RLC welcomed the inquiry by the Australian Law Reform Commission. In 2009-2010 the Sydney Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Service (WDVCAS) assisted 1212 women.
This is a significant number from only four local courts in Sydney. If these numbers are extrapolated across Australia, tens of thousands of women are involved in court proceedings relating to family violence each year.
Our views in summary
RLC agreed with the statement in the Issues Paper that getting or maintaining employment is a key factor to enable women to leave violent relationships and achieve independence and financial security. We also agreed with the approach of treating family violence as a systemic rather than an individual, private issue.
RLC acknowledges that family violence can occur within male same sex relationships, and that in rare cases men in heterosexual relationships can be victims of family violence. However, women are the overwhelming majority of victims of family violence, as as our experience in this area arises from our WDVCAS and Yellow Card project, the comments in our submission focused on the experiences of women.
We submitted that maintained the confidentiality of information about family violence disclosed to an employer is essential if disclosure is required to access workplace rights. We support the amendment of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) to remove employee records exemption for private sector employers.
It is vital for the safety of a victim of family violence that her residential address, email address and telephone numbers are not disclosed by her employer to any person.
We support amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009 that improve support for victims of family violence and help them to get and maintain employment.