Episode 1
· 39:53
Welcome to Feminist Acts. Today, we're going to hear about what happens after a crime has been committed. What happens when someone needs help when they've been a victim of crime? I'm Becky Batagol. I'm a law reform expert from Monash University in Melbourne, and I'm joined by Professor Kate Seear from Deakin University.
Becky Batagol:Welcome, Kate.
Kate Seear:Thanks so much, Becky. And in a moment, we're going to be joined by one of my co authors, Doctor Jamie Walvisch from the University of Western Australia. We're going to talk about crimes compensation schemes, which are one of the main ways, perhaps the most common way in which victims of crime turn to the law for help after they've experienced a crime. And the question is, do those schemes really benefit women? Are they harmful in some respects?
Kate Seear:And how can we fix them to make sure that they support victims in a more holistic way?
Becky Batagol:In this episode, as with every episode of this podcast, we're gonna start in the parliamentary chamber. In this case, Professor, or she'll now become the Honourable Kate See, will go and stand in the West Australian Parliament. Go for it, Kate.
Kate Seear:Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you. We rise today to move an amendment to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act of 2003. We propose an important amendment to section 41 of that act, which currently states that in assessing the compensation payable to a victim of crime, the assessor must consider, and I quote, any behaviour, condition, attitude or disposition of the victim that contributed directly or indirectly to the victim's injury or death, end quote. Now this section allows the assessor, if they wish, to refuse to compensate victims due to their own behaviour or to reduce the amount that they are paid.
Kate Seear:And in our view, madam speaker, this section is deeply flawed. It can generate significant harms to victims of crime because it tells them that they might be responsible for the crimes perpetrated against them, and that every aspect of their behaviour will be scrutinised by assessors if they apply for compensation to support them in their recovery. Madam Speaker, in putting the spotlight so squarely on victims, this section also has the potential to misshape public understandings of the nature and origins of crime, agency and responsibility. Additionally, we say it sends a very worrying message to perpetrators. This section is also totally incompatible with and has the potential to undermine very important reforms that we have recently made to our criminal laws, including abolishing the provocation defence for murder and manslaughter.
Kate Seear:One of the reasons this defence was abolished was because it operates unjustly against women. And the same goes, we say, madam speaker, for section 41. The provision is wholly unnecessary and has not been subject to sufficient scrutiny over the many years that it has been in place. Madam Speaker, we think that this speaks volumes about the way that deeply gendered ideas about agency and responsibility remain within the law. And it is essential that we work together to remove such flawed concepts from the Western Australian legal landscape.
Kate Seear:Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to the House.
Becky Batagol:Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by Kate Seer, professor of law at Deakin Law School, and doctor Jamie Walvisch, senior lecturer in law at the University of Western Australia. Welcome to you both. Thanks, Becky.
Jamie Walvisch:Thanks, Becky.
Becky Batagol:And, Kate, I'm so glad we're gonna get to know you more through this series.
Kate Seear:Yeah. It's gonna be great, Becky. You and I are gonna cohost the series in its entirety, and each episode's going to follow relatively straightforward format. It'll be in three parts. So first of all, you'll hear a speech from the authors who have proposed a law reform where they adopt the posture of a member of parliament and deliver a grand speech to parliament about their proposal.
Kate Seear:Then the second part is a q and a or a sort of fireside chat with the authors themselves where they tell us a bit more about the background to the reform and what they're hoping to achieve. Then thirdly, we'll hear a different perspective from somebody else who's reflecting on or commenting on the proposal, sometimes in support of the proposal and sometimes with some critiques or some suggestions for how it could be improved going forward.
Becky Batagol:Can't wait, Kate. Let's jump in. Jamie, can you just explain what a crimes compensation scheme is?
Jamie Walvisch:Yeah. Thanks, Becky. So these are schemes that do what the name says. They aim to compensate people who have been victims of crime. And so the way that it works is the person will go to either a tribunal or before a magistrate depending on where they live, and they will prove that they have experienced some kind of a crime.
Jamie Walvisch:And then they will explain how this might have harmed them, what kind of loss they've suffered. And then the judge who will be a magistrate or a tribunal member will then work out how much they should be compensated. And so they might say, okay, you've suffered this expense for your medical costs, this expense for property damage, and we'll give you a little bit more for the suffering that you've endured and might give them, say, $10,000. And what we're talking about here is the possibility that the judge might go, well, normally, we would give you $10,000, but because you actually contributed to this in some way, we're actually gonna reduce that and only give you $5,000 this time.
