Thursday, 4 December 2025

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:01): Today I would like to reflect on the 16 days of activism, and this year’s theme is ‘No Excuse’. The tragic and entirely preventable deaths of Hannah Clarke and her children are once again in the news, but more needs to be said about the systemic failures that led to it. Hannah Clarke reached out to the police multiple times. The police minimised and ignored the perpetrator’s previous convictions and his escalating behaviour. When he breached his intervention order, they decided he did not pose a risk. The police officers who attended when he kidnapped his daughter told him how to challenge those protection orders. Yes, that is right, they told a man who had kidnapped his child to get friends to say he was a good dad. The police officer that Hannah was in regular contact with received no family violence specialist training, even though she tried her best. Hannah Clarke did everything we tell victims to do: she left her abuser and she reached out to the police. They knew about her allegations of assault, strangulation, stalking, rape and suspected child abuse. Even when Hannah and her children died, her story was still questioned by the police. The deaths of Hannah and her three children were preventable. You want to get tough on crime? Well, let us start here. No more excuses. It is time we prioritised and properly funded family violence prevention and intervention.