Australian domestic violence protection order legislation: A comparative quantitative content analysis of victim safety provisions

In Australia, protection orders are a key legal response to domestic violence, and are oftenviewed as a way of providing for victim safety. For instance, recently the joint Australianand New South Wales Law Reform Commissions recommended that a common corepurpose of all state and territory domestic violence legislation should be 'to ensure ormaximise the safety and protection of persons who fear or experience family violence'(2010:Recommendation 7-4). Drawing and building upon prior research in Australia andthe United States ('US'), this paper uses comparative quantitative content analysis toassess the victim safety focus of domestic violence protection order legislation in eachAustralian state and territory. The findings of this analysis show that the NorthernTerritory, South Australia and Victoria 'stand out' from the other jurisdictions, having thehighest victim safety focus in their legislation. However, there remains sizeable scope forimprovement in all Australian jurisdictions, in terms of the victim safety focus of theirlegislative provisions and considerations of legislative inconsistency betweenjurisdictions.