New Laws for Victorian Intervention Orders

The Victorian Government is introducing state-wide changes to intervention orders from 1 April 2005 to increase protection for children exposed to family violence and simplify access to the justice system. The changes are contained in the Magistrates' Court (Family Violence) Act 2004 (the Act) which also establishes the Family Violence Court. The Family Violence Court will operate as a pilot at the Heidelberg and Ballarat Magistrates' Courts in conjunction with the Family Violence Court Intervention Program - a court directed counselling program for male defendants to intervention orders.

Changes to the law and procedure of intervention orders fall into two categories:

1. changes relating to children; and
2. changes to intervention order procedures and evidence.

• New grounds for intervention orders for children;
• Intervention orders for children of the court's own motion; and
• Restrictions on when a child may give evidence in intervention order proceedings.

• Clarifies the Crimes (Family Violence) Act 1987 so that the court is not required to hear evidence from an aggrieved family member at an interim intervention order hearing when the complaint has been made by someone other than that person, such as the police or if the aggrieved family member is a child;
• Requires new facts and circumstances for a defendant's application for revocation or variation of a family violence intervention order;
• Allows the court to accept evidence by affidavit for family violence intervention orders in addition to oral evidence in court;
• Enables intervention order applications to be heard at a Magistrates' Court closest to the residence of the person who has allegedly experienced family violence, rather than the residence of the person who has allegedly used family violence;
• Permits interim intervention order applications to be heard at any venue of the Magistrates' Court;
• Stops children from being present or called as a witness, unless they are a defendant or are permitted by the court to be present;
• Prevents children from giving evidence by affidavit, unless they are seeking to become a party to proceedings or the court makes an order for them to do so; and
• Restricts reporting on intervention order proceedings where a child is a witness or party.

For more information visit the Victorian Legislation and Parliamentary Documents website at http://www.radicalwomen.org/

Prepared by: Family Violence Court Division Project Team Court Services Department of Justice 1/436 Lonsdale Street Melbourne 3000 Ph 03 9603 9484 Fax 03 9603 9027 (20 January, 2005).

	DVIRC Resource Kit: 101 Ways to Prevent Family Violence Cost: Victoria - Kit Free, $10 for postage & handling ; Interstate $45 (includes postage & handling)

Domestic Violence Victoria (DV Vic)

has moved

Level 2, Queen Victoria Women's Centre 210 Lonsdale St Melb 3000 PH: 9921 0828

DV Vic now has meeting room facilities for up to 18 – 20 max For bookings and general administrative enquiries call or email Marilyn @  mailto:admin@dvvic.org.au  Ph: 99210828

NEW Trends and issues in criminal justice

No. 291: Prosecutorial decisions in adult sexual assault cases by Denise Lievore, January 2005

... This paper analyses prosecutorial decisions to proceed with or discontinue prosecution in adult sexual assault cases, based on a survey of 141 Director of Public Prosecutions case files in five Australian jurisdictions. The results indicate that case decisions are primarily based on evidentiary considerations related to the ability to secure a conviction, but they also raise questions about the handling of cases involving prior relationships.

• view paper (HTML)
• PDF print version (PDF 188kB)

Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria

Private Lives survey

Private Lives is the biggest and most ambitious research survey of the health and wellbeing of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people ever conducted in Australia . It is being carried out through Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria (http://www.glhv.org.au/) in partnership with the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) at La Trobe University.

Click here to access the survey.

The research will be generated by the Private Lives survey will benefit the GLBT community as athat whole by capturing a clearer understanding of the way public health strategies affect individuals in our community. It will also help to guide the implementation of services that are more relevant and appropriate to individuals within it. Your input thereby has the potential to influence the scope of what the public health sector has to offer the queer community and to modify the way health professionals interact with individuals within that community. The data will be analysed and results published in a widely distributed report which will also be online at the survey site.

2 Day Symposium in Bendigo with

Ruth Busch, Associate Professor of Law

Waikato University, New Zealand.

A dynamic speaker, Ruth has published extensively on judicial approaches to domestic violence and is internationally recognized for her work in justice reform.

When: Wednesday 27 th and Thursday 28 th April 2005

Where: Bendigo .

This symposium is designed to facilitate in-depth discussion and will be of interest to domestic/family violence workers, child protection workers, police, lawyers, magistrates, judges, policy makers, other professionals working in the area of children and domestic/family violence, academics and students.

This is a unique opportunity to spend two days with Ruth Busch who will address questions including:

• Too many children are physically and/or psychologically harmed, and sometimes murdered because of unsupervised contact with dangerous parents (usually fathers) with a history of violence.   What can we do about this?

• What can we learn from child death inquiries?

• How can we work better together so that these children don't slip through the cracks in our service system?

• Does the current Family Law system in Australia provide adequate protection for children subject to Contact Orders when domestic/family violence is involved?

• Is our law adequate? What can we learn from the New Zealand experiences and legislative changes?

• How can our law uphold the best interests of the child? Should we embrace a rebuttable presumption against unsupervised contact where there is a relationship of domestic violence, as NZ has done? Should we err on the side of supervised contact until the parent is proven to be a safe parent?

• Are we in danger of going backwards on these issues in the current social and political environment?

Registrations close Friday 22 nd April at 5pm.

Enquiries to Julie Oberin 0419539346 or ani@infoxchange.net.au

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The Domestic Violence Resource Centre is funded by the Victorian Department of Human Services and works to end all forms of family and relationship violence through education, training, research and systemic advocacy.

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