Northern Territory domestic violence inquiry hears from final witness
A warning the next story contains the names and images of Indigenous women who have died as well as details some viewers may find distressing. The northern territory coroner has just adjourned her months-long inquiry into the domestic violence killings of four Aboriginal women. The inquest began in June and has taken evidence in Alice Springs and Darwin. It has just concluded after the final two weeks of expert evidence.
Transcript
00:00 Well this has been the most extensive coronial inquest of its kind in the Northern Territory.
00:07 Coroner Elizabeth Armitage has spent eight weeks over the past six months examining the
00:11 deaths of four women. We've dedicated a week of evidence to each of these women's lives
00:18 and then the last two weeks have been spent hearing from expert witnesses and institutions
00:23 like government departments, the police force, corrections, health, territory families. The
00:29 coroner has taken a real deep dive into the systemic issues in the Northern Territory's
00:35 domestic family and sexual violence system and what she's uncovered has been really devastating
00:42 details. We started in June in Alice Springs with a week dedicated to Kumunjai Haywood.
00:49 Ms Haywood was killed by her partner Kumunjai Dixon when he poured fuel on the door of the
00:55 bathroom that she was hiding in and set it alight. The details were really distressing
01:01 and only continued that way over the next few weeks. The coroner has heard from all
01:09 corners of the Northern Territory's domestic violence response sector, from police, corrections
01:16 and frontline women's shelters and non-government organisations that work in this space and
01:22 the consistent theme that she has heard over the past few months is that almost every corner
01:29 of this sector is deeply underfunded and overwhelmed with the burden of domestic violence in the
01:36 Northern Territory. We know the NT has the highest rates of domestic family and sexual
01:41 violence in the country. Over the last 10 years the Northern Territory police force
01:46 says it's seen a 117% increase in domestic violence call outs and they're predicting
01:53 that to continue increasing by another 73% over the next decade. Since the year 2000,
02:01 81 women in the Northern Territory have been killed by their partners, 76 of those were
02:07 Aboriginal women. The sector gave evidence to the coroner over the past few weeks and
02:13 months and it was really quite emotional. We spoke to some of the women who work on
02:19 the frontline after court adjourned this morning.
02:22 Migeo Rugerk, Miss Unipingu, Kominjay Hayward and Kaman Rabunja, they were wonderful women
02:31 and they deserve to live a life free from violence. I think this was a hugely important
02:37 process. I'm looking forward to the accountability that it can bring because what we need to
02:44 do is we need to end domestic family sexual violence. Four more people have lost their
02:49 lives since this inquest began and one life is too many.
02:54 The coroner has adjourned the hearings now. We know that in March all of the departments,
03:02 non-government organisations, families, everyone, all of the parties to the inquiry will be
03:07 able to give their final submissions to the coroner in urging her what they would like
03:14 to see in the findings and recommendations. The coroner has got eight weeks of evidence,
03:20 as we've said, hundreds of hours of testimony to consider. So it'll be sometime after March
03:27 that she will hand down her findings and recommendations.
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