Thursday, 20 November 2025

 Natalie HUTCHINS (Sydenham – Minister for Government Services, Minister for Treaty and First Peoples, Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Women) (10:08): I rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025 and I rise to speak absolutely in support of this bill, which includes measures to increase the safety and wellbeing of victim-survivors and hold perpetrators of family and sexual violence to account. These amendments send a really strong message that the Allan Labor government hears victims and acts on that advice. It is their experience that has to drive the change, and I have had the absolute pleasure of working with VSAC, which is the Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council of Victoria, and have seen their good work in feeding in the lived experience voice.

Our current Family Violence Protection Act 2008 definition makes it clear that family violence goes far beyond physical harm, including a wide range of abusive, coercive and controlling behaviours that undermine personal safety and a person’s autonomy, but the misuse of systems designed to support people is becoming increasingly common and needs to be recognised. Systems abuse happens when a perpetrator uses legal, government or institutional processes to threaten, control or punish a victim-survivor. This might include false reports, dragging them through unnecessary court procedures, interfering with Centrelink, making false reports to the ATO or on visa matters or manipulating child protection orders or the Family Court law system. These tactics drain a victim-survivor’s money and emotional energy and can keep them living in fear and instability long after the relationship has ended. Recognising systems abuse in law is absolutely crucial to naming these tactics and stopping perpetrators from turning the very systems designed to protect people into tools of harm.

Beloved family pets are often at the heart of a home, offering comfort, routine and emotional connection, and perpetrators can exploit this bond by withholding food, water, shelter or medication. I even had a situation of having a beautiful German shepherd turn up in my front yard, only to find out, after advertising this lost dog on Facebook, that this was about the third time in a couple of weeks that a woman’s ex-partner had let her dog out on the street and removed all of his collars, hoping that he would never be recovered. We are recognising the less direct ways that animals are used to control, dominate and coerce victim-survivors.

Stalking is another way perpetrators create fear and maintain control through persistent following, surveilling and unwanted contact and misuse of technology. Recognising stalking in the Family Violence Protection Act acknowledges the serious and ongoing impact on victim’s freedom, privacy and psychological safety. Including these forms of harm in the definition of ‘family violence’ gives much-needed clarity for people who know something is wrong but have not had the language or the legal framework to validate their experiences. Unfortunately, I have heard from way too many women in our communities that have experienced this.

Family violence intervention orders are vital tools for victims-survivors. They set clear legal boundaries around the perpetrator’s behaviour, creating immediate consequences for breaches and giving victim-survivors a stronger sense of protection and agency so that they are not left to manage those behaviours alone. However, I have heard firsthand from victim-survivors about the harrowing and deeply traumatic experience of being misidentified as the perpetrator by police or the courts. Unfortunately, this happens to many Aboriginal women, who experience this at a higher rate than anybody else, and we need to make sure the very systems that are there to protect them do that. I want to thank Djirra and its CEO Antoinette Braybrook for the work that they have done in bringing change in this space. By requiring courts and police to consider specific factors before making an order, we are reducing the risk of harm and misidentification and strengthening workforce capacity to respond to each case individually, considering intersectionality, unique histories and individual vulnerabilities.

Victims have told me how retraumatising, confronting and even exhausting it is to apply for a new intervention order sometimes as often as every 12 months. I have heard the fear in the voices of women whose perpetrators are due to be released from prison with no intervention order in place, leaving them anxious, unprotected and unsure of what happens when that day comes. Introducing a two-year default length for intervention orders and ensuring those perpetrators in prison for family violence offences have an order that goes for the length of their sentence plus 12 months is important for women recovering from trauma and rebuilding their lives.

I have also heard many times from women who have fled to Victoria to escape family violence from other states, only to be told that they cannot be granted an intervention order because the abuse did not occur in this jurisdiction. For someone who has risked everything to seek safety, this is an unacceptable barrier. Ensuring these victims can seek safety and support through the legal system in Victoria is fundamental to addressing family violence. It does not stop at the border.

Many of you will know Conor Pall’s story. Conor is the former deputy chair of the Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council, who turned 18 and aged out of his mother’s intervention order against his father. At a time when he should have been focused on school, friends and the usual milestones of adolescence, he was instead forced to apply for his own order as an adult, just to stay safe. Changing the way this intervention order operates so that young people continue to be protected when they turn 18 is a significant step forward in supporting children and young people as victim-survivors, one I am really proud that we are delivering. These reforms are important steps in the government’s ongoing work to keep communities safe and hold perpetrators to account.

Since the Royal Commission into Family Violence this government has invested more than $4 billion to transform how Victoria prevents and responds to family violence and sexual violence, and I am proud that last year’s budget continues to deliver on that commitment with ongoing funding for programs such as the adolescent violence in the home program, providing early intervention and trauma-informed support for young people using violence. Many of those young people often have had violence used on them. We are supporting people who use violence to change their behaviours, including 4400 voluntary men’s behaviour change programs, perpetrator case management and specialised programs for different cohorts using violence. Through the women’s safety package we are expanding the Alexis family violence response model with Victoria Police and the Salvation Army, providing intense support to the highest risk perpetrators and victim-survivors. We are also expanding Respectful Relationships and the modelling respect and equality program in schools, helping foster better behaviours in students, particularly boys and young men.

The amendments in this bill provide vital legal support to victim-survivors during some of the toughest moments of their lives and send a clear message to perpetrators that they will be held to account. They reflect this government’s unwavering commitment to the safety that victim-survivors deserve, to ending family violence and sexual violence and to ensuring the safety and dignity of women across Victoria and across Australia.

I want to conclude by shouting out to the amazing workforce across our state that are at the forefront of supporting victim-survivors and protecting their rights and their safety, from Victoria Police through to our staff at the Orange Doors through to our partners in the many, many myriad programs that are run by the not-for-profit sector and of course our workforce at places like Safe Steps, who take those 24/7 calls and place people into safer accommodation and safer spaces. I think that quite often in this workforce they are absolute heroes of our community and are not always recognised, so I want to do a shout-out to them. I commend the bill to the house.

 Emma KEALY (Lowan) (10:18): I rise today to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025. As a former shadow minister for family violence, this is unfortunately something that I have had to hear about too much. I have spoken on these types of issues many times in this place, and it gets no easier on each occasion.

There are significant issues which we are facing in Victoria which have been occurring at an increasing rate where women do not feel safe. This is on the back of some horrific and very high profile murders and stalking and mistreatment of women, and they do not feel safe on the streets of Melbourne. They are followed into an area where there is nobody around and come to an untimely death – a horrific death, a death which often involves sexual violence.

Unfortunately, there are far too many instances of this. One instance would be bad enough. I think that this feeling is rippling throughout the Victorian community, where I hear so frequently now that women are not comfortable going out for a walk or a run – particularly around the streets of Melbourne, but it happens in regional Victoria as well – because they do not know what will happen to them. They are worried about somebody waiting for them, somebody following them and there not being support available to intervene in time. It is impacting on the lives of every Victorian woman, not just on their psychological and mental health but also their physical health, because they have a fear of going outdoors.

For me, this hits quite hard because this year I have had somebody who has taken an escalating amount of interest in my activities and my location. I can share with the house that it scared the life out of me when I received a phone call from my partner that the person who had been sending me relentless emails was waiting on the side of the road between my home and my child’s school at a time when he was going to school – at drop-off time. I have been walking down the street with one of my children and seen this person, and we have had to carefully curate walking on the other side of the road, hiding behind cars and trees so that I am not seen. This is an unfair and unsafe situation.

It is not just me and my position. It is something that every Victorian woman has felt at some point in time: unwelcome contact, unwelcome leers, stepping over that line, being too close, trying to form a relationship and putting pressure on a woman because she does not want to be part of that situation. There are insufficient protections in place for women in those scenarios, and I know that because I am one of those women who has been in that position and not felt protected. While I believe that I am strong enough and smart enough to be able to keep an eye out and avoid those situations, I never want to be in a position where my children are at risk because the laws are not keeping up with what we need to see to protect women and children in this state.