Becky Batagol:So what do these schemes give those who've experienced violence? And I guess you guys have really focused on those who've experienced family and sexual violence. And on the whole, we know that there tends to be women. What are these victims of crime schemes giving them that that the criminal justice system doesn't?
Jamie Walvisch:In my view, I think there are really two main aspects to these schemes. The first is one of financial compensation. So if people experience any kind of financial loss as a result of harm due to injuries or damage to property or the need, for example, to pay for increased security systems, if they're not feeling safe in their homes anymore and so on. These schemes can help provide some kind of level of financial compensation for the loss suffered. But beyond that, I think there is an important symbolic aspect to these schemes, which is about recognizing the harm that has been done to the victims and and society saying, look, we understand what you have been through.
Jamie Walvisch:We see that you have been wronged. We're sorry for the wrong that you have gone through. And that is often the only time that they will experience this in the system because the criminal justice system itself is not victim focused at all. The criminal justice system is about putting the accused on trial and then sentencing the accused, and the victim is often completely erased from that system at all. All they will do is perhaps be a witness, but that's their only role in the system.
Jamie Walvisch:And, of course, that's if it even goes to court. The other thing I should note about crimes compensation schemes is they are not limited to cases where somebody has been tried and found guilty. So it is possible for somebody to be compensated and have that acknowledgment where it hasn't been possible to locate the offender or the offender hasn't been able to be put on on trial for some reason.
Kate Seear:If I can just add to that a couple of things too. I mean, a lot of the applications that we see going through crimes compensation schemes are for sexual offending and historic sexual abuse. We now have a redress scheme for victims of sexual abuse, but that's sort of relatively new and and quite different to the the compensation schemes that that Jamie and I are talking about here. They are much more modest schemes. So we're not talking about people who apply to these schemes being awarded large sums of money.
Kate Seear:It's very modest. It's often to cover your expenses, as Jamie says, and perhaps a a small sort of token gesture of of money in the order of sometimes hundreds of dollars or a few thousand dollars in recognition of the wrong that's been done to you. And in lots of historic sexual abuse cases in particular and in family and sexual violence matters, this has traditionally been, for a lot of people, the only way to get recognition. And so the fact that we have provisions in place like the one in Western Australia that are actually really significant hurdles to to people getting this recognition. And in fact, as we argue in our contribution, not only significant hurdles, but actively harmful and counterproductive because they, in a sense, put the victim on trial in this system that's supposed to be beneficial and remedial and and rehabilitative is extremely troubling and bizarre and and I think needs to change.
Becky Batagol:So we're zooming in on that West Australian legislation that oversees the victims of crime scheme in Western Australia, and you focused on section 41 of that act. And section 41 deals with the victim's contribution to the offense. How does section 41 promote a culture of victim blaming, do you think?
Jamie Walvisch:I think it does it in a couple of ways. So the first thing that it does is it puts in place a system whereby the assessor of the compensation scheme needs to consider the behavior condition, attitude, or disposition of the victim. And so what it does is it creates this idea that in assessing the appropriate amount of compensation or way to address what has happened to them, the focus shouldn't just be on what has happened to them, but it should be on, well, have you contributed to this in any way? What have you done that has maybe made this happen to you? And so in that way, it's inherently introducing the potential for a victim blaming approach to things.
Jamie Walvisch:Were you at all responsible for this? Therefore, we will reduce the amount that should be given to you.
Becky Batagol:Jamie, you've mentioned provocation. What is the law of provocation?
Jamie Walvisch:So historically, the idea here is that when somebody commits a crime of violence, in some way, seriousness of that is reduced if the person was provoked into that act. So if somebody taunted them or just made them really angry and they acted when they were out of control, that seemed to be less serious than somebody who premeditates or plans their act of violence. And while we can understand, I guess, at a kind of superficial level that, you know, maybe there is some kind of a difference between somebody who puts in long term planning and forethought into their act. Know, that seems to be worse on the surface. The reality is the criminal law is there to prevent this kind of conduct at all.
Jamie Walvisch:And the immediate, you know, I'm angry and I'm going to lash out with violence is a very masculine response and one that the law should not be condoning in any way. And so as a result, there have been reforms around the country to reduce the legal effect of provocation. So for example, in Victoria, it used to reduce the offense of murder to manslaughter. But following the work of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, in a project that I was involved in, that defense of provocation was abolished. So you can no longer say when you're charged with murder, but she provoked me into it and get a lesser sentence.
