Family court chief justice calls for national database of intervention orders

The chief judge of the Federal Circuit and Family Court has called for a national database of intervention orders, saying it would help courts understand the risk women face.

Will Alstergren said it was “vitally important” that courts could quickly and easily ascertain an individual’s risk, and many more women were at high risk than had been previously shown in research.

Judge Will Alstergren at the forum on Wednesday evening.

Data analysis by the Family Court found 60 per cent of women whose cases appeared in courts were at high risk, compared with the 38 per cent identified by previous research.

“We’re uncovering so much more risk and identifying higher risk than we were,” Alstergren said. “It’s terribly important we get as much information as we can … as quickly as we can, so we can appropriately triage those cases and assign a level of risk.”

He said it was a misconception “for a long time” that family violence was over-reported, and when it was actually underreported.

The Commonwealth Attorney General’s department is managing the development of a court information-sharing system, which Alstergren said he hoped would be operating soon.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan speaks at the forum.

It would ensure information about court orders or criminal charges in other states were available to court officers at hearings in various states. “It’s imperative that we find that out quickly,” he said.

Also speaking at an ABC radio forum on how to end the epidemic of violence against women, Victoria Police chief Shane Patton said the introduction of enduring safety orders – as distinct from brief-acting intervention orders – would prevent the need for women to repeatedly apply for short-term protections.

Premier Jacinta Allan did not respond to Patton’s comments. She called for better information sharing between the states and said introducing measures such as registers of family violence offenders and better monitoring of them were “complex” because they required states to cooperate.

The forum was in response to the deaths of at least 28 Australian women, allegedly at the hands of men, in the first 122 days of 2024.

After a snap national cabinet meeting on the issue on Wednesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced nearly $1 billion in funding to help women leave abusive relationships.

Data released by the Australian Institute of Criminology on Tuesday revealed that 34 women were killed by an intimate partner in 2022-23, up from 26 the year before. In the same period, four men were killed by their partners.

In Victoria, calls for high-risk offenders to be more closely monitored, potentially with ankle bracelets, have been made since the state recorded five deaths of women allegedly killed by men in the first four months of this year, including three women in the Ballarat region in two months.

South Australia on Tuesday activated a new system to track violent offenders with electronic devices that alert police to their location to protect women at risk.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton.

In the last week, women’s safety advocates have also called for a Victoria Police proposal to the 2015-16 royal commission into family violence – that an offender register be created allowing women to background check potential partners – be revisited.

Assistant Commissioner Lauren Callaway, head of the family violence command at Victoria Police, has expressed support for the proposal being re-examined as one potential solution.

Community outrage over the toll of men’s violence against women has grown in 2024, as the number of women dying has accelerated from one a week – which is the average in recent years – to one every four days.

Thousands of Australians attended marches around the country at the weekend, demanding more practical measures be taken to keep women safe.

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