Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In a sobering public statement on 15 October 2024, following the latest senseless killing—this time out at Lajamanu—Assistant Commissioner Travis Wurst of the Northern Territory Police Force echoed the thoughts of many of us. He said of the continuing deaths:

… that tragedy is one that the Northern Territory cannot ignore—seven matters are being investigated by the Northern Territory police as domestic homicides since 1 June of this year …

A further death happened last week in Katherine, with a woman dying at the hands of her partner.

The new CLP government has a mandate to address crime issues. They would no doubt say that it is a matter for them as to how they go about doing that, but, when it comes to revisiting legislation, it was surprising to me that it was not a priority step to reinstate the sentencing arrangements—which have been in place, under both Labor and CLP governments, for many years—for breaching domestic violence orders. The rule was very simple and straightforward: there was a minimum mandatory sentence for breaching a domestic violence order, and it could not be doubled up with any other sentence imposed on the offender.

This is not to say that enforcing the law in relation to breaching DVOs is, in itself, going to stop domestic homicides, but it is about sending a message. What message are we sending out there if sentences for breaching DVOs can get buried in and made meaningless by the imposition of concurrent sentences for some other offences? I've written to the Chief Minister, proposing a number of things, and said that we would work with her to try and address this increasing rate of Aboriginal women dying, in a terrible way, by their partners. It has to stop.

Lastly, there is a rallying call to men to say: it has to stop. On Monday 25 November in Darwin and on 5 December in Alice Springs, Aboriginal men and male leaders right throughout the Northern Territory will come together to say: we have to be the solution, not the problem. These deaths have to stop. We have to do everything in our power, whether it's federally or with state or local government, to stop these deaths.

It's surprising—and it shouldn't be surprising—that not one of these women's faces or names get lit up in the media when they die at the hands of their domestic partner. That is a crime in itself—that nobody sees the urgency in these deaths, which are increasing throughout the Northern Territory.