This year, the Queensland Parliament introduced the Domestic and Family Violence Amendment Bill to provide the way for amendments to the Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act. The Bill’s centrepiece is the provision for police officers to be issue Police Protection Directions, which operate similarly to the Domestic Violence Orders (DVOs) issued by magistrates.
By bypassing the court system and alleviating police paperwork, the Crisafulli State Government argue that more hours will be freed up for on-the-beat policing.
In June, QIFVLS’ Senior Policy Officer Kulumba Kiyingi attended a parliamentary committee hearing on the Bill in Cairns.
When asked about his appearance at the hearing, Kulumba said: “Our number one concern is safety. QIFVLS, along with many other organisations working in the DV sector have significant concerns around the lack of court oversight and the transfer of decision making power from a magistrate to a police officer in terms of issuing police protection directions.
“Secondly, we are concerned about the potential effects of any misidentification of the person using violence. If that happens, and police protection direction is placed on the wrong party, that creates the difficult, complex process of seeking legal advice for a review of that decision.
“Also, it’s critical to ensure that police are getting the right training to correctly identify the party using violence, and to be able to provide services in a culturally competent manner”.
Since 2024 QIFVLS’ Principal Legal Officer, Thelma Schwartz, has provided the Queensland Police Force’s Vulnerable Persons Unit and High Risk Teams with dedicated cultural competency training.
“Training needs to be across the board for all police officers” Kulumba noted, “Police need to be correctly inducted into the dynamics of the particular community they’re posted to”.
Currently, Tasmania is the only Australian state where a similar Police Protection Directions law is in place. “The feedback from the Tasmanian DV sector hasn’t been good. They’ve spoken about a misidentification crisis” Kulumba said.
Parliamentary hearings on the Bill have occurred in a number of regional Queensland citi
Indigenous ways of knowing must be at the heart of addressing family violence for Mereseini Rakuita, strategic lead for Pacific Community Teretia Tokam.
An Indigenous Fijian woman, Ms Rakuita said at the QIFVLS Overcoming Indigenous Family Violence Forum that two in three women in her region have experienced sexual or physical violence.
“There are a number of initiatives to address violence against women and girls” Mereseini noted.
One of these is the Pacific Women’s Network Against Violence Against Women, formed by local organisations and women across the region.
“The story behind this network is one of strength and resilience,” she said.
“A number of women sat down and said ‘we’ve got to do something about this.
“They all had their day jobs so they started using their salaries to work towards a crisis centre, now it has become a formalised structure – and one of the most progressive and advanced crisis centres in the region.”
QIFVLS CEO Wynetta Dewis agreed, saying “An all-of-community approach is required for addressing family violence.
“Domestic and family violence intersects with child protection, even housing and health”.
When James Cook University held its Legal Studies Conference in Cairns in June, QIFVLS’ Deputy Principal Legal Officer Isabella Copetti and Senior Policy Officer Kulumba Kiyingi were delighted to present to an audience of career-minded high school students.
The conference offered students the opportunity to hear from a range of legal professionals about studying law and where it could be applied within a human rights framework.
Isabella and Kulumba attended the Cairns session and spoke about First Nations rights through self-determination. Their presentation was structured in a Q&A format which was well-received and engaging for the students.
Kulumba said: “Isabella began the first half of the presentation asking me questions about my role as a Senior Policy Officer, what that involves in terms of domestic and family violence, and how it links with self-determination for First Nations communities in Queensland.
“We then switched and Isabella discussed real-world, practical insights using the case study she presented at the recent Overcoming Indigenous Family Violence Forum which touched on a lot of different areas in terms of DV and housing”.
QIFVLS’ Cairns office had a fabulous day in late June when it joined Innisfail Community Support Centre’s ‘The Great Amazing Race, 2025’.
Over 150 students from two local high schools participated in the event which was designed as a fun and engaging way to educate young people about where they can find support, services and advice within their region.
Teams of five to six students, dressed up to a theme of their choice, raced between the stalls of various community support organisations or services. Teams were given clues at each stall to assist them to find the next checkpoint with an educational challenge at every stall.
The QIFVLS stall was staffed by Case Management Officers Andrew Adidi and Arathea Wachter, together with Events Coordinator Jada Pomare. The team was able to provide a fast moving session on healthy and unhealthy relationships and was delighted to see so many students asking questions about the topic and its content.
QIVLS is proud to share a series of conversations with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who speak candidly about their experiences of domestic violence, or of working in that sector. This first video in the series features a conversation with Marnie Davis from Women Up North Housing, recorded at QIFVLS’ Overcoming Indigenous Family Violence Forum on the Gold Coast in May 2025. Marnie is speaking with Esther Tambo, QIFVLS’ Senior Policy Officer.
