Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Hansard source

The Northern Territory has the highest rate of domestic violence in the country. Nearly 100 women have been murdered by their partners over the last 25 years. In speaking about domestic violence, I'm not a bystander. I know what it means to be brutally assaulted and hospitalised. I am a survivor and I've lived with the consequences of domestic and family violence that stretch far beyond the incident itself.

I've also seen what violence looks like when it's tolerated. My cousin Carolyn, a twin and mother of four in her late 30s, was deliberately mown down and murdered by her partner. Then there was her sister Stephanie, another cousin of mine and a mother to my niece Keira, who was in her late 20s. I had to ID Stephanie's lifeless body after she was killed in a violent car crash. Stephanie was in the front passenger seat of a car when her companion, who was driving, was attacked by her abusive partner seated in the back seat. There was my niece Linda, a mother of two small boys, who was callously stabbed by her ex-partner in a town camp in Alice Springs. Her life was cut short because she chose to escape a violent relationship. Their lives were changed forever. There was my Aunt Roslie, my mother's sister, who was stabbed to death in a town camp in Katherine, this time by a woman known to her. There was my Aunt Rita, the wife of my loving uncle. He died of kidney failure before her life was taken. She was beaten and stabbed by a group of women in a town camp in Alice Springs, leaving my young cousin an orphan.

Violence continues to plague Aboriginal communities because violence was normalised in traditional Aboriginal culture. But you won't hear a peep about this from the activists in the Aboriginal industry or from those opposite. They prefer to turn a blind eye to domestic violence today and romanticise Aboriginal traditional culture in its entirety.

Domestic violence continues to plague many parts of our country, not just Indigenous communities, because there's a failure to draw clear lines, because perpetrators are allowed to remain in positions of authority, because accountability is avoided and because the message sent to victims is to endure rather than to expect justice. That's why I reject claims that stronger sentencing is excessive. Excuses do not protect women. What protects women is consequences. When there are no consequences, there's no deterrent. I've seen what happens when perpetrators face no real consequences: violence escalates, victims are silenced and communities learn to tolerate the intolerable.

It doesn't have to be like this. This week the Northern Territory government introduced legislation that provides a clear, unequivocal and consequential response to domestic violence. Thanks to Lia Finocchiaro's leadership, the Territory has proposed the strongest sentencing laws in the country for domestic violence murderers. Under these changes, offenders would face a mandatory minimum non-parole period of 25 years. That's 25 years in prison. Importantly, a new mandatory non-parole period doesn't mean automatic release. Offenders will still face rigorous parole thresholds before they are ever considered for freedom.

I support these strong measures because they prioritise the safety of women and children. Strong sentencing matters. It matters for deterrence, it matters for community safety and it matters for restoring public confidence to the justice system. This reform is about prevention. It's about enforcement. It's about sentencing and corrections that protect victims, rather than a justice system that seeks to rehabilitate perpetrators at any cost.

Australian women mustn't endure what the law should prevent. I hope other Australian states and territories will follow the example of Lia Finocchiaro and her Attorney-General, Marie-Clare Boothby.