To escape partner
Police backflip on DV inquiry
POLICE have accepted a commission of inquiry into widespread cultural issues that are denying domestic violence victims justice months after railing against the need for one.
Acting Queensland Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski welcomed the government’s acceptance of the previously contentious recommendation to hold the inquiry after Commissioner Katarina Carroll rejected it as unnecessary in December.
Annastacia Palaszczuk on Tuesday accepted all 89 recommendations of Justice Margaret Mcmurdo’s first report of the Queensland Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce, which found perpetrators were being “emboldened” by police, lawyers and the courts in a scathing assessment of the Queensland justice system’s failings.
Advocates and victims’ families, including those of Hannah Clarke and her children, Allison Baden-clay, Doreen Langham and Kelly Wilkinson, sat in the parliament as the premier announced the historic $363m, four-year investment to better protect women and children against domestic violence.
They include the criminalisation of coercive control, a four-month-long commission of inquiry – the details of which will be announced on Wednesday – and a raft of other watershed reforms.
“This is far-reaching, it is historic, and it is once again
Queensland leading the way,” Ms Palaszczuk said. “What we have seen is that some women have fallen through the cracks and we want to do everything we can to prevent that from happening.”
Attorney-general and Domestic Violence Prevention Minister Shannon Fentiman said the government would take its time to get the reforms right, including greater training for first-responders, judges and court staff, the modernisation of stalking laws, expanding specialist DV courts, trials of “co-responder” models staffed with police and specialist domestic violence workers,
and the establishment of a disclosure register of serious domestic and family violence offenders for authorities.
Ms Fentiman said some reforms would go directly to stopping the mistaken identification of victims as perpetrators, which happened too often, including by refusing to award DVO cross applications and instead insisting a judge decide which party was most in need of the protection.
More than $15m will fund Respectful Relationship education in schools and more than $16m will be spent on an education campaign to raise awareness of non-physical violence and how people can respond to coercive control.
And $25.5m will be spent on training and new positions in perpetrator programs so more staff can work with offenders to stop dangerous behaviour.
Mr Gollschewski said police accepted the reforms and would fully co-operate with the commission of inquiry.
“The QPS responds to most DFV incidents very effectively, however we acknowledge there have been some instances where we have not gotten it right and our organisation welcomes the opportunity to learn and improve,” he said. “Responding to incidents of DFV is often challenging and complex. The inquiry is an opportunity for us to understand and reflect on what we can do, within our service, to better protect victims of DFV.”
In December Ms Carroll said while she did not “fear a commission of inquiry, I cannot support this recommendation”, that it was “not warranted” and would be “extraordinarily costly”. Since then, it’s understood police decided an inquiry could bring about changes to time-consuming processes and paperwork unpopular with officers.
They include extensive paperwork resulting from domestic violence call-outs and cumbersome processes like requiring written statements from victims, rather than being able to use bodycam recordings of testimony given on scene – a move that will soon be trialled.