The Government will establish and implement a National Women's Justice Strategy incorporating a range of policy initiatives for increasing and improving women's access to justice.
Under the National Women's Justice Strategy the Government will:
This Government has a proud history of working to improve the status of women within society and make the law more responsive to women's needs. The Sex Discrimination Act 1984 makes it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of sex, marital status or pregnancy in specified areas of public life. The Affirmative Action (Equal Employment Opportunity for Women) Act 1986 requires large employers to implement measures to secure the advancement of women within their organisations. The Government funds a number of women's legal centres to provide legal advice and representation for women and to undertake community legal education designed to increase women's access to the law. Funds also have been made available to provide gender awareness programs for judges and court personnel.
In highlighting these achievements, the Government acknowledges that more needs to be done. The Law Reform Commission's report outlined clearly the continuing disadvantage that women face in seeking to use the legal system to enforce their rights or seek protection from violence. The Government is committed to equality for women and will continue working to break down barriers that prevent women's full participation in, and equal enjoyment, of the benefits of our national life.
The Government will establish a National Women's Justice Strategy that will reflect its commitment to providing a legal system that is more responsive to the needs of women. The National Women's Justice Strategy encompasses: * a national network of women's legal centres * community legal education on issues relevant to women * national access to toll-free telephone legal advice * refocussing of legal aid to increase legal aid in family law and civil law * improved ways to address violence against women across the legal system and in family support services * funding for test cases * gender awareness programs for courts and tribunals * law reform, and * research into the effects that violence in relationships has on the access women have to mediation services and on the effect of the outcomes of mediation on women.
Specialist women's legal centres develop expertise in the legal issues that commonly concern women. They also are well placed to develop ways to redress the multiple disadvantages that particular groups of women face in accessing the legal system, for example, women in rural or isolated areas and women from various cultural backgrounds.
Women's legal centres have developed innovative ways of dealing with legal problems. By using the skills of staff trained in the law and other disciplines, these centres can ensure that issues such as domestic violence and family law, which cut across broader issues of law, money, housing and relationships, can be dealt with sensitively and comprehensively.
In a major new initiative, which will begin to redress the inequities Australian women have faced in obtaining access to legal services, the Government will provide $12.3 million over four years to establish a national network of women's legal services, ensuring that at least one specialist women's legal centre is located to serve the legal needs of women in every State and Territory.New women's legal centres will be opened around the country to provide legal services for women in every State and Territory. New women's legal centres will be established in Adelaide, Hobart, Perth, in the Northern Territory and in the Canberra/Queanbeyan region. Additional funding will be provided to the women's legal services that already exist in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, to upgrade and expand their services. Additional services will also be provided in key areas of growth in the western suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, and a new service will be provided for women in Northern Queensland.
Over the next few months, the Government will consult with local communities to determine the best locations for the new services and the most appropriate options for delivering services to meet the needs of each region.
The focus of the new centres will be on assisting women to gain access to justice. They will provide legal advice and referral services for women, including telephone advice services. They will undertake community legal education on the legal issues that are of particular concern to women, including family law matters, violence against women, discrimination, employment matters, `sexually transmitted debt' and other areas of law. They also will have an advocacy role and will increase the availability of lawyers for women needing legal representation in courts and tribunals, especially in domestic violence cases.
The centres will aim to develop appropriate forms of assistance for all women, including women of non-English-speaking backgrounds, those living in rural or isolated areas, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women with disabilities and women living in poverty.
Both the Australian Law Reform Commission and the Access to Justice Report presented a strong indictment of the way many Australian women have been treated by the legal system. The establishment of an Australia-wide network of new women's legal centres is an exciting initiative. It has the potential to bring great improvement to the position of women in their interactions with the law. Over time, the work done by women's legal centres will exert a dynamic new pressure for change to further strengthen the position of women in the Australian legal system.
The Australian Law Reform Commission report, Equality Before the Law, noted the specific disadvantages faced by women in rural and remote areas. Submissions to the Commission citing women's experiences emphasised the isolation that a lack of services brings:
Outreach workers will be placed in key rural centres to provide legal services for women.Outreach workers linked to the women's legal centres in capital cities will be placed in other community agencies to provide services in high need areas. These workers will provide services to individual women and give women in their local communities access to legal education materials developed by the women's legal centres. With close links to their rural communities, they will be uniquely placed to identify and address the specific needs of rural women.
