00:00This has been the most significant coronial inquest of its kind in the Northern Territory.
00:09It's a series of inquests into the deaths of four Aboriginal women, Kumanjai Heywood,
00:15Kuman Rabunja, Nyayga Rugurk, and Miss Yunupingu.
00:19Each of these four Aboriginal women were killed by their partners.
00:23Each of their partners had a history of domestic and family violence, and so the coroner has
00:28spent the better part of about a year and a half hearing from, as you said, 95 witnesses
00:35to really deep dive into the Northern Territory's domestic, family, and sexual violence response.
00:41The evidence that she's heard over that time she's described as horrific and heart-wrenching.
00:50We've heard from Northern Territory police who have told the court that responding to
00:55domestic and family violence calls makes up up to 80% of their total workload.
01:01NT Police have recorded a 117% increase in the number of domestic violence call-outs
01:08in the past decade, and they told the coroner that they expect that will continue to increase
01:13by another 73% over the next 10 years, unless something significant changes.
01:21We've also heard evidence about police training being inadequate.
01:25Some changes have already been made in that space.
01:29And there has also been evidence around prevention and education.
01:34The coroner heard that there simply isn't really the education of particular young men
01:39and boys in the Territory around how to have healthy relationships, as well as how to rehabilitate
01:47perpetrators once they have committed domestic violence offences.
01:53We know that the Northern Territory has the highest rates of domestic and family violence
01:58in the country.
01:59Gemma, the rate of intimate partner homicide here in the NT is seven times that of the
02:04national average.
02:05So it has been a really significant inquiry over the past year and a half, and there are
02:10a lot of people anxiously waiting for the coroner's findings today.
02:14Mel, what can we expect from her findings and recommendations?
02:18Well, broadly, the most consistent theme that the coroner has been hearing about over the
02:25past year and a half has been funding.
02:28So I expect that her findings and recommendations will ultimately be for a significant funding
02:34boost to the domestic and family violence sector, both in the response avenue, the police
02:42response frontline services and women's shelters that these victim survivors rely on, but also
02:48in that prevention space.
02:50As I said earlier, we have heard evidence of that lack of rehabilitation and education
02:56and primary prevention.
02:58So we expect that there will be some findings and recommendations in that space as well.
03:04As well as police training, we've heard that some changes have been made, some quite significant
03:09changes have been made to the amount of training that police receive in the domestic and family
03:13violence space.
03:14And so it will be interesting to see what the coroner recommends in that area.
03:20I've been speaking to people who work in the DV sector over the past couple of days as
03:25they've been waiting for these findings to be handed down.
03:28And there is a real sense of hope that there will be change from these findings and recommendations,
03:35but of course also a level of anxiety within the sector around which changes and recommendations
03:40will or could be enacted and accepted.
03:44So a lot of people watching the Northern Territory Coroner's Court very closely today, Gemma.
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