Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence) Share this | Hansard source

LIDDLE () (): The amendments are, of course, important. They ensure further measures to protect adult complainants. Imagine that you've been violated in such a way as a woman who's had a partial or even a total removal of external genitalia and been stitched up, closed up or cut for non-medical reasons. There are no health benefits nor medical justifications for that practice, yet about 53,000 girls and women born elsewhere but living in Australia in 2017 had undergone that in their lifetime. That's 53,000 too many girls and women who have endured bodily mutilation that they will live with their entire life. While the number of prosecutions has been minimal since Australia's first case, in 2019, the estimated number indicates it's not a small issue.

Imagine, though, that this is your reality and you are one of those few thousand women who have been trafficked or are slavery victims in Australia each year. In 2022-23, the Australian Federal Police received more reports of modern slavery than in any other reporting period. That's about 340 reports, and they included forced marriage and domestic servitude. Since becoming a criminal offence in 2013, forced marriage has been consistently the most reported form of modern slavery in the nation. We've read reports about the reality of exploited foreign women being moved around Australia like cattle to licensed brothels, motels and other sites by organised crime syndicates.

In addressing this terrible issue, opposition leader Peter Dutton was pivotal in implementing the National Action Plan to Combat Modern Slavery 2020-25. It was an important move because these women are made even more vulnerable because they don't speak our language. They have no control over the work they're doing and no control over clients or their health and safety. They have no understanding of their rights in this country.

After the trauma, imagine you're a victim-survivor who faces giving evidence in court. Again, English may not be your first language. The courthouse may be something that is completely foreign to you. You are faced with the fear of interacting with a perpetrator again, and your past experiences of institutions and authority have been negative. The process of justice can be as confronting as it is isolating. This is why the coalition's amendments are important. We should be doing all we can to minimise the ongoing impact the court process has on victims and to ensure it doesn't add to the burden. The inquiry into this bill received strong submissions and support of a prohibition on an unrepresented accused questioning complainants in sexual violence cases of any type. The coalition is seeking an amendment to prohibit unrepresented defendants from being able to cross-examine complainants in sexual violence cases, with appropriate provision made for defendants to be represented by a lawyer for the purpose of any such cross-examination.

Facing the alleged perpetrator directly and having the cross-examination done by the same person who caused your trauma is unimaginable. The treatment of victims-survivors during court proceedings, as well as minimising risk and acting in the best interests of vulnerable people, should be paramount to improvements of the Crimes Act. The treatment of victims-survivors during court proceedings is even more important. In its submission to the inquiry, the Youth Affairs Council of South Australia stated:

Victim-survivors find the process of the criminal justice system distressing, humiliating and traumatising.

In fact, others have described victims-survivors as mere passengers in the legal system.

We should always seek to improve our federal, state and territory legal systems. In the landmark NT coroner's report released on Monday, the cases of the deaths of four Indigenous women and 68 others examined in the report describe persistent abuse. If the victims went back to their abusers, coercive control was a factor in almost all of those cases. These serious cases highlight an ongoing problem in the criminal justice response to sexual violence. All such violence can be preventable. Victims-survivors are, in many cases, too beholden to coercive control that's stopping them from escaping the violence they are facing. The coalition's amendments limiting the interactions between the victim-survivor and perpetrator in court will help reduce the impact of this problem.

Turning back to this federal crimes amendment act, an Adelaide barrister with nearly four decades of experience says the adversarial nature of court cases means there's never going to be a perfect solution in sexual violence cases. However, he describes improvements in Adelaide courts, with witnesses giving evidence remotely and courtrooms closed at that time. Affording enhanced protections to those victims-survivors involved in court proceedings as complainants or witnesses is important. Sexual violence is a denial of an individual to actively and independently make their own choices, to shape their own life and to control their behaviours and actions.

The amendment allows victims-survivors to represent legal representation—something that goes a long way to better outcomes for those who have been violated. Victims-survivors should have more protections than the prosecutors or judicial officers in sexual violence cases. Not only will legal representation provide protections; other information or advice for those individuals is considered and included.

At the moment, under the Crimes Act, victims-survivors don't have any free legal representation. This bill will, hopefully, allow those victims-survivors to get that representation they need. As the shadow minister for child protection and prevention of family violence, I understand the need for cultural change and unpacking the complex contributors to the prevalence of family and domestic violence not only for those who are Australians but for those who are in Australia. The amendments by the coalition to this bill will go only part of the way to improving outcomes for victims-survivors of sexual violence, human trafficking and slavery in Australia. How many people will this actually help?