Becky Batagol:You propose that decision makers must not take into account behavior that was engaged in by the victim or any conditions, attitudes, dispositions of the victim. What practical difference will this make to survivors seeking compensation?
Kate Seear:Well, at its most basic, it means that the victim doesn't have to give an account of themselves and their own conduct, character, disposition, behavior in association with with the crime. And in that sense, it just removes entirely from the equation this potential for victim blaming, for scrutiny, for provocation type arguments of the kind that Jamie was talking about a bit earlier. And so in that sense, we we think it would be a safer, hopefully less traumatic and distressing experience for victims, a system that feels a bit safer, both, you know, sort of psychologically and and and practically, and that will incentivize more people to apply for these schemes knowing that these sorts of hurdles don't exist any longer for them.
Becky Batagol:And, Jamie?
Jamie Walvisch:One of the things that I think it's worth adding that we haven't really mentioned yet in the context of family violence in particular, we've talked a bit about provocation and the potential that these provisions might be used to to reduce the amount that's given to somebody who has provoked their partner into being violent. But it's not just provocation that we're talking about here. A common issue that arises in the context of family violence is that an intervention order might be taken out against the perpetrator of violence, which due to the dynamics of family violence, the woman might actually breach in those circumstances in trying to reconcile. And the fact that she has done that could be another factor that is taken into account in reducing the amount that is awarded to her because it could be considered that this is the kind of behavior that indicates she is at fault or to blame in some way for what has happened. And so our hope is that if you remove the possibility of even thinking about these kind of things so that the assessor simply has to look at the victim and say, what harm have you suffered?
Jamie Walvisch:And that's it. That's the end of the story and compensate them for that without having to go on to think about, and what role did you play in causing this harm? It creates a much fairer system that achieves the goals that the system is designed to achieve, which is a a therapeutic goal rather than the potential for it to be counter therapeutic as the current system is.
Becky Batagol:So we've heard about victims of crime, and we've you've you guys have focused on women as victims of crime. Do all women in Australia experience this kind of harm, or are there some groups of of victims of crime who might be more impacted by this provision you focused on?
Kate Seear:Well, although we have focused a lot on the potential of provisions like this to impact women, they're not necessarily the only people who will find a provision like this harmful. And also there's some sort of complexities as to how it's likely to play out. So in our contribution to the book, we make the point that a section like this that invites or sort of opens the door to scrutinize the conduct of victims applies to everybody. And we know that historically when the conduct of victims has been scrutinized, there are certain groups that tend to be scrutinized more than others. Women, of course, LGBTQIA plus populations, gay men who might be victims of violent crime.
Kate Seear:Their conduct is scrutinized. The perpetrator might argue that they were frightened of of a gay man, frightened that he might make a sexual advance on them. And and there's there's certainly case law to that effect over a long period of time where that kind of argument has been run. But also Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. And particularly in this context that we're talking about, because of the very disproportionately high rates of family violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, again, we see the possibility that these kinds of provisions disproportionately impact them.
Kate Seear:And so all of those groups are disproportionately impacted. And so even though we frame our contribution as of as one that's about women and from a feminist perspective, of course, it's the kind of critique that we hope draws attention to the law's harmful impacts on multiple populations.
Jamie Walvisch:And can I just jump in and follow-up what Kate said there? I think one particular group who is very vulnerable to these problems at the moment are trans people, given the increase in prejudice and discrimination against trans people that we see around the world at the moment, I think there is a real risk that this provision could be used where somebody says, I didn't realize they were trans. You know, they were dishonest. They weren't open to me with their behavior, and therefore they brought this on themselves. And I think that's a a real potential problem.
Becky Batagol:Jamie and Kate, what have you done to help anyone who want to implement this kind of change across Australian states and territories?
Jamie Walvisch:Well, we've pretty much done all the work. So we have written a second reading speech that explains what we're doing that anybody is free to use. We would be entirely happy for you to just use our speech. But importantly, we have also actually done the hard work of redrafting the legislation. So if you look at our chapter, we actually have spent time with statutory drafters working on the wording for the way that we could reform the legislation.
Jamie Walvisch:And anybody could simply pick that up and use it and introduce it into parliament to reform section 41 of the act.
Becky Batagol:Was it hard to draft amendment to the legislation?
Kate Seear:Yes. It was surprisingly difficult, actually. I've joked about this with Jamie before, but when we first settled on this provision as the one that we, you know, really, really disliked and and wanted to see amended, I said to Jamie, this is great. We've picked such a a good and easy example because all we need to do is say in our contribution here that section 41 needs to be deleted. But once we kind of got into the weeds of how the process of drafting legislation worked, we realized it was actually not that simple.
