Family and domestic violence

The Salvation Army provided a submission to the Attorney-General’s Department Review of Consent Laws in South Australia (the Review).

The Salvation Army welcomes the intention of the Review to strengthen consent laws to ensure they continue to be robust and align with changing societal attitudes. We are hopeful that the reforms will ultimately lead to improved structures and practices that promote the rights and wellbeing of victim-survivors of sexual violence. We caution however that legislative reform alone will not achieve sustainable long-term outcomes for victim-survivors of sexual violence.

In this submission, we outline just some of The Salvation Army’s initial recommendations that we believe will strengthen the Reviews proposed legislative reforms, and adequately protect victim-survivors of sexual violence.

The Salvation Army is a major provider of family and domestic violence services in South Australia, and across the nation. It is from the experiences of our clients, as well as those of our frontline staff, that we have approached this submission. This submission provided us the opportunity to advocate for systemic reform to improve outcomes and processes for victim-survivors of family and domestic violence.

This submission covers:

• Strengthening victim-survivor rights to privacy. We advocate for the need for health information to be included as protected communications, and for the requirement that victim-survivors are made aware of and have the opportunity to respond to applications for disclosure of their protected communications.
• Essential systematic reforms to strengthen legislative action. We highlight the need for investment in training of justice staff and the frontline service sector, investment in primary prevention, early intervention and education, and the need to recognise and invest in children as victim-survivors in their own right.

At the heart of our recommendations is the need to keep victim-survivors of sexual violence at the centre of the discussion.