The Northern Territory coroner has heard collaboration between police and social workers could be key to "reforming" the NT's domestic and family violence response. An inquest into the death of Kumarn Rubuntia is currently being developed in Alice Springs.
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00:00 Kamanra Bancher was murdered by her partner Malcolm Abbott in January 2021.
00:06 Her death now the focus of an extensive inquiry into the Northern Territory's domestic violence
00:11 response which the coroner says is in urgent need of radical reform.
00:17 One of those potential changes she heard today a co-response between domestic violence specialists
00:23 and NT Police being developed in Alice Springs.
00:27 We're not asking police to be social workers or social workers to be police but we can
00:31 definitely support each other.
00:34 Across six weeks of evidence the coroner has consistently heard police are overwhelmed
00:39 with the number of domestic violence call outs they receive and officers themselves
00:44 have told her they don't feel fully equipped to handle the complex situations.
00:49 The coroner heard today there was hope a joint response between police and domestic violence
00:54 specialists would lead to better outcomes for families.
00:58 The coroner heard over the course of her 20 month relationship with Malcolm Abbott Ms
01:03 Rabunja called police on 22 occasions but on some of those when police arrived they
01:08 missed red flags and didn't see the incident as the serious domestic violence situation
01:14 that it was.
01:15 It can't be moved to a domestic violence response when nobody's actually able to identify what
01:20 family violence looks like.
01:23 Police look at the emergency, we look at what could happen.
01:26 Working together with our lens and the police lens I can guarantee we would have picked
01:31 up Ms Rabunja's situation about nine times earlier.
01:35 The coroner heard the co-response model is still being developed and there's no firm
01:39 time frame on its rollout.
01:41 The inquest continues.
01:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]