Women are being wrongly identified as being responsible for family violence incidents in Queensland each week, an inquiry has been told.
The Independent Commission of Inquiry into Queensland Police Service responses to domestic and family violence has heard evidence from serving police and social services providers during two days of sittings in Cairns.
Thelma Schwartz, principal legal officer at the Queensland Indigenous Family Violence Legal Service, said it was common for women who had sustained years of abuse from their partners to be in a "heightened" state when police arrived at the scene of a reported incident.
She said that often led to police issuing a notice protecting the perpetrator, who had presented as the collected and calm "ideal victim".
"It happens weekly; it happens across any of my offices in Queensland," Ms Schwartz told the inquiry.
Hayley Grainger, principal lawyer with the North Queensland Women's Legal Service, told the inquiry misidentification predominantly affected Indigenous women.
"We've really, really noticed it," Ms Grainger said.
"For example, a month ago, one of my duty lawyers came back to the office and said: 'All of my clients today were First Nations women who were defending police applications against them after they had called for help'."
Ms Schwartz said the misidentification of women as family violence perpetrators could often lead to criminal records that affected their employment prospects or the involvement of child protection services.
Ms Grainger told the hearing a family violence order listing a violent partner as the aggrieved party was also "a further tool of control".
Liaison officers put in difficult positions
The inquiry also heard family violence complainants in parts of the Torres Strait could be forced to wait six hours or more for police to respond to calls.
Senior Sergeant Anthony Moynihan, the officer-in-charge of Thursday Island Police Station, told the hearing about 70 to 80 per cent of calls his members received related to family violence.
But travel between the islands is heavily reliant on boats, and the police aircraft stationed in the Torres Strait cannot land on most islands at night.
Travel to the outermost islands by boat from Thursday Island takes about six hours in good weather.
Senior Sergeant Moynihan said police would physically respond to all domestic violence reports but, due to the geographical challenges, they often asked Torres Strait Islander Police Liaison Officers stationed in communities to "go and look" first.
The liaison officers do not have any powers of arrest and are mainly employed to provide cultural advice to police and act as their "eyes and ears".
Senior Sergeant Moynihan said requests to attend reports of domestic violence could put them in uncomfortable positions with family members.
Elsie Nona, a police liaison officer on Badu Island, told the hearing she and her colleagues would benefit from having additional powers, or a greater presence of sworn officers stationed on the islands.
"I sometimes feel I've got a big police station sign on top of my house," she said.
The inquiry's next hearings will be held in Townsville from Thursday.