In addition to the services provided by outreach workers, the central women's legal centres will be required to develop more widespread outreach services for their State/Territory or region as appropriate. Such outreach services may include circuit visits to areas of high need, distribution of legal advice and information material through other agencies, and education of community workers in other services so that they can assist women in outlying areas with legal information and referral.
Each women's legal centre also will be funded to provide a toll-free telephone legal advice service available to women throughout the State or Territory of location, so that women around Australia will have easy access to help on legal matters.
The Government also is committed to addressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women's access to legal services. Specific funding will be designated for the provision of services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, through the new network of women's legal centres.
While, for many matters, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women will continue to use the services provided by Aboriginal Legal Services, the provision of funding to women's legal centres specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women will give these women a choice about the services they use. This will be particularly important in cases where both parties to a dispute seek assistance from Aboriginal Legal Services, giving rise to conflicts of interest for those services. In other cases, such as sexual assault or in matters where evidence involves cultural or religious matters that are exclusively the province of women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women may prefer to consult a women's service.
The Government will provide $5 million over the next four years to enable the network of women's legal centres to establish specialist services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services provided through women's legal centres will be able to assist with identifying the legal service needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and develop the best methods for delivering those services. The units will provide legal assistance and advice, as well as referral and support services designed to meet the particular legal and cultural needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. The units will play an important role in developing outreach services for women living outside urban areas. Details of the services to be delivered through the network of women's legal centres, and the best models for the involvement of indigenous women in the planning, management and operation of these services, will be developed after appropriate consultations.
These small units will not be expected to provide services as extensive as those provided to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community through their own legal services. This will not be their objective. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women will continue to have access to the Aboriginal Legal Services that are already funded by the Government throughout the country. However, the experiences of these specialist women's services will significantly extend our knowledge of how best to provide appropriate services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. The achievements of these units will contribute to the pool of information and advice on which the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and the Government will make future decisions about how best to meet the legal needs of the entire Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
The new network of women's legal centres will aim to develop appropriate forms of assistance for women of non-English-speaking backgrounds.The new services will address the major difficulties facing migrant and refugee women in accessing justice, including language barriers and issues relating to the availability and effective use of interpreters. Many women from non-English-speaking families have limited independent financial means and, in particular, will welcome access to the free services offered by the new women's legal centres.
Women's legal centres nationally also will play a key role in developing and delivering high quality community legal education. Information dealing with the legal issues that impact on women will be produced and widely distributed throughout the community. Where appropriate, such material will be translated into community languages. Other activities could involve legal education sessions run in supportive environments for small groups of women. These could be conducted in languages other than English for groups of women from ethnic communities. Sessions could also be held on key legal issues and court procedures for community workers, including those from ethnic communities.
The Government will commit $500,000 to establish a national outreach and development fund. The fund will develop community legal education for women and legal information resources for mainstream legal workers.The fund will be used to develop resources for legal workers dealing with issues of particular relevance to women, as well as educational material for women of all backgrounds, which will be translated into community languages and into formats that make it accessible to women with disabilities. These resources, to be used throughout the women's legal services network and in community legal centres and legal aid commissions, may include practice manuals, pamphlets, videos, audio tapes, teaching kits or interactive computer programs.
The Government will resource the new national network of women's legal centres to provide toll-free telephone services.A number of the Commonwealth-funded community legal centres already have toll-free advice and referral telephone numbers. As part of the National Women's Justice Strategy, an education campaign will aim to improve awareness in the community of the availability of the range of free legal advice services.
In addition, legal aid commissions have been expanding the availability of toll-free telephone legal advice services in recent years. Already the commissions in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia offer such telephone services. The desirability of extending these services to other commissions will be examined.
The resource materials produced under the Outreach and Development Fund (outlined above) will be a key means of assisting legal aid commissions and community legal centres to provide appropriate and accessible legal assistance to their women clients. Access and equity priorities developed with legal aid commissions in the context of the Government's systemic reform of legal aid will ensure that mainstream legal aid is provided in ways that are useful and sensitive to women's needs. Access and equity strategies also will be required of community legal centres, to ensure that women have full access to these services.
