NEW England women’s support services have welcomed the government’s funding to track domestic violence offenders with GPS devices, but are fearful the region’s many blackspots will make the proposal ineffective.
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The government’s $100 million package to help stop domestic violence includes $12 million to trial the use of innovative technology to keep women safe, including GPS trackers for perpetrators.
Tamworth Support Services spokeswoman Tanya Rogers said the tracking of abusers was a great idea.
“But there are lots of black spots around here,” Ms Rogers said.
New England MP Barnaby Joyce said the $15 million announced earlier this year for 28 new or upgraded base stations would plug significant holes in the area’s network.
The new towers will be installed over the next three years and will eliminate 104 blackspots from the New England region.
Mr Joyce said the multitude of other services and strategies being funded by the government’s package should fill any hole the blackspots may leave in the GPS tracking while the new towers were being built.
“I think the GPS tracking is very important,” Mr Joyce said.
“It’s one thing to say to a person, ‘Don’t come back to this house, you’ve got an AVO on you, you are not allowed near this house now’ – but then you’ve got to trust them.
“You’ve got no real way of knowing if he’s parked in the car across the road – the GPS does. And if you remove the tracking device, that in itself is an offence.”
His comments came as Fairfax newspapers, including The Northern Daily Leader, joined a campaign to attack the rising incidents of family violence across the country with a campaign called End the Cycle.
