For immediate release
6 August 2015

Injury Prevention Aotearoa welcomes review of family violence legislation

Injury Prevention Aotearoa welcomes the release yesterday of a discussion document on a review of laws relating to family violence by Minister of Justice, Amy Adams.

Key Frost, Injury Prevention Aotearoa’s family violence spokesperson, says, “This discussion document will help generate informed debate and feedback from people and agencies working with family violence at grass roots level, such as members of our organisation, on what can be done to overcome New Zealand’s totally unacceptable levels of family violence.”

The Ministry’s decision to take a comprehensive look all relevant legislation, rather just the Domestic Violence Act, is supported by Injury Prevention Aotearoa.

“All parts of the legal framework must work together to ensure victims don’t slip between the cracks and perpetrators are not only held to account, but also get the support they need to change their behaviour,” says Mr Frost. “We have seen too many instances in recent times when tragedy could have been avoided if there was more sharing of information between agencies, or the full picture of a person’s offending was known.”

Family violence legislation needs to clearly reflect society’s expectations about how people in families should behave and how the legal system will respond when family violence does occur.

“We can take no pride in New Zealand having the highest reported rate of intimate partner violence in the developed world, except insofar as the issue is now out in the open, rather than brushed under the carpet,” says Mr Frost.

Injury Prevention Aotearoa is seeking feedback from its members on the family violence discussion document via a survey which can be found on its website. www.injuryprevention.org.nz.

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