At present, legal aid commissions devote a significant proportion of their resources to funding criminal cases at the expense of family and civil law matters. This imbalance tends to disadvantage women, because most applications for criminal legal aid are made by men, while women represent the majority of applicants for family law matters.
While the protection of individual liberty must remain a high priority for legal aid, allocation of legal aid funding should not be distorted by undue focus on criminal matters at the expense of other cases of vital importance to people's lives. Civil cases concerning child custody, protection from violence, or loss of the family home have enormous ramifications for the individuals and families involved. People in need of legal aid in such cases, the majority of applicants being women, should not be disadvantaged by legal aid funding priorities that do not address their needs adequately.
As noted elsewhere in this Statement[1], additional funding is to be provided to legal aid commissions to increase the commissions' ability to provide legal aid in matters that are currently underfunded, including family law and civil law matters such as income maintenance and discrimination.
The Commonwealth will be encouraging legal aid commissions to reassess their priorities to ensure equality of access to all areas of the law. Combined with systemic changes to ensure that Commonwealth priorities are met in the delivery of legal aid, the increased focus on improving access to all legal aid services, including in family law matters, will be of real significance to women.
The Committee also indicated that it is necessary to build on these reforms to improve the status of women, including the elimination of violence against women.
The Australian Law Reform Commission noted in its report, Equality Before the Law, that `violence directly impedes women in enforcing their legal rights through its destructive impact on their personal confidence and because they may fear retaliation'. When women do try and enforce their legal rights, access to justice may be impeded by the attitudes they encounter. The Law Reform Commission noted:
The Government will allocate $2.4 million over four years, through its family support services, to addressing violence in family relationships. Relationship counsellors will be trained to deal with violence in relationships.There are two components to these measures. First, two pilot programs will be developed within existing Government-funded counselling agencies to trial approaches to dealing with the issue of violence in families. Secondly, training in violence issues will be implemented for service providers in order that women who seek help can consistently receive a sensitive skilled response.
The Government is working to ensure that all its family services are equipped to deal appropriately with violence. It is important that these services have models available for dealing with violence in relationships that have been tested for their effectiveness and will not compromise the safety of family members.
To this end, the Government will establish pilot projects, within established marriage/relationship counselling agencies in one large and one small metropolitan centre, to develop effective and appropriate responses to violence in relationships. These pilot projects will develop preventive approaches for relationships at risk of becoming violent, and interventionist approaches where violence is already occurring. The models developed will be evaluated and developed for future implementation by all counselling services.
Some earlier investigation of this area has indicated that violence towards women and children can be stopped in situations where the partners want the violence to stop and want the relationship to continue. Women also can be assisted to leave violent relationships safely and take legal action where necessary.
The two pilot projects will provide support for women who have experienced violence, and children who may have been either the targets or the witnesses of family violence. They also will assist perpetrators to deal with their own violent behaviour. A key focus will be ensuring the safety of all family members and the cessation of violence.
Training will focus on skills associated with assessment, screening, and referral to other services such as police, welfare services, emergency housing services, health and other community services. After evaluation of the training packages, further materials will be developed to assist services in rural and remote areas.
This Government is also committed to ongoing research on family violence as it presents as an issue in the context of relationship counselling and is currently commissioning an evaluation into the effectiveness of the marriage/relationship counselling program that will include questions on the incidence of violence.
As noted elsewhere in this Statement[3] the Government will establish a national pilot program of facilitated handover and visiting centres in each State and Territory, for safe transfer of children between separated parents where there is a background of conflict or the risk of abduction, violence or other abuse. The Government also will provide funding for family skills training for parents using the handover and visiting centres.
The handover and visiting centres will be of benefit to both women and men who need assistance with arrangements for child access in order to avoid conflict and tension.
While use of these centres will often help to defuse potentially violent situations arising over shared parenting arrangements, the Government is also amending the Family Law Act to ensure that violence is taken into account properly when parenting arrangements are considered by the Family Court.