For me, this is something I have lived with, so it shakes me to my core, but I cannot imagine the fear of other women who have walked those footsteps and come to a tragic end. I am sure there will be some reflection and debate on some of the more high-profile cases that have been noteworthy and about which we have spoken directly in this place. We all know what happened in the tragic ending of Jill Meagher’s life. She was walking home and was followed home, and in the most inexplicable and unacceptable way her life was ended by somebody who was on the sex offenders register. She was followed home. Then in 2018 there was Eurydice Dixon, about whom I spoke in this place. I was the Shadow Minister for Women at the time. It was a tragic ending – leaving a comedy show, catching a tram home, being followed and then being raped and murdered in a Melbourne parkland.

While I understand that these reforms are necessary, they have been necessary for a very long time. It is unfair for any Victorian woman to feel like she has to go it alone and that she has not got support behind her. While in this place we hear many times that there will be a strengthening of different laws so that this will not happen again, time and time again we hear the same scenarios arising.

We hear that calls are made to 000 and there is not an ability to respond within a timeframe that provides safety and security for that individual. As I mentioned at the top of my contribution, there are women who are changing their behaviours and spending more time isolated at home than doing what we expect them, young women in particular, to be able to do: go out and live their life, spend time with their friends, have a good time and make those memories that form part of the fabric of our personality and how we engage with other people, perhaps even go out and find a loved one – for a short time or maybe a lifelong partner. Women are losing their right in Victoria to do that, because they do not feel safe.

I made an announcement a number of years ago with the member for Brighton which was around stalking laws and particularly in relation to Celeste Manno, who met an untimely demise when she knew somebody was fixated on her, was stalking her. She was murdered in her own home. It is something that should never happen. For the family then to have to grieve their daughter in a way that they feel like it could have been prevented is something that mentally scars them for life. It is something that is unfathomable in many ways, but unfortunately if people think they will get away with it, they will do that. We cannot predict how people will behave, what their motivations are and what their actions will be, and women, because they cannot predict that and they do not feel safe, are staying at home more and more often. This has a serious impact on the mental health of Victorian women. It has a serious impact on the fabric of everything else in our community – of seeing people out and about in a park, which of course provides an extra level of security if you are going for a walk, and that additional vibrancy in our towns and our cities, with people happy to go out for dinner, go out to the pub or go to a concert and have a good time without fear. That is something we should be striving for again in Victoria.

I note that while this legislation implements some of the recommendations that were made by the Victorian Law Reform Commission in regard to their investigation into stalking in non-family violence settings, it does not implement all recommendations. There is still much work to be done. These recommendations were handed down in September 2022. Three years later we are implementing two of the 45 recommendations. There is a lot more work to be done, and I urge the government to bring forward those recommendations as quickly as possible.

We have had recommendations arising from the Royal Commission into Family Violence. We have had these recommendations put forward by the Victorian Law Reform Commission. We need to listen and to look at the evidence – of the women who cannot contribute to the structure of this legislation because they are no longer with us today and of women who cannot contribute to this conversation for fear of engaging with the wider community. While I support these recommendations, I urge the government to do more, to do more quickly, and make sure every Victorian woman feels safe living their life outside of the home in the wider community.

 Vicki WARD (Eltham – Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Natural Disaster Recovery, Minister for Equality) (10:28): In speaking in support of this bill I firstly acknowledge and thank all victim-survivors and those who work and volunteer in this sector. I acknowledge the story just told by the member for Lowan, and I express my sorrow that she has had to experience this.

I refute, though, the narrative presented by the member for Malvern yesterday that this government has not worked hard and created serious and meaningful reform. We, along with the extraordinary victim-survivors, sector members and experts, have done a lot of hard work. Since we were elected we have shone a light on family violence and we have done so much to reform this policy area. I acknowledge and thank the former Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, who spoke yesterday on this bill, the member for Kalkallo; the current Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, who just spoke and who was instrumental in setting up so many of the supports and reforms we have now; and the Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change, the member for Mordialloc, who is doing extraordinary work. As the Minister for Equality I recognise the harm family violence does in the LGBTQIA+ community, much of which includes the violence by family members who wish to hurt and control their loved ones because of who they are.

We know that the LGBTIQA+ community face higher rates of violence, with 65 per cent experiencing violence in their lifetime. Trans and gender-diverse people are disproportionately represented in this figure, particularly trans women, and I do acknowledge that today is trans remembrance day. We know that young LGBTIQA+ people might become homeless for sharing their identities and that finding inclusive supports is a barrier to disclosing experiences of violence. This is especially true in regional and rural areas for people with disabilities, older people and rainbow mob.

This Labor government has worked hard to strengthen protections for victim-survivors of family violence and to take preventative measures – more than any other state or territory. We know the best protection of women and of children is respect, is a community where all Victorians are respected and equal, where we have healthy masculinities and where men who are choosing to use violence make different choices. When it comes to equality and to responding to the challenges of family and gender-based violence, we have absolutely led the way. We are the first jurisdiction to hold a Royal Commission into Family Violence. We were the first to set up the important Orange Door network. We have created a designated section of Victoria Police which trains the force in the best methods of response. We have strengthened Respectful Relationships, leading the nation, and introduced the Ballarat saturation pilot, a pilot program that will measure the effectiveness of saturating the community with anti-violence and respectful campaigns over four years.

This bill is another step in our work to combat family violence, bringing together several important changes, including improvements to family violence intervention orders. Rather than orders lasting only six to 12 months and requiring repeat traumatic court appearances, there will now be a presumption of a two-year minimum term. This reduces the burden on victim-survivors and ensures longer term stability. It also ensures that when a child is listed on a parent’s FVIO, when they turn 18 they continue to be protected. The protections do not automatically age out. The change to extend FVIO protection once a child turns 18 is a critical step forward. Young people can face a legal cliff when they reach adulthood, and protections can lapse as they are entering a phase of life full of new vulnerabilities – and they can lapse without the young person even knowing that they have done so.

It is through listening to and understanding lived experience that we make the policy and law changes that reflect what is needed, like this one. I acknowledge Conor Pall, a powerful young advocate with lived experience, who has played an important role in highlighting this problem and pushing for reform. Reflecting on his own experience, Conor said:

I won’t stop fighting until we all adequately recognise and act upon children and young people’s unique experiences of family violence, as victim-survivors in their own right …

I thank Conor for his determination to advocate for others, for his compassion for others and for using his experiences to drive change. He was invaluable in his role as deputy chair of the Victorian Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council, and he is a young man who has refused to let violence used against him and his family determine who he is or how he lives his life. He has shown courage, leadership and compassion.

Holding lived experience like Conor’s at the centre of our decision-making has been integral to the strength of this government’s response to the incredibly challenging nature of family and gender-based violence. Listening to lived experience is what has led to the inclusion of extending orders when a perpetrator is imprisoned. A court will be able to extend the FVIO to match the length of a jail sentence, plus an additional 12 months on release.

We know that risk can increase for those who have lived through family violence experiences when a perpetrator has completed their sentence and is released. Perpetrators of family and gender-based violence often become obsessed with control and will take any measure to ensure their control over their loved one. Ironically, what they do not realise is how much their desire for control actually controls them and determines so much of how they behave and the choices they make.

In their choice of asserting control, we know through listening to lived experience that violence takes many forms. We are broadening the definition of ‘family violence’ to also include stalking, systems abuse and mistreatment of animals. We hear of perpetrators so obsessed with controlling their loved one, so unable to control themselves, that they insert tracking devices in prams, toys, handbags, cars and more. We hear of loved pets being threatened with violence or having violence used on them to ensure compliance. We hear of complete strangers obsessively monitoring someone in a frightening attempt to control. By strengthening stalking laws, the government is sending a clear message: controlling, harassing and terrorising behaviour, even when non-physical, is unacceptable and dangerous. This shift will better align legal protections with the lived experience of many victim-survivors, acknowledging that family violence and gender-based violence is not always about a single violent incident; it is an ongoing pattern of fear, intimidation and control.

We will also be able to better protect people who have fled to Victoria escaping from a family violence perpetrator by bringing in changes which will allow courts to create protective orders when some or all offending has occurred interstate. These changes are important and continue the strengthening of the family violence response in Victoria.

With the extraordinary work that has happened in this state in the last 10 years, we have seen an improved recognition of the many forms of family violence. We see the diminishing of the stigma of being somebody who has experienced family violence, and we see first responders and supports like the Orange Door having a greater understanding of family violence. We see an increase in reporting as a result. We are now seeing reports of family violence in a year total over 100,000.

