MRC Tas welcomes changes from the Federal Government that will allow temporary visa holders experiencing domestic and family violence to submit evidence from a broader range of services.
As part of the Government’s commitment to supporting victims of domestic and family violence, the Department of Home Affairs undertook a comprehensive review of the legislative instrument that specifies the evidence that must be provided when making a non-judicially determined claim of family violence under the family violence provisions of the Migration Regulations 1994.
Key changes include:
- The requirement to provide a statutory declaration for some professionals (including psychologists, social workers and family consultants/counsellors) has been removed. Note: Applicants are still required to provide their own statutory declaration.
- Midwives have been added to the medical professionals that can provide documentary evidence of family violence.
- Risk assessments and reports have been added as items of evidence that may be provided in place of a statutory declaration.
- Community, multicultural or other crisis services providing domestic and family violence assistance and support have been added to the list of providers that can provide evidence (previously limited to women’s refuges and domestic and family violence crisis centres). This is intended to address service gaps in regional areas.
These changes will allow community and multicultural services that support temporary visa holders to submit evidence for victim-survivors. This will enable victim-survivors to gather more evidence to support their assistance claims.
Further information can be found here:
The new legislative instrument can be found here: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2023L00382