Kate Seear:And we we took advice, as Jamie said, from a parliamentary drafts person who explained to us that there can be some unintended consequences of simply deleting a whole provision from an act. Because the kind of logic of it can creep in in other ways. It can be read into other sections of the act. And so it was best to keep the section in there and and make it very clear that we were removing these kinds of considerations, and these things must not be taken into account by assessors moving forward. But for a provision that's pretty brief, you know, it's it's a couple of paragraphs.
Kate Seear:It took us a surprisingly long period of time to get it done. And as Jamie says, as a as a result, it's sitting there. We would love somebody to use it. They're welcome to copy and and paste and put it into effect. We'd be really pleased if that happened.
Becky Batagol:How does your proposal think about some potential unintended consequences? Consequences?
Jamie Walvisch:We did think about the potential for this to have unintended consequences, which is why the way we have framed our revision to section 41 is quite restricted in scope in that we have very much focused on the issue of provocation and not on completely getting rid of the section entirely because we thought there may well be unanticipated situations where we thought maybe there would be a legitimate reason for taking into account certain behaviors or conditions that we had just not thought through. So rather than get rid of it entirely, we identified a specific problem and said, let's address that problem.
Becky Batagol:Kate and Jamie, it's been so enjoyable talking with you both, and thanks for your hard work on this really important piece of law reform.
Jamie Walvisch:Thanks, Becky.
Kate Seear:Thanks, Becky.
Becky Batagol:Kate Seear, professor of law at Deakin Law School, and Jamie Walvisch senior lecturer in law at the University of Western Australia. We just heard a bit about Kate and Jamie's proposal for law reform, but each episode we have another person come in to commentate on that proposal from a different feminist perspective. This episode, Kate and I are speaking with Professor Jenny Morgan from the University of Melbourne. She's an expert in feminist law reform. Kate and I have been reading her work all through our careers as lawyers and law students.
Becky Batagol:But Jenny, welcome. It's wonderful to have you here.
Jenny Morgan:Thank you.
Becky Batagol:How would you describe yourself and your work to someone you met, say, at a barbecue?
Jenny Morgan:So people will often ask you, what area of law do you work in? And what I always say is, well, I spend a lot of my time focused on violence against women rather than saying criminal law or family law or whatever. I worked for ages with Vic Health, that's an organization in Victoria that sort of pioneered a a sort of public health approach to violence against women. I worked with the AFL on their issues with with sexual assault, which was interesting. And I've also worked in areas of reproductive justice, had a particular focus on provocation, the past defense to murder.
Kate Seear:So our listeners have just heard Jamie and I talk about the proposal that we included in our book for reforms to victims of crime legislation in Western Australia. And, Jenny, we invited you in as our eminent expert to commentate on that chapter. You didn't fully agree with our proposal for reform, and I'd love to hear a little bit about why that was and and what your take on the the proposal was.
Jenny Morgan:It's interesting. I did reread it last night knowing that this interview was happening, and I thought I was a bit harsh. I didn't, by the way. I mean, what I said in the in the commentary was that I was concerned that provocation as understood and as the reform was addressed to was not likely to be the most serious problem in the area, and I wanted the reform to go further. So that's part of it.
Jenny Morgan:What I don't think I gave you enough credit for was that the getting rid of the cultural message about provocation. Because one of the things that struck me, I thought having been involved in the Feminist Judgments Project where I was a judgment writer, and you had to stick to the evidence that was presented at the time. You couldn't introduce new evidence. I mean, that's what made the project interesting, but it was a real constraint. And I thought, oh, feminist legislation, you just go for it.
Jenny Morgan:But when you read the second reading speech or when you think about the issue, you have to be able to establish there is a social problem. And and you're, in that circumstance, just as dependent on data. And in order to get it onto your party's timetable in the legislative sense, you need to be able to convince people that this is a social problem that we should spend parliamentary time on. And the problem in your case was a dearth of data. And I thought I should go further.
Jenny Morgan:I thought it should be a more dramatic complete abolition of any sort of fault on the part of the victim, which I think Victoria had been doing at the time.
