Law changes target hate motivated crime – follow-up now needed
// September 24th, 2009 // AVP news, Media discussion, Within Victoria
The GLBT community and state government have joined forces support Sentencing Act changes aimed to tackle crimes motivated by hatred or prejudice. Now the discussion commences about long-term follow-up action and funding for the Anti Violence Project.
Attorney General Rob Hulls views this as “where the motivation for a crime was hatred or prejudice, or victims are targeted by offenders because of the offender’s prejudice, or their conduct indicated that prejudice was the motivation, the courts will specifically take that into account when sentencing.”
Follow this discussion currently running in the two GLBT weekly print publications:-
Victoria Targets Gay Hate Crimes, reported by Rachel Cook in the MCV.
GLBT community has also questioned how effective the measure will be without it being underpinned by increased levels of reporting of violence, and government committment to follow-up action. Read Andie Noonan’s article Hate Crime Laws May Not Work in Southern Star.
Numerous reports and research papers have backed up calls over recent years for the AVP to be funded to provide long-term and generational change through an expansion in their currently volunteer-driven work addressing violence within and against Victoria’s GLBT community.
Great work to AVP and all other orgs to get this far but…
And it excellent for the leadership from the Govt on sentencing changes but…
…to achieve long-term change there is another conversation to share and embrace between the gay and lesbian community and government… funding and resourcing.
Why is it taking so long for orgs like the AVP to be given recurrent funding to move their great work into ongoing rather than piece-by-piece and project-by-project activities? We see the AVP’s posters and heard of their campaigns for years, we’ve heard the discussions and calls to report violence, we’ve looked at police & gay/lesbian relationships growing, but everything seems to be held-back by governments not providing funding to address a known problem.
Thanks for encouraging the next step in this… a fully funded AVP!
(we were there when the first public meeting to form the AVP was held around 13 years ago.. went to a public event at Brunsick Town Hall 9 years ago… returned to Vic three years ago and the AVP is still chipping away.. all strength to all of you, and to us!)
I agree with Janine. I think the ALSO CEO Lyn Morgain & AVP head Greg Adkins nailed the case for funding for the AVP. Its great seeing ALSO lending its weight to ancouraging government funding for a great group of people like the AVP.
Keep it up!
Tye & Jeff
Yes its time for the Brumby government to look at how the G&L community addresses violence over the longer term and support this to happen. Other diverse communities gain publicity in the media but as violence against gays and lesbians has been occurrring for such a long time, its almost passe and not often reported. Thanks AVP for keeping us aware and inviting people to report violence so we are not always silent and unheard when people target us in a planned and organised way.