GOING SOFT ON VIOLENCE... Violent Husbands To Be Sent To Motels!

I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this! Victoria has got to have the dumbest goverment anywhere...

MEN who bash their wives and children will be packed off to motels or caravan parks so their families do not have to leave their homes under an Australian-first plan announced by the Victorian Government.

But the head of the Male Family Violence Prevention Association, Danny Blay, criticised the proposal, saying men also needed counselling.

They should not be left to fester in a caravan or hotel room to get angrier and more frustrated," Mr Blay said. "They need ... counselling to get them talking about their relationship, thinking about their life and behaviour differently."

Mr Blay said there was an "excellent" half-way house arrangement, with in-house counselling, in Perth, and two had existed in Melbourne until government funding was stopped.

Under the policy, police or social workers would be able to give taxpayer-funded vouchers to violent men to set them up in cheap accommodation in hostels, rooming houses, hotels or caravan parks for up to three nights, in a policy to cost $600,000 over four years.

Police would also be able to obtain over-the-phone intervention orders to stop men going home to threaten their partners. A further $1.4million would be spent over four years to give women a greater choice of emergency accommodation.

Acting Premier John Thwaites said, currently, men could argue they had nowhere to go following a claim of domestic violence against them and so remain in the home.

"Women and children can receive crisis accommodation in refuges when it is available, but it is short-term and is often a long way from their support networks and their children's schools," he said.

"With this new system there will be vouchers so that if a man has committed violence we can get the man out of the home."

The initiative (The what?) comes in a $35.1million domestic violence package, released yesterday, which is part of a new government focus on social policy.

The policy's main thrust is to integrate services, so that somebody complaining of domestic violence receives a consistent response, whether they approach police, doctors, schools or domestic violence services. It involves large injections of money to increase case management services.

Mr Blay said the package as a whole was "a great start, a great first step". The announcement represents the first installment in the Government's social justice policy, which will be released today.

The policy is an attempt to stem the criticism, made in the wake of a big-spending economic statement last year, that the Government was pandering to its business constituency and ignoring the poor and low-paid.