Kate Seear:So Becky mentioned your work with the Victorian Law Reform Commission, and I wanted to take you back to that work which was in about 2003, 2004. '1 of the reasons why Jamie and I asked you to act as a commentator on our chapter, but, of course, not the only one given your eminence in in the field more broadly. Back then, the Victorian Law Reform Commission undertook a comprehensive examination of various defenses to homicide, and that included the partial defensive provocation in what was called the Victorian defenses to homicide reference. I was myself remembering the other day that I worked at the Women's Legal Service at the time and gave evidence to the inquiry and thought it was extremely exciting to hear and to be around people who were really looking at these issues from a such an explicitly feminist perspective or with the concerns of women at the forefront of their mind. But for our listeners who weren't involved or don't know anything about that reference, can you tell us a little bit about what the climate was like at the time and why that inquiry was necessary or what brought it about?
Jenny Morgan:I don't know, actually. I don't know why then. Probably because of the commissioner's interest, Marci and Eve, as a feminist reformer, but I'm really not sure. Provocation, the defense to murder that I've mentioned, was of some controversy, but it was growing controversy over the period of the commission's inquiry, I think. And what I did initially with the commission was to look at the data on who kills whom and why.
Jenny Morgan:Because I did have a bee in my bonnet about the defensive provocation. Because in teaching criminal law, which is a wonderful way of getting on top of an issue or the issues, that time, you you read and teach the leading cases on the doctrine because the doctrine's developed at common law, that is by judges. And you overwhelmingly, time after time after time, the leading cases are men killing women and saying they were provoked by her, their partner, and by her leaving him. And it hadn't struck me as a student, but teaching it, I just I would go into class and say, oh, yes. Yet another one in order to sort of focus students' minds on this issue.
Jenny Morgan:So it did seem to be overwhelmingly cases where men killed women. So I went back to the data on homicides. And, of course, there are all sorts of homicides. But when there were overwhelmingly numbers of men killing their partners or former partners, it's circumstances of what you might call sexual jealousy, of the women starting a new relationship or just leaving the old one. I think that data focuses the mind.
Jenny Morgan:When women were killing, they were usually and not always, of course, and it's not always men killing women. I accept that. But when women killed, it was usually in what I would describe as self defense. That is in response to violence against them. So I wanted to try and get the commission to focus on what was actually happening in murders, in killings, rather than on the defense of self defense, the defense of provocation.
Jenny Morgan:So the starting point was who is killing whom and why. And I think that meant it was more likely that if you chose to abolish provocation, which is what was my desire, you would at the same time reform the law of self defense so that it encompassed women's experience and women who kill their violent partners. So if you focus on the the description of the problem on the problem, what I hoped would fall out is a more informed response, a more inclusive response to defenses to homicide, which was the reference. I'm not saying that it is straightforward once that is done, but that's the commission chose to recommend the abolition of provocation, and the government did so. It was probably assisted by the fact that there was a very high profile case at the time, the ramage case.
Jenny Morgan:And that was sort of in the course really of the the government's consideration of what they would do. So the Law Reform Commission recommended the abolition of provocation because it was full of misogyny, in my view, and various sensitive reforms to the law of self defense.
Becky Batagol:Professor Jenny Morgan from the University of Melbourne, you've been involved in feminist law reform for decades, whether as an academic, as a law reformer, as an advocate. What do you think are some of the key challenges of feminist law reform?
Jenny Morgan:Getting taken seriously is part of it. Knowing when to push and when to think, oh, no. It's really not the right time. Coming up with a reform that includes all women and gender diverse individuals that isn't just good for a particular group of women. So it's being conscious of the fact that women come in all sorts of varieties and really different circumstances, and that's often hard to get right.
Kate Seear:Jenny, you mentioned that one of the challenges is getting taken seriously. I'm really interested in that. Can you tell us a bit more about what you mean?
Jenny Morgan:I think in in the context of law reform, some of it is about being a really good lawyer. And, I mean, I've done a bit of judicial education, and I was throwing out a scandalous suggestion at a conference of judges. And I could see them bristling. It was, again, about equality and substantive equality, but a particular legal interpretation. And I all I did was I treated them like an audience of children, students, and said, can see that you're disturbed about this.
Jenny Morgan:Give me a chance to explain, and I explained it. Now I probably convinced maybe one or two. So some of it is about being a good lawyer, that you you come up with these terribly radical suggestions, which are not really radical at all, and try to establish with your legal argument that this really is plausible.
Becky Batagol:We often talk about with law reform around gender issues that you can put laws in place. But if you're bringing it into a world where you've got police officers or lawyers or judges who operate under a patriarchal system and with patriarchal values that those reforms won't be implemented thoroughly, or the laws are implemented, but there are unintended gender consequences for women, and the laws aren't used as we had hoped they would be. As a law reformer, how can you deal with those problems?
