Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A few weeks ago Mildura held the One Night Stand and it was a great event. We had great acts like Illy, RUFUS and many others—music that I am sure you are accustomed to.

That evening I spent some time with the Victoria Police, and we discussed the very important issue of domestic violence in my electorate. To their credit, the police, instead of a three-strike policy, have a two-strike policy. They come down like a ton of bricks on an offender who commits domestic violence on a second occasion, and this is having a great result in reducing our domestic violence.

They mentioned the need for an Australia-wide intervention order because, if the police impose an order in Mildura, offenders can simply cross over the river where that order is not binding.

Today I wrote a letter to Michael Keenan, the justice minister, outlining the need to work towards—and there is a lot of work to do in this area—an Australia-wide intervention order because we believe, as a country on both sides of this House, that domestic violence will not be tolerated.

We also believe that, when the police put an intervention order in place, it should be binding right across the country because we think that we should protect our victims of domestic violence. We stand by them and we look forward to the work that Michael Keenan will do to limit this terrible blight on our society.