Prevention is key, stopping this choice to use violence before it even happens. This is why Respectful Relationships is so important and why this government continues to strengthen this program. We must continue to support children to be kind, inclusive and supportive of each other. To have respect for others, our children and young people need to be supported to understand consent, respect, equality and emotional literacy from an early age. By building a culture of respect in schools, we lay down the foundations for a future in which violence is less likely and less tolerated. It is also important that we do all we can to focus on healthy masculinities, giving our boys and young men the best start to their adult lives. This needs a whole-of-community approach, as does the acceptance that violence has no place in our homes.

I also want to acknowledge the important work of Jesuit Social Services and their Man Box project. The Man Box is exactly that: men trapped in a box of unhealthy social norms, prevented from reaching their full potential. Key findings from the 2024 Man Box report include that many men feel social pressures to conform to rigid norms – 36 to 37 per cent of men aged 18 to 45 said they felt these pressures; and 24 to 25 per cent personally agree with the Man Box rules – that is, being stoic, always in control, never showing vulnerability. Those who most strongly endorse those rules are significantly more likely to hold violence-supportive attitudes, to have perpetrated physical or sexual violence and to suffer poorer mental health. The research reveals that these harmful norms not only hurt others but also limit the potential of these men themselves. Our prevention work includes supporting Jesuit Social Services’ modelling respect and equality program, which recruits, trains and supports male and female role models, including teachers, social workers and sports coaches. These role models are supported to promote positive expressions of masculinity and promote respect and equality amongst men and boys.

Aligned with this whole-community approach is the Ballarat saturation pilot led by Respect Victoria. This is an important tool in working towards safer families and relationships. This four-year pilot is the first of its kind in Australia and another example of how our state and our government is leading the nation in this work. This pilot will saturate the community with messaging, education and connection points across schools, workplaces, sports clubs, health services and more, bringing the whole community into the conversation about safety, gender equality and respect. I will take this opportunity to thank Respect Victoria, particularly chair Kate Fitz-Gibbon and project lead and former acting CEO Serina McDuff, for their leadership in researching, designing and launching this pilot.

The reforms we are debating today are another firm step towards ending family violence in this state, building on the work that we have done so passionately, so consistently and so strongly since we were elected, since the former Premier made a promise to the people of Victoria in 2014 that we would have a Royal Commission into Family Violence – a promise he honoured. This government has spent every day since first being elected working to eradicate family and gender-based violence from our state.

 Rachel WESTAWAY (Prahran) (10:38): I rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025. The opposition will not oppose this legislation. It makes sensible reforms to family violence intervention orders, introduces protection for animals in family violence contexts and updates criminal procedure provisions. These are absolutely worthwhile measures. But I cannot allow this bill to pass without addressing a profound failure – a failure not in what this bill does but in what it fails to do, particularly regarding stalking reforms. This is not merely an omission; it is a continuation of delay that has real, dangerous consequences.

The numbers tell a stark story. Stalking offences in Victoria are absolutely at their highest level in more than a decade.

In the year to June 2025 non-family violence stalking increased 9.4 per cent to 1171 cases and family violence stalking increased 6.9 per cent to 1807 cases. Combined, that is nearly 3000 reported stalking offences in a single year, placing enormous pressure on our justice system’s capacity to respond. These are not just statistics. They represent thousands of Victorians, predominantly women, living in fear whilst our system struggles with risk assessment, timely intervention and effective protection.

In 2020, 23-year-old Celeste Manno from Mernda was murdered by a man who had stalked her. Despite her multiple reports to authorities, despite her fear, despite her family’s advocacy, the system failed to protect her.

Following tireless advocacy by her mother Aggie Di Mauro, the government commissioned the Victorian Law Reform Commission to review stalking. The VLRC conducted comprehensive research and consulted extensively, and in September 2022 they tabled a report with 45 carefully considered recommendations. These recommendations were designed to strengthen legal frameworks, improve risk identification, modernise police responses and increase victim protections. That was in September 2022; that is more than two years ago. This bill implements two of those 45 recommendations – that is less than 5 per cent: recommendation 26, allowing courts to make interim personal safety intervention orders on their own motion, and recommendation 33, which is partially implemented, to clarify the meaning of ‘course of conduct’ in the stalking offence.

These are positive steps, but they represent a fraction of what independent experts said was absolutely urgently needed. Where are the improved police response protocols, where are the enhanced risk assessment tools, where is the better information sharing between agencies and where are the clearer pathways for victims? Where is the modernised legislative structure that would create three distinct stalking offences based on intentional, reckless and objective fault reforms? They are all absent. The overwhelming majority of reforms that could save lives remain unimplemented more than two years after they were recommended.

This failure on stalking sits within a broader, more fundamental failure. We are not thinking preventatively about family violence. We are reacting to harm after it occurs, pouring resources into managing consequences rather than disrupting the pathways that lead to violence in the first place.

I want to draw the Parliament’s attention to groundbreaking research by a constituent in my area, Professor Leonie Segal, and her colleagues at the University of South Australia. Their work on disrupting pathways into family violence should fundamentally reshape how we approach this crisis. Professor Segal’s research demonstrates that child maltreatment directly impacts brain health, fundamentally changing how brains develop, stress responses and relational patterning. This affects behaviour, emotional regulation, cognition, impulse control, alertness to threats, empathy, sense of self-worth with agency, and shame. The consequences cascade across the lifespan. Child maltreatment is causally associated with mental illness, substance use and troubled intimate relationships, with an increased risk of violence.

The data is really compelling. Research from the iCAN project tracking over 620,000 persons born in South Australia between 1986 and 2017 show that children with any child protection contact have mortality rates 2.3 times higher than those with no contact, that for children with substantiated maltreatment it is 2.8 times higher and that for children in out-of-home care it is 5.1 times higher. People aged 16 to 33 with a history of child maltreatment have death rates from suicide that are 2.8 times higher; from poisoning, alcohol, drugs and mental illness, 4.8 times higher, and from natural causes, twice as high as their peers with no child protection contact.

Perhaps most critically, this trauma transmits across generations. Professor Segal’s research shows that 87 per cent of children entering out-of-home care have mothers who themselves have child protection contact.

The adjusted relative risk shows mothers with substantiated maltreatment are 6.3 times more likely to have children who have experienced substantive maltreatment compared to mothers with no child protection contact. This is absolutely the pathway. Childhood trauma leads to disturbed rational capacity, which leads to troubled intimate relationships, which leads to family violence, which leads to more childhood trauma. The cycle perpetuates.

Emergency department visits tell the same story. Among those with out-of-home care histories, 70 per cent of ED visits for mental health reasons, 70 per cent for poisoning and 62 per cent for alcohol and drug issues were for individuals with prior child protection contact. Children aged six to 16 with out-of-home care histories have 22.9 times the odds of stress responses and PTSD, 20.7 times the odds of conduct disorders and 11.8 times the odds of emotional disorders compared to children with no child protection contact.

Professor Segal’s research also challenges us to move beyond simplistic narratives. Research from the United States shows that exposure to physical abuse increases the odds of suicide attempt by 5.1 times for females and 6.9 for males. For date violence it is 3.2 for females and eight for males, and for weapon carrying it is 4.2 for females and 3.6 for males. Studies conclude there is a direct path between a history of childhood trauma and intimate partner violence perpetration. Other studies show child abuse and neglect increase the risk of intimate partner violence as victim or perpetrator, and of reciprocal violence.

Both men and women are victims. Both men and women are perpetrators. The evidence shows that we need to focus on healing capacity for successful interpersonal relationships and better support for troubled families, and this means addressing the disturbed rational capacity that flows from childhood maltreatment, regardless of the gender. We need to leverage universal services, early childhood education, childcare centres and maternal and child health. We need to revisit funding models to facilitate intensive, skilful, responsive service delivery.

We also need to address the workforce gender imbalance. The early childhood workforce is less than 5 per cent male; primary school teachers, approximately 28 per cent male; social workers, approximately 13 per cent male; and registered psychologists, 19 per cent male. If we are serious about healing perpetrators, and particularly men’s capacities for healthy relationships, we need male role models in therapeutic and education systems that work with vulnerable families.

