Domestic violence is out of control on the Gold Coast and we need more than words to tackle the problem.

LNP Shadow Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence Ros Bates said protection orders were not worth the paper they were written on if offenders breached them.

“Labor’s embattled Minister Shannon Fentiman can talk all she wants about a tripling of police protection orders but the fact is in the last 12 months there was a 25 percent increase in breach of orders.

“Not only are our police being swamped with calls for service they are having to deal with massive repeat calls for service when orders are ignored.

“The real question is how many extra police prosecutors have been allocated to deal with this explosion in court work?

“We have heard from some victims that offenders are thumbing their nose and breaching multiple times.

“As a community we need to stop domestic violence before it begins and this is something Labor continue to ignore.

“Only one third of the recommendations of the ‘Not Now Not Ever’ report have been completed under this ‘do-nothing’ Labor Minister.

“Labor are all talk and no action on domestic violence.

“It was the LNP the introduced tough new domestic violence legislation from Opposition to better protect victims.

“We need to seriously look at the deterrence factor domestic violence orders are having on offenders with so many breaches.