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Attorney-General Mark Speakman,pictured with Rape&Sexual Assault Research&Advocacy director Saxon Mullins,wants to give domestic violence survivors and their families more protection. — Attorney-General Mark Speakman,pictured with Rape& Sexual Assault Research& Advocacy director Saxon Mullins,wants to give domestic violence survivors and their families more protection.Credit:Peter Rae

Attorney-General Mark Speakman said victim-survivors of domestic and family violence (DFV) will gain further protections under the proposed laws targeting repeated abusive behaviours.

“Coercive control is complex,is insidious and causes untold harm for its victims,” he said,adding that consultation was critical to avoiding overreach.

Speakman said the lack of a stand-alone offence was a clear “gap” in the state’s criminal law and that support for reform spanned the political spectrum.

“At the moment criminal law focuses on individual episodes of violence rather than a course of conduct,” he said.

“We know from the domestic violence death review team that in 99 per cent of intimate partner domestic violence homicides … reviewed between 2008 and 2016,the relationship was characterised by the abuser’s use of coercive and controlling behaviours.”

The government announced its decision to formally criminalise coercive control in December as part of its response to a parliamentary inquiry.

The inquiry heard confronting evidence about repressive control that is imposed on thousands of women in domestic abusive relationships.

Coercive control is a form of domestic abuse involving patterns of behaviour that can be physical,sexual,psychological,emotional or financial.

Controlling what someone wears and who they see,limiting access to money,tracking their location and incessant texting and phone calls are all behaviours that constitute coercive control.

Minister for Women’s Safety and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Sexual Violence Natalie Ward said the reforms would also introduce a definition of domestic abuse to legislation.

“These reforms are crucial to ensuring that we recognise in law a pattern of behaviour which is identified as a precursor to domestic violence deaths,” she said.

Stakeholders have previously raised concerns that legislation would be challenged in proving a pattern of behaviour and that perpetrators of violence could use laws to make vexatious complaints.

Speakman said education and training among service providers and police would be critical to effective application of any new laws.

Consultation on the draft bill will remain open until August 31. The NSW government plans to introduce a final bill to parliament in the second half of 2022.

Interim chief executive of Domestic Violence NSW (DVNSW) Elise Phillips said criminalising coercive control had the potential to improve the safety of people experiencing domestic and family violence in NSW.

However,she said urged the government to ensure sufficient timing for consultation,training for police and courts and resourcing for the specialist DFV sector.

“The legislation is complex and DVNSW is concerned that a six-week consultation period is simply not long enough to review it and mitigate the risks and complexities of such legislation.“

The Queensland governmentcommitted to legislate against coercive control in November 2020.

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