I will return to this bill. We do not oppose it, but we cannot celebrate modest reforms when comprehensive change has been recommended and delayed for over two years. I call on the government to immediately release a full response to all 45 VLRC stalking recommendations, with a clear implementation timeline. I call for adequate resourcing of Victoria Police, for the courts and for victims services to respond to the stalking crisis. More fundamentally I call on the government to adopt the evidence-based approach outlined by Professor Segal and her colleagues. This means a major shift in budget allocations, from managing consequences to preventing harm. It means therapeutic intervention from infancy. It means training the workforce. It means understanding that both men and women need healing capacity and both men and women can be victims and perpetrators.

The opposition will not oppose this bill, but we will hold the government accountable for its failure to act with the urgency this crisis demands. I commend the bill to the house.

 Ella GEORGE (Lara) (10:49): I rise today to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025. Can I start my contribution by thanking the Premier, the Attorney-General and the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence and their teams for their outstanding work on this important piece of legislation. There is no place for violence in this state. I think that is something that all members here can agree on, and this bill highlights our government’s ongoing commitment to protecting women and children. These new reforms will keep family violence victim-survivors safe for as long as they need.

Members in this house may know that this is a matter close to my heart, and I often speak about family violence here. Prior to becoming a member of Parliament I spent several years working in family violence reform within Victoria’s court system, and now I am so proud to be here as a member of a government that, for the first time in the history of our state, has taken real action on family violence.

This is a government that has implemented every single recommendation of the Royal Commission into Family Violence, real commitments that have been supported with real funding to support them. This legislation is a continuation of our steadfast commitment to ending violence against women and children in Victoria and at the same time ensuring that we do everything we can to support those who are experiencing family violence.

This bill will set out key reforms across three main areas – in family violence, stalking and sexual offences. I would like to focus my contribution on the reforms that this bill will make in how we respond to family violence. This bill will make a number of reforms, including broadening the definition of ‘family violence’ to include stalking, mistreatment of animals and systems abuse. It will require courts and police to consider specific factors to avoid misidentifying victims as perpetrators before issuing family violence intervention orders or family violence safety notices. It will prevent children from ageing out of family violence intervention orders on their 18th birthday, an important reform and a key recommendation from a Victorian Law Reform Commission 2025 report. Courts will be allowed to issue family violence intervention orders for offences occurring outside of Victoria, a hugely important reform for victim-survivors who live in border towns or for those who have moved away for their safety. This bill will establish a default length of two years for all family violence intervention orders, and it will allow family violence intervention orders for imprisoned perpetrators to last until the end of their sentence plus 12 months post release to keep families safer. It will improve the service of family violence intervention orders to expedite protection and prevent avoidance by imprisoned perpetrators.

These reforms are a long time coming and something that I know many victim-survivors and those working in the family violence sector have long campaigned for. In fact many of the reforms in this bill were suggested by victim-survivors and people with lived experience. This bill would not have been possible without the hard work, advocacy and dedication of victim-survivors and the family violence service sector, and for that I thank them.

These reforms are another piece of legislation that our government has introduced to the Victorian Parliament to ensure that better protections are in place for all Victorians. These reforms make it clear that there is no place for violence in our state. We know that family violence is the number one law and order issue in Victoria. In the year leading up to June 2025 there was a rise in reported cases of family violence, climbing 7.7 per cent to a total of over 100,000 incidents, and the incident rate also saw an uptick, increasing by 5.9 per cent to almost 1500 incidents per 100,000 residents in Victoria. According to the family violence database for 2023–24, a significant 64 per cent of those who committed family violence were identified as repeat offenders, having a history of prior police-reported incidents related to family violence.

This is a major issue in the Lara community and right across the Geelong region. I have many people come to me and come to my office seeking support for family violence. When I speak to people out and about in the community and I mention that I have previously worked in family violence, they often disclose their own experiences of family violence to me. It is these conversations that I and so many people in this place have that really solidify the importance of this work and why when it comes to family violence there is always more that we can be doing. There is always more that we can be doing to protect children and women from violence in their homes, and that is exactly what this bill sets out to do.

Earlier this year I chaired an inquiry by the Legal and Social Issues Committee, along with the member for Eildon, into capturing data on family violence perpetrators in Victoria. This inquiry focused on the mechanisms for capturing data on the profiles and volume of perpetrators of family violence in Victoria and also the barriers to achieving a full understanding of this cohort. The final report from our committee, titled Building the Evidence Base: Inquiry into Capturing Data on People Who Use Family Violence in Victoria, was the result of a year-long, thorough consultation with various organisations, authorities and sector experts, and our committee concluded that while we have come so far in Victoria, gathering accurate and complete data on family violence, particularly regarding perpetrators, is still challenging. The committee’s report highlights the complexities involved in collecting comprehensive data on family violence and its perpetrators in Victoria, noting that such information is dispersed across various organisations. While this bill is not in response to our committee’s work or the recommendations we made, there are some clear links. For example, this bill’s emphasis on maintaining protective orders beyond a child’s 18th birthday aligns with the report’s findings that data collection must reflect the ongoing risks associated with family violence, regardless of age.

Another important reform that I would like to touch on in more detail is the requirement that courts and police consider specific factors to avoid misidentifying victims as perpetrators before issuing family violence intervention orders or family violence safety notices. Misidentification of the predominant aggressor remains a significant issue and is an area in which we can do better. This is when a victim-survivor of family violence is wrongly identified as the main perpetrator by law enforcement or the justice system, and it can occur due to a number of reasons. It can occur when self-defence is misinterpreted, when perpetrators manipulate situations, where systemic biases exist or where there is a lack of understanding about the dynamics of family violence. Imagine what it is like to be the victim of family violence but to find yourself in a situation where you are accused of being the perpetrator. The ABC reported on this last year. They heard from individuals about their experiences. One person said:

He just beat the crap out of me. When the police arrived, they put me in the back of the paddy wagon… and I was screaming, ‘I’ve been abused, I have been for a long time’. They sat inside with him and took his statement. He was so cool, calm and collected on the night… I was hysterical. I spent the night in the cell. They ended up charging me for breaking a window and giving me the AVO. Never got the chance to make a statement ever.

That is horrific. People who are victims of family violence should never be misidentified as the perpetrator. I am really pleased to see reform in this bill that will go a great way I think in fixing that. This is not an uncommon problem. At least 10 per cent of family violence intervention orders or family violence safety notices incorrectly identify the predominant aggressor. That is something that the family violence reform implementation monitor has found in her previous reports, and it has a disproportionate impact on different cohorts of Victorians. It impacts First Nations women, women with a disability, people who are LGBTIQA+ and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. I am really pleased that these reforms will ensure that the courts or police must have a better understanding of the context of the relationship, the history of family violence within that relationship and also any characteristics that may increase the risk of misidentification. I think these reforms regarding misidentification are really long overdue, and I am really pleased to see that the state government is taking up this challenge which remains really significant in how we address family violence in our state and do something about it.

Doing something about family violence is something that we are so proud of as members of the state Labor government. Victoria is leading the nation when it comes to preventing violence against women and girls. We had our nation-leading Royal Commission into Family Violence, where we accepted, implemented and funded every single one of the 227 recommendations, changing our systems, changing how we support people experiencing family violence and changing how we talk about family violence in our community to prevent and respond to violence. When it comes to our response to family violence, I could not be prouder to be a member of the state Labor government. I commend this bill to the house.

 Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (10:59): I am pleased to rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025 that is before us. I will note that the legislation covers three areas specifically: intervention orders, stalking and some court and criminal elements. I want to begin by acknowledging all of the victims of violence, family violence and stalking, the journeys that they have had and the trauma that they have experienced, and also the workers in the field, because it can be a fairly tough job.

I am going to begin by talking about the area of the family violence intervention orders and a couple of positive changes. There is a default length now of two years, which means people do not need to keep coming back and seeking an extension. It can give clarity of mind for that period. It can reduce stress, even though I know that there are too many breaches of intervention orders. But for many once that intervention order is in place, the perpetrator actually stops and takes a step back and thinks, ‘Gosh, maybe I have crossed the line here’ – not every case of course.

These changes align with other states, such as New South Wales, Western Australia and the ACT.

