kids in the Northern Territory was observed by the national community. The report made significant recommendations, which involve significant cost. I know that the Northern Territory government has committed $50 million to address those recommendations but, to date, we've seen not one dollar—not one dollar!—come from the Turnbull government, the co-sponsors of this royal commission, to address the recommendations of that royal commission report.

They can't say, on the one hand: 'We think this is a fantastic idea and we, the Commonwealth, will have a role, because we think this is really so important. We'll help you fund this royal commission,' and, on the other, walk away and abrogate their responsibility for funding the recommendations of that royal commission. That is precisely what the Turnbull government have done. There's no excuse for that.

In addition, we saw recently some very sad and horrific events around Tennant Creek. They were well publicised. The Prime Minister visited Tennant Creek in what was really a political stunt. He had conversations with people about having a regional plan for the Barkly, but failed to involve key Aboriginal representatives from the communities around Tennant Creek—for whom this plan will be so important—in those discussions. They didn't have a voice in this discussion.

In the context of other issues, we know that there is not sufficient knowledge about the impacts of intergenerational trauma on the mental health and associated emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal people—not only in the Northern Territory but elsewhere in this country. There is not sufficient knowledge about the impact of mental health issues in families and, particularly, in relation to fetal alcohol disorders and the impacts they have not just on the children but in the results of those children themselves having children. All of these complicated factors are involved in discussing family violence.

The other issue is the issue of overcrowding. We know that there's a significant shortfall in housing in the Northern Territory and, indeed, across many parts of remote Australia, not just in the Northern Territory. We know that the Northern Territory government has committed $1.1 billion over a decade for this—in fact, closer to $1.6 billion if we include the money for servicing of land for housing. The Commonwealth has only committed to half that amount. There used to be a long-term—a decadal—commitment to the supply of Aboriginal housing across the Northern Territory. This government have said that they're not prepared to renew that agreement and that housing is a Northern Territory government responsibility.

I kid you not, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta: if we don't address the horrendous issues of overcrowding, which involve communities, and families in particular, and which go to issues of child abuse and of alcohol and family violence, then we will not address the problem. Yet this government, for whatever reason, feels that it's okay to put in just enough to seed the process but not to commit long term to addressing the housing shortages across the remote Northern Territory.

Family violence is awful. We've got to treat the problem, address the people who are victims and provide them with freedom and the capacity to deal with the plight they're in, but it will not be easy unless there are a number of complementary measures which go to addressing the root causes behind the family violence in the first instance.

See this speech in context