Jenny Morgan:You kinda can't. I always think of the Mari Matsuda quote. There's times to stand outside the courtroom door and critique, and there are times just be inside the courtroom shouting, screaming. The courtroom is is an analogy for law reform or whatever. And she she finishes that wonderful quote that's often quoted by feminist law reformers.
Jenny Morgan:Sometimes you need to do both in the same day, and that's absolutely true. I think it's also absolutely essential to be aware of the limitations that you can't expect the world to change. I didn't expect the world to change when I wanted to abolish provocation, even that part of the world, but I thought it was sending a really important message. Reg Grecoeur, Hillary Charlesworth, and I were commissioners on the Australian Law Reform Commission's equality before the law reference. And we wrote a dissenting report where we were arguing for an equality act that only applied to women, not women and men.
Jenny Morgan:We knew this was highly controversial, but we wanted to do it anyway in order to maybe contribute to a change in the debate. So you can often have quite low expectations. And if you don't have low expectations, you'll get them once you see it implemented. But I don't think we can just give up on law. So but I'm fundamentally optimistic.
Jenny Morgan:I'm I'm optimistic, but I'm realistic.
Becky Batagol:Thanks for that, Jenny. You mentioned that we can't expect the world to change. That's probably pretty shocking for young law students who are coming in and they're perhaps sitting in any of our classes wanting to change the world. You also mention that you're an optimist. How do you put those two things together?
Jenny Morgan:I did clarify my optimism by saying that really what I meant was you've gotta stay engaged. And so, really, it's I encourage students to stay engaged with the issue, but not overinvest in terms of thinking you're gonna get everything out of legal change. If you can get the change, you cannot guarantee it's correct or helpful implementation. And you also might have made a mistake. You might have left out the interests of First Nations women, for example.
Jenny Morgan:You may not have thought of if you do this, that it will have that implication for those women, and therefore you don't wanna do it or you should have done it differently. Remaining enthusiastic about engaging with law is probably what I mean about optimism.
Kate Seear:Vigilance is the word that comes to mind.
Jenny Morgan:Yeah. Yep. Does it ever get you down? No. Good.
Becky Batagol:So as a law reformer, Jenny, are there things that you can do that you can put in place, little tricks that you've used to help to address the problem of incomplete or, in fact, backlash against reforms? Is there anything you can do?
Jenny Morgan:Some of it is not thinking that the reform is the end of the story. So you maintain activism, scrutiny of how it's being implemented. And the the most classic example of that is the reform of the law of abortion in America. Roe v Wade was a sense that we've got it. We've got reform, and feminists backed off.
Jenny Morgan:The right to life came alive the week after Roe v Wade. When I studied in America, American students would say to me, oh, it's terrible. It's still in your criminal law. And I'd go, you think you've got it? You've got it forever?
Jenny Morgan:And it's now established. Of course, they don't with the most recent supreme court activism on the issue. So some of it is about not thinking you've achieved what you wanted. You've gotta keep monitoring. You've gotta keep holding decision makers to account.
Kate Seear:Jenny Morgan, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast and for sharing your expertise and experiences and perspectives with us and all of our listeners. It's been absolutely wonderful to have you along.
Jenny Morgan:An absolute pleasure. Thank you.
Kate Seear:You've been listening to Feminist Acts. Thank you to our guests today, Professor Jenny Morgan from the Melbourne Law School, Doctor. Jamie Walvisch from University of Western Australia, and thank you to my cohost, Associate Professor Becky Batagol from Monash University.
Becky Batagol:Keep listening to Feminist Acts, subscribe to our podcast, and also follow through on the show notes. We've got lots of detail about the law reform proposed today and also about further resources that might help you to understand some of the problems around how the law deals with victims of crime and how to solve them. This podcast is recorded on the land of the Boon Wurrung and Bunurrung people of the Kulin nations. We pay our respects to our elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are listening today. In this episode, we discussed victims of crime, and we focus a lot on gender based violence.
Becky Batagol:And we know that First Nations women have a disproportionate experience of gender based violence, family violence compared to non Aboriginal women. And we also know that the criminal justice system has a differential and often a more harmful impact on Aboriginal communities. It's our hope through this podcast and this episode that we can talk about and think about ways of engaging with the legal system that is less harmful to First Nations peoples.
Kate Seear:You've been listening to Feminist Acts. This podcast was produced by Miniature and funded by the Monash University Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research and Enterprise.
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