One important change that others talked about earlier is that when a child turns 18 they do not age out of an order. If there is an order in place for the family for eight months and four months into that the child turns 18, they do not now age out of that, and I think that makes a lot of sense. People have referred to Conor Pall. I have met with Conor, and I understand the trauma that he has experienced.

Another change is a default 12 months post release in relation to somebody who has been incarcerated. They have the term of the sentence, and that intervention order then goes for another 12 months beyond that. We hear very often that when somebody is released after having been incarcerated tensions are very high, and that can cause risk. We saw down in Bayside there was a murder of somebody post release. Perhaps an intervention order could have kept them apart at that time. There are also alternatives for how intervention orders are served, including leaving them at the correctional centre.

The bill looks at addressing areas of misidentification through different checkpoints and cultural awareness. Too often we find that the police turn up and it is the male that has scratches and things like that, alleging that the female is the perpetrator, when the female has been defending herself. This misidentification needs to be addressed, and also if the offending happens outside of Victoria.

I am going to talk about stalking now. We know stalking is an insidious form of abuse: persistent, terrifying and overwhelmingly directed at women. Yet the devastating impact it has had on victims often remains overlooked. It is misunderstood and grossly underpoliced. For too long it has been minimised as something less than violence. Victims are still asked what they could have done to avoid being stalked, instead of perpetrators being held to account. We know the culture of victim blaming is certainly outdated, dangerous and has no place in the modern justice system. Alarmingly – and I know that government members have not referred to the increases year on year in stalking offences – in the last decade to June 2025 they reached their highest level. Stalking in the non-family violence context has increased 9.4 per cent to 1171 cases, while family violence stalking has risen by 6.9 per cent, to 1807 cases. These numbers represent thousands of Victorians, mostly women, living in fear, where the justice system has failed to keep up.

I want to quote from the Victorian Law Reform Commission, who stated:

While family violence stalking and non-family violence stalking can look similar the contexts are different and call for different responses.

As I have referred to the report into stalking by the Victorian Law Reform Commission, I cannot help but notice the delays – I think unacceptable delays – by the Victorian government in bringing this forward. In November 2020, five years ago, 23-year-old Mernda woman Celeste Manno was murdered by a man who had stalked her for months. That behaviour had been reported. Her mother Aggie Di Mauro tirelessly advocated to get changes here. The government and the Attorney-General at the time gave the terms of reference to the Victorian Law Reform Commission on 17 February 2021. That is well over 4½ years ago. The focus there was on the personal safety intervention order system, what prevents the law from effectively responding to stalking, harassment and similar conduct and how to improve the law and the justice system. This was in the context of non-family violence in relation to Celeste Manno. The report was tabled in Parliament in September 2022, three years ago. The government have not had the courtesy to respond to that. There have been multiple requests made in the other place, and the member for Malvern, when he was the Shadow Attorney-General, asked the government when they were going to respond to the 45 recommendations.

They did not. They said they do not need to respond; they are doing work in the background. Well, the bill before us addresses two of those 45 recommendations: 26 and 33. Recommendation 26 was about amending the Personal Safety Intervention Orders Act 2010, which is being done here. Recommendation 33 was to amend the stalking offence part of the Crimes Act 1958 to improve its clarity and practical application, and there were some changes around the course of conduct here. We have many, many recommendations that have gone unaddressed. A number of those relate to the Magistrates’ Court and changes and things that could happen there.

It is extraordinary that we heard at Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearings this year that the CEO of Court Services Victoria Louise Anderson said Victoria’s courts are now ‘identifying what activities may need to stop’ because of Labor’s budget cuts. They have been ordered to find over $106 million in savings over the next four years, starting with $26.1 million in 2025–26 – that is now. There are so many recommendations about work to be done in the Magistrates’ Court. The government have not responded to that report back to the Law Reform Commission. They said, ‘We’re just plugging along at doing this.’ This is not good enough and it is not fast enough. Work needs to be done quicker, and certainly we do not need budget cuts in the area. We saw budget cuts of some $28 million or so in the area of prevention of family violence, and the government members are talking it up as though they are doing everything – they could be doing more. I look at the statistics around stalking that we have and the offender and victim sex dynamics in incidents in the year ending 31 March 2024. For stalking offences, 60 per cent were male offenders on a female victim, but we also had 24 per cent male offender on male victim. There is so much to be done here, and the government are not working quick enough in this space. We have too many people that are being left by the wayside.

I also want to refer to some of the other recommendations that have been made. There are recommendations about cyberstalking. Things have changed rapidly in this space, and quite frankly we did the Royal Commission into Family Violence 10 years ago. It is a decade. Things have changed. Things have moved on. The surveillance and monitoring of women, particularly sometimes through their children and sometimes through articles that they have, through their cars or through a teddy bear with a device in it – there are so many things that have moved on that need to be addressed. We heard about the issues of cyberstalking in the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s report into stalking. We have not heard about it. They referred to education programs – this is three years ago – and I heard one of the former ministers talk today about some of the things that are going to be done. These should have been worked on. They should have been implemented. It is so frustrating to know and to see that the offences around family violence and stalking are going up continually. More needs to be done. We cannot be complacent. We have to all work together to make a difference here, because we need to.

 Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (11:09): It is indeed an important opportunity to rise and speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025. I too want to place on the record my acknowledgement of victim-survivors and those that we have lost to the impacts of family violence, gendered violence in our community and sexual violence more broadly. It is a horrific toll on our community that touches hundreds of thousands of Victorians and has intergenerational significance and trauma for those that are impacted, and we place on the record our acknowledgement of them today.

These reforms are critical, and I just want to take the shadow minister up on a couple of points on the narration around the prevention of family violence recommendations and how it has been 10 years. That is correct. That was a reform led by this government, with 227 recommendations implemented. I am not sure if the shadow minister is aware, but there have been three rolling action plans since. We do not rest on the laurels of 227 recommendations.

There are three rolling action plans, of which 106 recommendations were launched at the Melbourne Museum with the minister and I only a few weeks ago. If you read 106 of those recommendations, the discussion from the shadow minister does not stack up. When you read the rapid review from Micaela Cronin, and you see that Victoria is well and truly outpacing every other jurisdiction –

Cindy McLeish interjected.

Tim RICHARDSON: The shadow minister says we can do more. Those opposite called this a lawyers picnic. When Daniel Andrews was Premier, and when as opposition leader he announced this, we were chastised for suggesting a royal commission into the prevention of family violence was needed. We were told there was not more that needed to be done, so spare me the partisan rhetoric in this portfolio area. There is always more to be done, and it is not just law reform out of this area.

We have over 60,000 men as perpetrators of family violence – as people who use violence right now. That is on Victoria Police’s records and register. It is a far greater number, because we know the toll of family and sexual violence is so much deeper in our community. That is why law reforms like this are so critical. But we must front up to the fact that the majority of people that we lose to family violence and gendered violence in our community, their perpetrators and the people that have used violence against them and the femicides that have occurred and the killing and taking of life of kids, many of those perpetrators were not known to Victoria Police. This troubles me as Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change, because when we think about orders, when we think about eyes and ears 24/7, we want to do everything we can to support Victoria Police. But what really gives me the chills and what really scares me is those that are unknown. Two per cent of those that cause harm in using violence contribute to some 40 per cent of the toll and impact that it has had in our community. So we have to go after those that are high-harm risk, and some of these reforms that really go towards that I want to talk about.

Those that are not known to us, those that have not had an interaction that then take the life, generally of a female former partner or intimate partner, I always sit there as the Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change and go, ‘When will we ever find those people?’ What is the treatment and solution to the majority of people that take life and kill an intimate or former partner through family violence or gendered violence or femicide? How do we find and respond to that? That is the societal discussion that we need in our community around how we raise boys and men in our community. What are the things and conditions in our society that see gendered violence in our communities? How do we respond to that in the future, from when we are raising our boys with the gendered stereotypes that we see around traditional forms of what it means to be a boy or girl or non-binary in our community, all the way through to the attitudes of what it means to be a man.

I give a big shout-out to Respect Victoria as an institution led by Helen Bolton and chair Kate Fitz-Gibbon, and the work that is being done by the Jesuit Social Services under the leadership of Julie Edwards and the magnificent Matt Tyler, who has led their men’s project. This gives us the evidentiary basis of what it means to respond to gendered violence and those that are unknown that we see downstream – the things that boys are exposed to and what it means to be a man, the damaging stereotypes that impact on their mental health and wellbeing and their aspirations in life, that then cascade into damaging attitudes towards women and girls. In every bit of the work that we do this needs to be multifaceted and this needs to be ever present.