The reforms to the Family Law Act also will make mediation a primary means of resolving family law disputes. The need to ensure that violence does not work against women in these matters has been reflected in rules of the Family Court, which prevent mediation being used to resolve family disputes in cases where violence is a feature of the relationship.[5] A specialist Advisory Council on alternative dispute resolution will also advise the Government on matters such as consumer protection standards for alternative dispute resolution and the effect of mediation on women.[6]
The Joint Select Committee on Certain Aspects of the Operation and Interpretation of the Family Law Act identified an urgent need for police to have instant and up-to-date access to orders made by the Family Court. The Committee noted that police were facing difficulties in enforcing orders without knowledge of the terms of those orders.
A Family Court database on line to the Australian Federal Police will be developed, which will contain up-to-date records of orders made by the Family Court to ensure that the police are able to enforce those orders.The database will contain records of orders, such as those made by the courts, to protect women in situations of violence. To ensure that protection orders are given their full effect, the Australian Federal Police will have access to the database. Consideration also is being given as to how State police may be provided with information as necessary.
These reforms, of course, will assist both men and women who need police assistance to enforce any Family Court orders. For example, in circumstances where an access order has been made and a parent seeks to remove a child from the country in contravention of the order, the police will be in an improved position to confirm the details of the order and act quickly upon it.
In drafting the Model Criminal Code, the Government will actively seek women's perspectives on issues of particular relevance to women.The Office of the Status of Women and the Australian Law Reform Commission currently are providing assistance in relation to the chapter of the Code dealing with offences of violence, such as assault, sexual assault and murder. Work on this chapter, which will include all the crimes of violence against women, will include an examination of the general principles of criminal responsibility, including self-defence and provocation.
Moves to implement a uniform national approach to firearms control are discussed elsewhere in this Statement.[9] One specific initiative that has been pursued by the Government concerns changes to existing procedures governing the release of imported firearms by the Australian Customs Service. Those changes seek to limit the ability of individuals with criminal records, adverse firearms licence histories or current domestic violence orders to obtain firearms.
Police Ministers also have agreed to an extension of the currently approved Police Reference System, by which police have computer access to police records in other jurisdictions. Included on that system will be a record of individuals with adverse firearms licence histories and those against whom current domestic violence orders have been issued.
Research on the criminal justice response to violence against women now will be coordinated so that the Government will have reliable national data for the development of the best means of dealing with crimes of violence against women.The Australian Institute of Criminology will collect and evaluate data to determine the effect of jurisdictional differences in domestic violence and sexual assault matters on access to justice for women. The Institute will liaise with women's legal centres, the Office of the Status of Women and other bodies to establish common systems of data gathering and information retrieval. Differences in prosecution and sentencing will be analysed to ascertain what forms of legislation work most effectively to ensure access to justice for women who have experienced violence. Any potential gaps will be identified and the Institute will be in a position to recommend `best practice' models for Government initiatives to address violence against women.
The Courts and Tribunals chapter of this Statement details the initiatives the Government has introduced, and new steps it will take, to address these issues. The following provides a summary of those initiatives.
Funding has been provided in the last two years for the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration to develop pilot programs for judges on gender issues.
The Government also provided funding in 1993-94 to the Family Court for the development of a gender awareness program for judges and other decision-makers of the Family Court. That funding was provided in response to specific recommendations of the National Committee on Violence Against Women. Gender awareness is particularly crucial for those dealing with family law matters, as such issues are intrinsic to many family law disputes. The Law Reform Commission's report, Equality before the Law, particularly recommended that judges, magistrates and court officers who deal with family law and violence matters should be informed about the dynamics of violence against women in the home.
The Government strongly supports the expansion and further development of these programs.
As detailed elsewhere in this Statement,[10] the Government will make resources available to courts and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for professional development programs, which will include a significant focus on gender issues.
This funding also will be used to provide training for Family Court counsellors, particularly in areas of child development, child sexual abuse and domestic violence.
The Attorney-General's Department is also investigating a range of options to provide ongoing support for professional development for judges. These options include, but are not limited to, the possibility of establishing a specialist national centre for this purpose.
The Government is providing guidance on gender issues to university and college law schools through the Department of Employment, Education and Training.With the support of the Committee of Australian Law Deans, the Government is developing curriculum materials to assist law schools to include perspectives on gender in all law subjects. With this input, it is expected that law students will gain an appreciation of the limitations of existing legal principles and structures when applied to women's lives. This is a small but significant step towards inculcating a gender-aware culture in a profession that often has been criticised as unresponsive to women's needs.
