Domestic violence campaigners say a vital prevention program is being undermined by budget problems in Victorias coroners court. The courts systemic review of family violence deaths researches patterns in domestic homicides to learn how they can be prevented. But it is feared funding pressures mean the review is unable continue its important work of reviewing family violence deaths, investigating common threads and trigger-factors. Legal advocates say family violence deaths will continue if the Victorian Government does not allocate more funding for a specialised coroners court research unit. They say the lack of annual funding means staff have been cut and the unit has only completed one official report. Dr Chris Atmore of the Federation of Legal Centres says the program is woefully under-resourced. They simply dont have the two and a half staff they used to have as part of the death review. Now they have part of one staff member, she said. Dr Atmore says the issue of family violence has been highlighted by the recent deaths of Luke Batty, Fiona Warzywoda and young sisters Savannah and Indianna. The public have a lot of questions about these deaths, about who kills who and about what circumstances and most importantly what we can do to avoid them in the future, she said. It is really important that as part of a properly re-funded death review there is a public information position so that the public can be provided with information and education, Dr Atmore said. Attorney-General Robert Clark insists the review will continue its important work. The report is only part of the work of the systemic review, a lot of it which appears in the coroners court annual reports is the analysis and classification of deaths on an ongoing basis, he said. The review was originally set up by the former Labor government as a pilot, with one-off annual funding of $250,000. In 2010 the Coalition Government decided the program would continue but would be paid for through the courts general budget. But the coroners court recorded a budget deficit of $1.2 million dollars in 2011-2012. The coroners court is not able to fund the death review properly, Dr Atmore said. Last year the Government allocated more than $1 million from the Justice Departments budget to help cover the shortfalls in the coroners court. It is not clear if the court will deliver another deficit this financial year. The Attorney-General blames the problems on the previous government. The Coalition Government has been working with the coroners court to fix the disarray in its budget that was left behind by the previous Labor government, Mr Clark said. But the Victorian Opposition leader Daniel Andrews says the current Government is to blame. The coroners court is strapped for cash because of other cutbacks Denis Napthine has made. This is too important to play budget cuts with, Mr Andrews said.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 01:00:00 +0000
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