Never can there be a greater example of horrific trauma than what was inflicted on the communities of the member for Wendouree and the member for Eureka. The support and leadership that has been shown by both of them in conjunction with the member for Ripon, and to see what is happening with Respect Ballarat and the huge community response and leadership that has been shown there, is that glimmer of hope. It is that moment in time. When as a society people say, ‘Enough is enough’ and it comes from a place of despair, those are the building blocks for the saturation model that gives us the hope and the aspiration to change things for the future. We place on record our absolute condolences to the families that have been impacted by people taken due to family violence.

Now, there are a couple of other really important points on this bill that I want to give a shout-out to. This Parliament would probably know some incredible children’s advocates and young people who have advocated for family violence intervention orders and the support of children.

Conor Pall is a name that would be known to many people. What an incredible Australian, who has led the discussion around children in their own right being supported in family violence. Remember, of the 550,000 people that have accessed Orange Door services, some 200,000 have been kids. We know the intergenerational trauma that happens when a young person is impacted by family violence and what that means for them in the future, and Conor has been a fierce advocate. The Unsafe & Unseen report that was launched at RMIT the other week spells out what government needs to do, and I am really passionate about the work that we do in supporting children when they come forward and detail their lived experience and how we can support and care for them. A big shout-out to Conor and so many victim-survivor children who have made this happen today and stopped kids ageing out when their parents’ family intervention orders pass on their 18th birthday so that they are not retraumatised, they are not brought before the court system again and they are not at risk of having to front up to a perpetrator who has impacted on them.

There is another big thing in this report that I am really glad to see. In about 16 per cent of family violence intervention orders or the moments that Victoria Police arrive we see misidentification. This is disproportionate for our First Nations communities and those from culturally and linguistically diverse communities. For the best efforts and all the training done at the police academy, we still see the misidentification of victim-survivors. Remember, 95 per cent of violence in our community is perpetrated by men and boys, but the misidentification of 16 per cent is a disproportionately huge number when we think of the scale of the family violence offences that we have in Victoria. So the work that is done here, requiring courts and police to consider certain factors before making a family violence intervention order to avoid misidentification of a victim and the huge impact that will have on them if they are misidentified as a perpetrator of family violence, is critical. The introduction of a default two-year length for family violence intervention orders, ensuring protection lasts longer, is a big hallmark of the family safety package that was that was launched in 2024 – a $100 million package that has led significant reforms in this space.

I also want to place on the record two magnificent ministers I have had the chance to work with. The member for Eltham is one of the most amazing people I have ever had the chance to work with. She mentored and supported me in this role as Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change when I was really intimidated by what that role might mean. She is an absolute superstar and a credit to our Parliament and to our nation in the work that she has done. And the magnificent member for Sydenham and current Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence has done a power of work. It was Minister Hutchins, the Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence, that established Respect Victoria. When you think of legacy in places – and we are just for a moment passing through this place – Minister Hutchins has a huge amount to be so proud of, because there are women and kids today that will be safer because of the work of Minister Hutchins and there will be boys and men in the future who have been part of the primary prevention response through Respect Victoria, which would not have been possible without her leadership. Those two ministers have done so much in that space. I have been a boundary commentator and boundary writer for that work over the last couple of years, and they have done an incredible amount of work. Finally, the Attorney-General, Sonia Kilkenny, is one of the best people in the nation, and her work as Attorney-General in this space deserves all the credit in the world. Thank you for this bill and the work that you have done.

 Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (11:19): I rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025. The Greens will support this bill. It contains important and long-awaited reforms that will improve protections and court processes for victim-survivors of family violence, stalking and sexual offending. From the outset I want to acknowledge the victim-survivors and advocates whose courage and persistence have shaped this bill, and I recognise that most of the people we are talking about today are women and children. Legal sector stakeholders have been clear that unlike other recent justice bills, there was meaningful consultation that has clearly shaped this bill, and overall it is a good result with some long-overdue reforms.

The bill makes several key changes to the Family Violence Protection Act 2008. It introduces a presumption of a minimum length for family violence intervention orders. Too many victim-survivors have had to come back to court again and again to renew orders against the same perpetrator. Critically, the bill requires decision-makers to consider specific factors before issuing a family violence safety notice or making an intervention order to reduce the misidentification of the predominant aggressor, and it expands the definition of ‘family violence’ to capture stalking behaviours, systems abuse and mistreatment of animals and makes explicit that courts can make conditions about animals and stalking.

We welcome these moves. They reflect what victim-survivors have been saying for years: the abuse does not stop at the front door, pets are used as weapons of control and systems abuse and stalking are core tools of coercive control. It is a positive reform. The justice system is closer to seeing the whole picture of violence, not just single incidents but patterns of control, stalking, threats, animal abuse and systems abuse that can together be lethal.

It is important to be honest here about where these reforms will operate. The changes in this bill are aimed at the court stage. They guide magistrates and courts once a matter is before them. They do not on their own fix what happens at the policing stage – who is believed and who is listed as the respondent on an order in the first place. We still see Aboriginal women, migrant and refugee women, women with a disability and queer victim-survivors misidentified as the aggressor when in fact they are the person most at risk. Without deep cultural and practice reform within Victoria Police, such as changes to policy, risk assessment tools, supervision, accountability and training, misidentification will keep happening before these things ever reach a courtroom.

Victoria Legal Aid has welcomed this bill, saying that many of the changes will have a meaningful impact on people experiencing family violence. They are right to highlight the benefits of early detection of misidentification, but they have also pointed out that we still need clearer pathways to actually rectify misidentification when it occurs and better system-wide data collection so that we can see where the problems are and whether the reforms are working. The Greens agree that this bill is a strong step, but further reform work, especially around policing, data and practical mechanisms to correct errors, must be firmly on the agenda.

This bill will also ensure that a young person listed as a protected person on a parent’s orders remains protected when they turn 18, as recommended by the Victorian Law Reform Commission. That is a sensible and long overdue change. Family violence does not stop on someone’s 18th birthday and neither should their legal protection.

The bill provides that a respondent to a family violence intervention order must be at least 12 years old, aligning with the proposed minimum age of criminal responsibility. The Greens have been clear: we believe the minimum age of criminal responsibility should be at least 14, and we are deeply concerned about the criminalisation of children, particularly Aboriginal children, in the family violence and youth justice systems. Nonetheless this is a modest improvement on the current position, and we will continue to argue for a genuinely rights-based approach to children in conflict with the law.

Outside the family violence jurisdiction, the bill amends the Personal Safety Intervention Orders Act 2010 to allow courts to make interim PSIOs in bail and criminal proceedings, providing early protection in stalking and harassment matters. It amends the Crimes Act 1958 to clarify the stalking offence, implementing recommendations from the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s report on stalking. Stalking is often a precursor to serious violence. It is also a form of violence in itself, and the law has too often struggled to keep pace with technology-facilitated abuse. These clarifications should help police and prosecutors take stalking more seriously and intervene earlier.

The bill also re-enacts provisions allowing juries to return specific alternative verdicts for penetrative sexual offences, preventing trials collapsing entirely where a jury is satisfied that an offence occurred but not of one narrow element of a particular charge.

There are also important procedural changes. The bill extends certain witness protections in stalking cases, clarifies the role of intermediaries who assist vulnerable witnesses and amends the Evidence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1958 in relation to confidential communications by trying to ensure counselling records and other sensitive material are not mined unnecessarily in court.

Changes to the Jury Directions Act 2015 will make directions on consent available in non-fatal strangulation and intimate image trials. Non-fatal strangulation and image-based abuse are red flag indicators of high-risk coercive control. Juries need clear, modern guidance on how consent works in those contexts.

All of these changes move our legal framework in the right direction towards earlier intervention, clearer recognition of coercive control and more trauma-informed treatment of witnesses. But I want to emphasise what the law cannot do on its own. A presumption of longer intervention orders will fail if victim-survivors still cannot get legal advice to apply for one in the first place. Stronger stalking offences will fail if police do not have time, training or direction to investigate properly. Better jury directions will fail if victim-survivors cannot face the ordeal of a trial because there is no safe housing, no income support, no counselling and no child care.