The Australian Law Reform Commission in its report, Equality before the Law: Women's Access to the Legal System, stated that:
As noted elsewhere in this Statement,[11] the Government will undertake a study in 1995-96 in order to determine what facilities are available in all Commonwealth courts and tribunals, and what the needs are for additional facilities to meet the needs of women. This information will provide a sound basis for making necessary adjustments to court and tribunal premises.
The Government will provide additional funding to promote important public interest and test cases in all jurisdictions.[12] The test cases will be designed to clarify and develop the law. The test case fund could cover cases of particular importance to women, such as in the areas of health, consumer protection and discrimination. Such cases will play an important function in defining the nature of the rights and responsibilities of government, industry and the community, and will have an important role to play in clarifying laws that deal with discriminatory action against women.
Further proposals for amendments to the Act are now before Parliament. These amendments include insertion of a preamble incorporating a general prohibition against discrimination and an equality before the law provision. The `special measures' provision of the Act will be strengthened to make it clear that measures that are designed to bring about equality are not prohibited. Discrimination on the ground of potential pregnancy, which can significantly disadvantage women in employment, will be prohibited, and the exemption that currently allows discriminators to argue that discrimination on the ground of pregnancy is reasonable will be removed. The indirect discrimination section will be simplified and strengthened. As part of the Government's ongoing commitment to review and limit the exemptions from the Sex Discrimination Act, the current exemption for the Australian Defence Force to discriminate against woman in relation to undertaking combat-related duties will be removed. These amendments continue our commitment to see the Act work as a dynamic and powerful piece of legal protection for women's equality.
The Government will shortly be considering extending the Act to provide more general protection against discrimination in the workplace on the ground of family responsibilities. An Issues Paper, Workers with Family Responsibilities, has been circulated, canvassing a number of options to further strengthen protection for workers with family and caring responsibilities. The Government's response is being developed in the light of community views on this important area.
The Sex Discrimination Act was a landmark for women when the Labor Government passed the Act in 1984. Since that time, we have consistently reviewed the operation of the Act to ensure its continued effectiveness. Accordingly, we are reviewing the exemptions in the Act, to determine whether they remain appropriate and relevant to community needs and expectations. A number of reports to the Government have recommended changes to some of the exemption provisions and these will be the subject of thorough consultation later this year.
A major issue arising out of the Law Reform Commission's inquiry into equality before the law concerns the Commission's recommendation for the enactment of an Equality Act that would enshrine the principle of equality in Australian law and provide a benchmark against which Government action could be judged. The Act would apply to all levels of Government and was proposed by the Commission as an interim measure, the long-term goal being entrenchment of an Equality Act in the Constitution.
These are important and weighty proposals. The Government will be giving serious consideration to these matters and will be undertaking widespread consultation this year, including with the States and Territories, before responding to the Commission's proposals.
In other law reform initiatives, the Government has responded to concerns about women and debt with reforms in corporate law and in bankruptcy law. In corporate law, the Government has passed reforms that enable companies to be formed with a single director. This will reduce the pressure sometimes placed on a spouse to assume company directorships without having an active role in the company's activities. The Government has also recently introduced amendments to allow the Federal Court, under the Bankruptcy Act, and the Family Court to exercise each other's jurisdiction where the bankruptcy of one spouse affects the family law entitlement of the other. This will allow the non-bankrupt spouse's contribution to the marriage to be recognised in bankruptcy proceedings, allowing a spouse to claim on their partner's bankrupt estate.
Finally, the language in which laws are expressed is also important in keeping them relevant and accessible to women. In recent years, a consistent attempt has been made to remove discriminatory language from Government legislation and other Government documentation. The Australian Law Reform Commission, in its recent report, Equality Before the Law, recommended that all legislation be amended to use gender appropriate language. The Office of Parliamentary Counsel recently has reviewed Commonwealth Acts to identify those that still use only masculine pronouns. A renewed effort is being made to update these Acts. Reform of commonly-used Commonwealth Acts to remove inappropriate language is expected to be complete in the next two years.
[5] See `Resolving Disputes'
[6] See `Resolving Disputes'
[8] See `The Law'
[9] See `Tackling Crime: Towards a Safer Australia'
[10] See `Courts and Tribunals'
[11] See `Courts and Tribunals'