Interview with Tom Connell, Sky News
TOM CONNELL: Joining me now to talk through it, Shadow Finance Minister, Jane Hume, thank you for your time. It's pre-Budget, normally we’d be talking about that, but there's a bit else in the headlines. Look, on domestic violence and violence against women - it's been a week of sort of hand wringing and introspection, I suppose in reflection. We know there's more money being put up. Does it go beyond money? This issue, as much as the money, will matter as well?
JANE HUME: Tom it does go beyond money because it's not just about what the Federal Government can do. Indeed, it's not just about what state governments can do or community groups can do. It's about - and Peter Dutton said this - standing shoulder-to-shoulder, working towards the same outcome. Good work has been done in this space. There is no doubt about it. The fourth national action plan to end violence against women and their children is something that has been worked on in a bipartisan way across governments over time. I can remember hosting a roundtable on this very issue as part of that process of putting that national action plan together back during the COVID days, where we had community groups talking to state governments, talking to local councils, talking to federal government, to get those frontline services right - both preventative, as well as responsive. But the dial hasn't moved far enough - nowhere near enough. So more does need to be done. There is evidence out there as to what works. For instance, there was a program that was run in Tasmania called Project Vigilance, which was about putting electronic monitoring - bilateral electronic monitoring - on both a perpetrator that was out on bail or parole, as well as the victim, and it was monitored by police so they could see when offenders came near their victims, and alert the victims to say “Hey”, you know, “get out of the way! Put your safety action plan into place.” Now, we funded that program and it was supposed to go nationwide. It was cut in the 2022 Budget. And that's I think, a real shame because it did shift the dial particularly, on reoffending. So there's more that can be done.
TOM CONNELL: And I guess that's the vision at the very end of it. And don't get me wrong. It's obviously extremely important, because we've seen the one thing really ticking up this year, these murders of women. On the prevention side of things even earlier in that piece though, ultimately we're talking about men needing to stop doing this. It might seem counterintuitive, but we need more in, sort of, support services for men. Earlier intervention. Most of the advertising you see sort of highlights, “Hey, you can't do this.” You know, coercive behavior isn't acceptable. But for a man wanting to reach out and improve themselves, you know, not go down that path - it might be unfashionable to provide that money, but is that something that there's not enough money in for?
TOM CONNELL: Absolutely, and I think that the response should be both big picture and small. I know that the Stop it at the Start campaign was something that was initiated by the Federal Government and it was an excellent campaign. Don't get me wrong. Those sorts of things: Stop it at the Start, 1800Respect. They've now become part of the vernacular of violence against women, which is good. People automatically go to those catchcries. That's really important. But there are also some local, on-the-ground programs that work exceptionally well. The Fathering Project is one that I can think of that's run out of New South Wales. I spoke to somebody just the other day in the seat of Scullin, in Mill Park, that runs a program for young men that are beginning to lose their way, if you like, for want of a better expression. The problem is so many of these things are done locally and not scaled. Now that can sometimes be a good thing, not a one size fits all approach. But at the same time, you do want to know what it is that moves the dial, what it is that changes attitudes and cultures so that we can protect women in the future. There is work that needs to be done on the immediate - there is no doubt about that. We need to be better with our responses to women that are fleeing domestic violence or intimate partner violence. But at the same time, we also need to look towards the future so the next generation of women are also affected.
TOM CONNELL: Yeah, I guess we're talking about the really local grassroots organizations - they might be ones men are more likely to reach out to, rather than calling 1800Respect. Anyway, look, no shortage of suggestions coming out there. On the detainee issue obviously and getting a lot of headlines after this released detainee allegedly involved in this brutal home invasion on the ankle bracelet. What are you making of this? So there's a delegate of the Minister that's supposed to make this decision. The Coalition voted for these laws. Did you not quite realise what you voted for? Do they need these changing or clarifying?
JANE HUME: I'm absolutely certain we knew what we voted for and it certainly wasn't an abrogation of the Minister's responsibility. Just because you have an advisory panel that makes recommendations, doesn't mean that you're not responsible for the final decision. And that seems to be where Anthony Albanese was going in his interview this morning. I think that Minister Giles may have clarified that somewhat. Now if the Community Protection Board needs to rethink the way it makes decisions, needs to rethink the criteria that it considers when making decisions as to how best to deal with this cohort of criminal detainees, well, so be it. But quite frankly, that does not absolve the Minister. It doesn't absolve the senior Minister. It doesn't absolve the Government of the responsibility that that community Protection Board is making.
TOM CONNELL: And the other aspect on preventive detention, it is a high bar at the moment, it has to be someone at serious risk of carrying out a sexual or violent crime. Now the person in question had never done so before this offense. So it is a pretty high bar but is that just an unnecessarily high bar because otherwise if it's too low bar, it gets struck out again by the High Court.
JANE HUME: Well, actually, the offender of Ms Simpson, Simons sorry, I should say, had offended before and I think that is a grave concern that perhaps that wasn't taken into consideration.
TOM CONNELL: So the alleged offender from my understanding, it was a drug supply offense is all that I have read. Was there a violent offense that I missed?
JANE HUME: I think that there has been a pattern of behavior that was recognised by that Community Protection Board. In fact, I think it was the magistrate that said that she thought that the fact that the Commonwealth hadn’t opposed bail was extremely generous. He was described… [interrupted]
TOM CONNELL: Well, repeated breaches of the curfew, but why don't we talk in generalities? I'm just conscious of legal elements. What let me put this to you then, the current threshold for preventive detention, as that law that was passed in December last year, both sides agreed to it,was that higher bar of serious risk of violence or sexual crimes, and then someone can be locked up. It's a high bar, but is that necessarily so? In your view, does that need to be looked at at all?
JANE HUME: It's certainly important to be thorough in these circumstances, but at the same time, the fact that not a single preventative detention order has been made, despite the fact that apparently the Government has thrown significant resources behind it, this suggests to me that something's got to give. Now the Coalition has said that we will help the Government every step of the way in order to keep the community safe because quite frankly, the situation we have now is that the Government has failed to do so, and this is, you know, the first order of duty for any government is to keep Australians safe. So whatever it is that needs to be done, of course, is something that the Coalition will consider. Now that said, the most recent round of legislation that the Government asked the Coalition to consider, they gave us 36 hours in which they essentially held a gun to our heads and said you have to pass these laws. We have now, after slowing that process down, realise that there were some serious unintended consequences that were associated with this rushed legislation. Which is why we need time to consider what the alternatives are. If the ministers hadn't have gone to ground, maybe these questions could have been asked of them because, quite frankly, and you know, I was there at the one interview that Minister O'Neill has done this week, I don't think it was that confronting. There are still questions that need to be answered by those ministers as to what happens next. I'm just questioning where they might be. Because it's up to the Government to make these decisions. It can't be the Coalition that provides the solutions every step of the way.
TOM CONNELL: Yeah, that interview reminds me of that old segment, Hume and O'Neill. Anyway, one day, maybe it'll come back. Appreciate your time. Thank you.
JANE HUME: Good to be with you, Tom.