Month in summary

Firstly, we would like to thank all our stakeholders who made submissions in response to the Discussion Paper.  We received over 80 formal responses to the DP, which brings us to a total of over 160 submissions to the Inquiry. The public submissions are published on the ALRC website.
 
See submissions >>

This month, Professor Rosalind Croucher and Virginia Marshall, Senior Legal Officer, visited Brisbane and Perth for consultations with Indigenous stakeholders, primarily to identify Income Management issues. In Perth, the ALRC consulted with organisations such as the Aboriginal Family Law Service WA, the Aboriginal Legal Service WA, Beananing Kwuurt Institute, Legal Aid WA and Western Australian Council Of Social Service. In Brisbane, we consulted with Queensland Council Of Social Service and National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance. In Canberra, we also consulted with the Equity Rights Alliance. Another trip to Perth, by Professor Croucher and Amanda Alford, Legal Officer, included consultations canvassing employment aspects of the Inquiry.
 
Last month, members of the team attended the 1^st Annual LGBTIQ Domestic Violence Conference, held in Sydney and organised by the NSW LGBTIQ Domestic Violence Interagency Working Group. This provided an opportunity to hear about projects and programs involved in providing assistance to LGBTIQ victims of family violence. For a brief description of the event, see, ‘More help needed for LGBTIQ facing violence at home’
 
The team has also, during this period, contributed articles to relevant publications, including:

• Khanh Hoang, “The ALRC’s Inquiry into Family Violence and Commonwealth Laws”,  in the September Edition of Parity (the national publication of the Council to Homeless Persons);
• Sara Peel and Rosalind Croucher, "Mind(ing) the gap: Law reform recommendations responding to child protection in a federal system", which is to be published in the AIFS journal Family Matters; and
• Virginia Marshall contributed a short piece about the Discussion Paper to the Workers Bush Telegraph and attended the National Indigenous Legal Conference in Sydney.

Throughout November the team is conducting internal recommendations workshops and convening expert roundtables, as well as writing, on track for hand-over of the Final Report to the Attorney-General on 30 November.

Beyond that, on 5 December 2011, legal officer Amanda Alford will be presenting at the ‘Safe at Home, Safe at Work’ Conference in Melbourne organised by the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse. Amanda will be discussing the Inquiry with a specific focus on family violence and employment law as well as participating in a panel discussion with Deputy Sex Discrimination Commissioner Andrea Durbach and representatives from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Further information >>

In the last e-newsletter, sent while many of you were still in the process of writing your submissions, we asked for your feedback about the Discussion Paper and the Discussion Paper Summary. Now that submission writing is done and dusted, we would really like to hear from you about how you used these publications in preparing your submissions, and what you do and don’t find useful about these formats. Please leave your comments on the blog post, or if you’d rather comment confidentially, you can simply email feedback@alrc.gov.au.

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