The Victorian Greens are demanding the Carroll Labor Government immediately produce and publish independent audits of Victoria Police’s handling of family violence cases, following revelations that a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Family Violence remains unfulfilled.
More than a decade after the Royal Commission was established, its chair Marcia Neave has criticised the failure to deliver independent, force-wide audits and publicly release their findings, declaring there was “absolutely no doubt” they should have been completed.
The government promised at least two independent audits of Victoria Police each year from 2020. Victoria Police says the recommendation was implemented in 2019 and signed off through government processes, but neither the government nor police has produced evidence of the audits or their publication. Police have acknowledged that monitoring of family violence investigations was kept within an “internal process”.
As stated by Victorian Greens spokesperson for women Women, Gender Equality and Family Violence, Anasina Gray-Barberio MLC:
“Victim-survivors were promised accountability and transparency. More than a decade after the Royal Commission, they’re still in the dark.
“Family violence is at epidemic proportions, and just this week we’ve heard devastating allegations from Jayda Allen Bonner’s family that police failed to act on their desperate pleas for help before her death.
“At a time when women are being killed and families are raising serious concerns about police failures, the fact that basic independent oversight still hasn’t been delivered is simply not good enough. Lives are at stake.
“It’s deeply disturbing that an officer could plead guilty to 15 counts of duty failure in family violence cases and remain on operational duties, while the oversight designed to hold police accountable can’t be found.
“Labor must immediately explain how this recommendation was signed off as implemented, publish any audits that have been completed, and commission genuinely independent audits where they haven’t.”