The Greens support this bill, but at the same time we call on the government to match these legislative reforms with increased investment in specialist family violence courts and community legal services, including Aboriginal legal and family violence services and multicultural- and disability-specific services; in safe and affordable housing, so women and children are not forced to choose between violence and homelessness; in primary prevention and men’s behaviour change programs that are evidence based and accountable; and in data collection and public reporting of misidentification, systems abuse and outcomes for children and young people. This bill is a necessary step, but it is not a complete response. The Greens will support it and keep fighting inside and outside this Parliament for a justice system that truly centres victim-survivors’ safety, dignity and autonomy.

 Martha HAYLETT (Ripon) (11:27): I rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025. Family violence remains one of the most pervasive and devastating harms in our community. It occurs across all communities and all types of relationships, and all too often. In 2023 alone, Victoria Police responded to family violence incidents at a rate of one every 6 minutes, with nearly three-quarters of victims being women and girls. Addressing family and gendered violence is central to community safety, and every Victorian deserves to live free from harm and fear.

Our Royal Commission into Family Violence in 2016 marked a turning point. We heard from victim-survivors and advocates. We witnessed their anguish and learned how violence had upended their lives and sense of safety. We were also humbled by their stories of recovery, healing and advocacy for change. The Victorian government acted decisively and implemented 227 recommendations of the Royal Commission into Family Violence, delivering statewide improvements across police, courts, health, housing, education and specialist support services, and while that progress has been significant, the work is far from over.

Ending family and sexual violence is very complex. Victim-survivors still face barriers, perpetrators continue to exploit gaps and the justice system must evolve to ensure accountability, effective intervention and lasting behaviour change. Gender drivers are woven into the fabric of our society, and while individuals will always be accountable for the violence that they choose to use, we recognise that violence becomes even harder to interrupt when people are carrying trauma, facing mental health challenges or dealing with substance misuse or gambling. We have continued to face new challenges over time since the royal commission, and we must adapt and change.

This bill before us today is strengthening the definition of ‘family violence’ and reflects the realities of these different challenges that we are now facing. It expressly includes stalking, including behaviours designed to locate, intimidate and create fear for victim-survivors; system abuse, improving those services for family violence intervention orders so the protection can start sooner; and abuse of animals, recognising the deep emotional bond between people and their pets or livestock. Perpetrators often threaten, harm or withhold care from animals to control or punish victim-survivors. Courts can now impose these family violence intervention order conditions relating to animals, and these changes embed a contemporary understanding of coercive control into legislation.

We have also with this bill have been able to modernise, change and make some reforms around family violence intervention orders to make them more effective and fair.

A two-year default length for final orders provides victims with stability and reduces repeat court appearances. Importantly too, this bill responds to concerns raised by victim-survivors. When a child is listed as an affected family member and turns 18, they will now continue to be protected for the full duration of that order. This change ensures a stronger long-term protection and prevents distress by removing the need for a young person to reapply for an order the moment they become an adult.

As has been mentioned today in this place, women and children make up the majority of family violence victims in Victoria, and while family violence can affect anyone, it is women and children who are disproportionately harmed. For children exposed to family violence, it can lead to trauma, developmental challenges and long-term mental health impacts. This reform is going to also talk to some of the protections for children who experience family violence. A minimum age of 12 is now required for someone to be a respondent, aligning with the minimum age of criminal responsibility; children listed on a parent’s order, as I have said, will remain protected after turning 18; and courts can now issue those intervention orders even if alleged violence has occurred outside of Victoria.

I want to just speak briefly about stalking and non-family violence and address this, and I would like to reference and talk a little bit about some research that has recently come out. We know that stalking is a longstanding offence in Victoria, but the Victorian Law Reform Commission Stalking report did confirm that while the offence was broadly appropriate, there was some clarity needed. Recently Jesuit Social Services have released the Adolescent Man Box survey. It was conducted in March and April this year, and they heard from over 1400 young people aged between 14 and 18 – boys, girls and non-binary teens. They wanted to actually assess and ask mainly teenage boys how they are expected to act and how those expectations shape their attitudes, their behaviours and their experiences, and it does paint a complex picture. We see some teenagers, and particularly boys, that have the pressure to be tough, to be strong. While there was some good news in the report and most young people were rejecting these outdated expectations, the survey did show that there was a significant minority of boys who continue to hold those rigid beliefs about what it means to be a man. Those beliefs have real consequences, and the findings were stark: 44 per cent of boys agreed they must always appear confident and 43 per cent agreed they should seem strong no matter what. Amongst girls support for those ideas was far lower, at just 15 per cent and 13 per cent respectively. But also there was a small but troubling amount of boys who reported endorsing violence-supporting attitudes, retaliating when being rejected or engaging in harmful behaviours such as bullying, physical violence or sexual harassment. Importantly, many of those boys who use abusive behaviour have also recently experienced abuse themselves. As the report puts it, those young men who personally endorse these beliefs are more likely to support attitudes that condone violence against women and sexual harassment and retaliating when rejected.

This goes to the issue of stalking. One of the central findings was the need to support boys to better understand and cope with rejection. One of the most consistent themes in masculinity research, including this study, is that profound fear of rejection shapes the behaviour of many teenage boys. From a young age boys are taught explicitly that they need to appear confident and hide their vulnerability, and nearly half the boys surveyed said that they feel pressure to feel strong even if they are struggling. So when rejection happens, as it does for every young person, it does not just hurt, it feels like a threat to their identity. That is where that dangerous crossover begins.

That fear of rejection becomes vulnerability – it becomes a personal failure – and instead of talking, processing and seeking support, some boys retreat, shut down and turn their distress to anger. They then can turn to more cohesive behaviours, and these behaviours are certainly early warning signs. Stalking becomes an attempt to regain control. It is not about love, it is about identity. Rejection feels like a crisis, and control becomes about coping.

In the adolescent context, though, I just need to make a point. Even with this research that has been released, it is important to remember that adolescents using violence are not the same as adults. Teenagers are still developing cognitively and emotionally. Their impulse control and emotional regulation and understanding of consequences are still forming, and unlike adults, adolescent boys are at much higher risk of currently being victims of family violence themselves. Many are experiencing and using aggression at the same time.

What is the antidote to that? In the report it talks about emotional literacy and healthy masculinities. When boys are given space to talk about rejection, express emotions openly, experience vulnerability without shame and understand boundaries and consent, the likelihood of them engaging in stalking or coercive behaviour drops dramatically. Supporting boys to cope with their emotions around rejection is one of the most proactive things we can do, and it reduces that harm now and reduces the risk of violence in adulthood. That is why that Adolescent Man Boxfinding really matters and why prevention must start early, and it is why each of those challenges highlighted in the report is a call to action.

Positive change is already happening, but we know there is more to do. We must build environments that do not just prevent harm but open the doors to better, healthier lives for all – and our boys. Victoria has made enormous progress in ending family violence and gendered violence, but it requires constant vigilance and adaption, and these reforms today are another step forward, making our laws clearer, our justice system fairer and then, therefore, our community safer.

Victoria must remain a state where all people, especially women and children, can live free of fear and harm. These reforms give Victorian survivors the protection they deserve, and we need to ensure perpetrators are held to account. I want to thank the minister, Minister Hutchins, for all the work that she has done in this space – her constant work – and I commend the bill to the house.

 Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (11:37): I will not lie; I tried to avoid speaking on this today, but it is one of those things. I talk about normalising these conversations often, so it is only right that I do. And guess what – story time. I would first of all like to start by thanking the member for Eildon, who I know was not the lead on this, but the work that she puts into this particular subject, allowing me to be involved as well, is so appreciated. There is a real – I do not want to say passion, but there is a real dedication. She is doing this for the right reasons, and she is driven to want to improve the lives of particularly women and families and children as well. So I thank her for her work in this space.