Visit the Cairns Service Delivery team and you can’t miss the positivity and upbeat good humour that pervades their office. That tone is certainly set by the team’s leader, Deputy Principal Legal Officer Isabella Copetti. Young, energetic and highly professional, Isabella is this subject of this month’s staff profile.
OCM: Thanks for sharing your story Isabella. Where did you grow up?
Isabella: I was born and raised in Cairns with my parents, Kym and Marco. I am the eldest of three and have a younger sister, Madeline and brother, Jake. I grew up very family-orientated. We spent a lot of time out and about fishing and at the beach when we were kids. We briefly moved up to Mossman for a few years for my parents work, but came back down to Cairns where I did all of my schooling, and ultimately went to university here as well, at James Cook University.
OCM: Copetti, that’s a very Italian-sounding surname.
Isabella: Yes, my dad is Italian, and my mum is Filipino/Papua New Guinean.
OCM: That’s an exotic mix. Were they the first from your family to come out to Australia?
Isabella: My dad’s parents moved to Australia from Italy. Interestingly, they moved separately and met in Sydney. He grew up there and later moved to Queensland. Dad was born at Bankstown Hospital and then moved up to Mareeba where his father worked in gold mining.
OCM: What originally sparked your interest in studying law?
Isabella: When I was in Year 11 and 12, I actually did all science-based subjects – a lot of chemistry and biology studies. After graduating high school I was accepted to study Biomedicine at JCU but took a gap year to work and earn some money. Over the course of that year I swayed back and forth between what I wanted to do and questioned whether I was really pulled towards working in a science field.
Around that time I was flicking through my old QTAC magazine and stumbled across doing a Bachelor of Law. I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of being on the opposing side of a subject and trying to argue a point. So I was like, oh, maybe I’ll give that a go, did an application with JCU, and was accepted.
It was a four year course and then I did my practical legal training for just over six months with the Australian National University. When I finished studying, I did some volunteering at the North Queensland Women’s Legal Service before being offered a position as a Judge’s Associate.
OCM: What did that involve?
Isabella: I held a position as an Associate to a District Court Judge in Cairns and worked really closely with them both in and outside of court for a year. That involved assisting them with the day-to-day operations in a court setting plus doing legal research and other tasks.
OCM: That would have given you some interesting insights.
Isabella: It did. I spent almost every day sitting in court and it gave me a really good opportunity to experience different levels of advocacy, both in a criminal and in a non-criminal setting, and to just really identify good advocacy that I could learn and adapt from.
OCM: That’s from both the prosecution and the defence perspectives?
Isabella: Yes, because you’re sitting in court for the full day, you see advocacy from both sides of the bar table. You’ll see prosecution and you’ll see defence. But I also got to see planning and environment trials and some civil matters, none of which I’d had any previous experience in. So that year gave me exposure to a whole lot of different areas of law.
OCM: I guess from that you would be able to start to identity those areas of law that were most interesting to you.
Isabella: Yes, so when I did work as an Associate, I was drawn to Youth Justice matters and seeing the interactions in that space. I liked that it was child-focused so I started trying to identify an area where I could work that would benefit children.
OCM: What does Youth Justice encompass?
Isabella: Youth Justice is the government department that works with children who may be involved in the court system on a different type of intervention when they’ve done criminal offending of some kind.
So, during children’s court matters in the district court, they will typically have a representative of Youth Justice there, and they’ll speak to the child and interact with them. I liked the sort of personable element to it.
OCM: The youth justice sector has been media fodder for a few years now – what’s your take on the youth justice system, and the repercussions of the current system?
Isabella: I think there’s a lot of interaction that occurs that society is not aware of. I think it’s a very quick response to have a reaction to a statement that you might read or a headline that you see in the newspaper or on social media, but there is no genuine understanding of the structure or backgrounds of children who are involved in the Youth Justice systems. We know that that all too often that children involved in the youth justice system have vulnerable backgrounds and upbringings, and I don’t think there is enough consideration of what that does and the impact that that can have.
OCM: So was it your interest in that sector that led you down the track towards QIFVLS?
Isabella: In fact it brought me directly to QIFVLS – I finished my associateship in 2018 and I started at QIFVLS in January 2019. I remember sort of doing my research about QIFVLS and the type of work that they did, and I was drawn to two things: the travel and the experiences that I could have in that space, and what I would call a niche area of law, with child protection. I’d had very limited exposure to it when I studied both at university or when I worked as an Associate, but given my interest in the space I saw this as a great opportunity – and now child protection is one the busiest areas that we practice in, and where we hold the greatest carriage of our files.
OCM: I didn’t realise that child protection was such a heavy component of QIFVLS’ case load.
Isabella: When I first came to QIFVLS I originally thought our busiest area would be domestic violence matters, but child protection has become a real passion of mine, working with parents who are affected by child safety intervention. It’s something that I really put a lot of time into – learning about the processes and working with the matters we have.
OCM: Is this an area that you would like to see QIFVLS have more specialisation in?
Isabella: I would like to. We do parent advocacy currently at QIFVLS, which includes representing parents who either have intervention with Child Safety. This work can be pre-court, during court proceedings or post-court to assist with reunification or contact matters. I would ultimately like to do some more specialised training to become a Separate Representative, which is a lawyer appointed to promote or act in the best interests of the children.
OCM: Do you see this at a space that’s kind of well represented at the moment? Do you think there’s an opportunity for sector growth there?
Isabella: I do think there’s an opportunity for growth. Over the last three to five years within the Cairns area, the numbers of available lawyers who are doing work as Separate Representatives has been decreasing. So there’s definitely a space for more lawyers to work and engage in that area.
OCM: QIFVLS has a huge footprint of responsibility, right across Queensland. How much travelling are you doing these days?
Isabella: When I first started at QIFVLS, I did court circuit travel every month, but in my current role as Deputy Principal Legal Officer, I don’t do as much however I am still involved in the co-ordination and structuring of our team’s travel.
OCM: Perhaps you could tell us a bit about your journey here at QIFVLS?
Isabella: So, when I started at QIFVLS, I worked as a Legal Support Officer, which was a paralegal style support working closely with a lawyer, and I did that for 12 months before I was offered a role as a Graduate Solicitor. Then had my own circuit that I got to travel on.
OCM: Who did you report to when you originally started?
Isabella: Originally, it was to Aaron Luki, who is now QIFVLS’ Senior Deputy Principal Legal Officer.
OCM: As Deputy Principal Legal Officer, you’ve got a great team that under with you. What sort of characteristics do you think are important to leading a team?
Isabella: I currently oversee the Cairns, Townsville, Bamaga and Thursday Island offices – so I have got four offices that I work with closely, and we’ve got awesome staff in each of those. Something that I really work hard to do is to recognise that the work we do can be challenging and overwhelming. I really emphasise across all of the teams to look out for one another, check in on colleagues and make sure that they’re going okay.
We also emphasise office camaraderie. We celebrate our wins and put a big effort on celebrating one another when we do have a success in a matter or at court or something like that. We also love a birthday celebration!
OCM: How do like to relax on your weekends and time off?
Isabella: I like to get out and do things – I don’t like to be at home much. We’re pretty lucky in Cairns that have good weather year-round, so I’ll go to the beach or up the Tablelands and spend time with my friends and family.
Also, and as much as I don’t like to admit it, I started playing pickleball after seeing it on Tik Tok. I’m definitely still a beginner and won’t be participating in any kind of competition soon! And I will say that every opportunity I get, I try to encourage the team here to play. Nobody has joined me yet, but I’ll get there one day.
I also have a holiday coming up, and am travelling over to Europe for about five and a half weeks starting in September. It’s been in the planning stages for about a year and a half now and I’m very much looking forward to it.
One thing that people probably wouldn’t have guessed about me is that I am a huge fan of Formula One – so I’m excited to be going to an F1 race at Monza when we’re in Italy.
OCM: I didn’t see that coming – who’s your favourite team and driver?
Isabella: I support McLaren – I’ve been a fan probably for at least five years now. McLaren is a team that’s been through some challenging times, but it’s been a good year for us so far. Obviously, McLaren has an Australian driver currently but I actually prefer his teammate, Lando Norris.
OCM: So just going back to QIFVLS, in the time that you’ve been here, how have you seen the organisation evolve?
Isabella: I’ve been at QIFVLS for six and a half years now, to be seven years in January next year, and there’s definitely been growth. I’ve seen growth within the teams, but also within the areas that we’ve been able to reach, and how we’ve been able to expand our footprint. We’ve been able to grow and create new roles and bring new people into our team, but we’ve also been able to service greater communities and be able to help more people.
OCM: Thanks Isabella.
When an individual or organisation makes a tax deductible donation to QIFVLS, they can be confident that their funds are going towards making a tangible difference to the safety and welfare of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experiencing or at risk of domestic and family violence.
Our team are grateful for all donations that help our not-for-profit organisation to continue offering this critical service. Donations of $1,000 or more help fund outreach services to some of Queensland’s most remote ATSI communities.
Are you in search of a rewarding profession that will take you on journeys through the breathtaking landscapes of Queensland? One that promises not only career advancement and skill enhancement, but also attractive perks, substantial travel allowances, and one-of-a-kind professional adventures? Are you drawn to a career that enables you to make a positive difference in the lives of others?
Look no further – your new career awaits you! At QIFVLS, we are dedicated to combating Family and Domestic Violence within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities. Our methods encompass education, advocacy, legal reform, court support, and casework assistance. By focusing on early intervention and prevention, our aim is to empower individuals impacted by Family Violence to regain control over their lives. We are in search of outstanding and dynamic individuals who can join us in achieving this mission.
If you envision yourself fitting into this scenario, we encourage you to see what’s available here.