One of the key points, I suppose, is the default length for a family violence intervention order of two years. That is something where I think common sense has finally prevailed, and that is what it should have been for a long time. But it is also clarifying – and this is really important. I do obviously have a lot of conversations with the likes of Conor Pall, a Mildura boy – he is not a child anymore; he is a grown, handsome man and a fierce advocate – and have had the conversation about the children that are listed on a parent’s family violence intervention order who turn 18 and then have to get their own. The trauma of just going through that for kids ageing out at 18 – I have got an 18-year-old, and in no way is he an adult. Yes, he can buy a beer, but no, you would not want to put him through that. So those are some very positive changes.

When I see bills like this come up I am filled with gratitude, because during the particular time in my life there was just no language to describe any of this. So when you see clause 19, for example, ‘Meaning of family violence’, something as simple as that gives language to this – I must be tired and emotional. I do not know why I am getting emotional already, but it is that kind of stuff. This is stroke-of-a-pen stuff that costs nobody anything but pays dividends, and it will pay dividends in saving lives.

The member for Eildon does involve me in a lot of the work that she does in this space, and I am really grateful for that. She asked me a few weeks ago if I knew anybody or had involvement with stalking in particular. I said, ‘I don’t know if I’d call it stalking,’ because there was no definition at that time. But then, going through this I am like: absolutely it was. I think you cannot give a definition in legislation to a feeling, and there is no way to get around that. But survivors of stalking, which is what I will now call it – it was stalking – know that feeling of going to the letterbox, for example, and this is just one example, and finding an envelope with no postmark, no stamp, with whatever it might be. It might be a receipt, so there might be a legitimate reason for there to be an envelope. But knowing that there is an intervention order in place and that someone has come to your letterbox – you cannot define that in legislation. But that feeling that the blood has rushed out of your body and your stomach has dropped – you cannot describe it.

Thankfully, legislation and what we do in this place can give language to that. That is really important, because there is just no way to describe that feeling of having the world spinning around you and the fear. Whether you think it might be justified or not, it is justified. I cannot express enough that feeling of fear. You try to maybe justify to yourself that it is okay, that you cannot justify feeling like that. You can. If that happens, please report it. I cannot express enough: do not try and rationalise it. There is no rationalising it. We have the language now in bills like this. I know the feeling. The legislation is there. Do not rationalise it, report it.

I am going to keep this short because, honestly, I am exhausted now that I have got this off my chest. Like I said, I tried to avoid speaking about this today because I knew this would happen. But it is really important, and I need to get that message out. Do not rationalise it, ever. As minimal as you might think it is, there is no rationalising any of this, including anything like stalking. Do not rationalise it, report it.

 John MULLAHY (Glen Waverley) (11:43): I rise today to proudly speak in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025. Firstly, I just want to commend the member for Mildura for her powerful contribution and sharing her experience that she has been through. The bills that we bring to this place are so important for the community here in Victoria, and we can see why.

This bill continues the Allan Labor government’s unwavering commitment to ending violence against women and children here in Victoria, and it is not just another justice bill. It is a deeply considered survivor-informed package of reforms that strengthens our response to family violence, stalking and sexual offending across the entire justice system. It expands protections, it closes loopholes, it modernises processes and it ensures that our legal frameworks reflect contemporary understanding of coercion, control, risk and trauma.

It reflects one very simple truth: Victoria will always stand with victim-survivors not just in sentiment but in action. This bill is another step in a long journey towards building a state where every woman, every child and every member of our community can live free from fear and harm.

The statistics speak to the urgency of this bill. In the 12 months to June 2025 recorded family violence incidents rose 7.7 per cent to 106,427 incidents, with a rate of 1499.6 per every 100,000 Victorians. There are a lot of people that experience this and that are affected by this. We also know that 64.4 per cent of perpetrators are repeat offenders. Family violence remains the number one law and order issue in our state. It is the leading cause of police call-outs. It is the leading cause of homelessness for women and children. It is the leading cause of injury, fear and trauma in too many Victorian homes. Behind every statistic is a story: a child who cannot sleep because dad might come back, a mother who must choose between safety and financial survival or a family forced to rebuild their lives after years of coercion and fear.

Our government has implemented all 227 recommendations of the Royal Commission into Family Violence, and we have invested more than any government in Australian history – opening the Orange Door network, establishing Respect Victoria, expanding specialist family violence courts and delivering landmark reforms such as affirmative consent – yet we know the job is not done. This bill continues that work. One of the strengths of this bill is that it has been shaped by those who understand these issues best: victim-survivors themselves, frontline practitioners, legal experts, police, courts, Aboriginal community controlled organisations and multicultural service providers. The minister’s office made clear that these reforms were suggested directly by victim-survivors and people with lived experiences and developed after extensive consultation across the sector, and that included the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, Djirra, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, the Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council, the Aboriginal Justice Caucus and sexual assault support providers. This is how we legislate properly, by listening first.

The bill expands the definition of ‘family violence’ to include stalking, recognising its prevalence in family violence dynamics; systems abuse, where perpetrators weaponise institutions like courts, child protection or immigration agencies to intimidate and control victim-survivors; and mistreatment of animals, acknowledging that pets and livestock are often targeted to cause fear and emotional harm. These changes reflect contemporary understandings of coercive control and psychological harm, and they send a clear message that violence is not only physical; coercion, manipulation and intimidation are also violence.

Misidentification, where the true victim is incorrectly identified as the aggressor, is one of the most serious systematic failures in the current framework. It disproportionately affects Aboriginal women, migrant and refugee women, women with disabilities and the LGBTIQA+ community. For these groups, cultural misunderstanding, trauma responses and defensive actions can be misinterpreted as aggression. This bill requires police and courts to actively consider the risk of misidentification when issuing a family violence intervention order (FVIO) or a family violence safety notice, including the relationship context, defensive or protective behaviour and whether the person comes from a cohort known to be at elevated risk of misidentification. These changes are essential to preventing victim-survivors being further harmed by the very systems meant to protect them.

Victim-survivors told us again and again that FVIOs are too short and too frequently require them to return to court, interrupting work and caring responsibilities and forcing repeated contact with perpetrators. The bill makes major improvements: a default two-year FVIO, replacing the current practice of mostly 12-month orders – for offenders in custody for family violence crimes, FVIOs will last the length of their sentence plus 12 months, covering the dangerous period after release – and strengthened service provisions, especially for prisoners who deliberately evade services.

These reforms reduce trauma, increase accountability and keep victims safer for longer. This bill finally stops young people from ageing out of protection simply because they turn 18. If a child is protected under their parent’s FVIO, they will remain protected for the full duration of the order. The bill also sets a minimum age of 12 to be subject to an FVIO, ensures courts consider a young person’s ability to understand and comply with an order and aligns protections with the raised age of criminal responsibility. These reforms prevent unfair criminalisation and deliver protections suited to children’s developmental needs.

The bill modernises and strengthens service requirements, including changing the threshold for substituted service from ‘not possible’ to ‘not practicable’, allowing courts to order substituted service on their own motion and deeming service for respondents in prison where documents are left with the prison governor. Too often perpetrators purposely avoid service to delay accountability, and these changes close that loophole.

I had a personal experience with regard to family violence with a friend of mine back in 2007. Her partner bashed her, beat her up, and she went to the police. I went with her to the courts to get an intervention order in December 2007. They separated for a couple of months, but then they got back together. He strangled her to death four months later. That was 18 years ago. The guy got 18 years, so he is probably due for release very soon. But we will never get to see her again. She was my partner’s best friend. That is why these bills are so important – for us to try and stamp out family violence, stamp out stalking and ensure that we are there to protect our community. We just heard from the member for Mildura about her personal experience. We have all probably got experiences in this place of personal relationships, people that we have all heard this from. I will leave it at that. I commend the bill to the house.

 Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (11:53): I rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025. This is a bill that amends the Family Violence Protection Act 2008, the Crimes Act 1958, the Criminal Procedure Act 2009, the Evidence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1958, the Jury Directions Act 2015 and the Personal Safety Intervention Orders Act 2010. At its core this legislation seeks to reform processes and family violence intervention orders, update stalking offences and adjust criminal procedures and evidence settings.

No-one in this chamber would oppose measures that strengthen protections for victims of family violence, and we have already heard some pretty intense stories from members who have had experiences that really do resonate with the importance of why we are standing here today. We know the statistics are harrowing, with 94,170 family violence incidences in Victoria last year alone. That is one every 6 minutes, with three-quarters of victims being women and girls. While reforms to the family violence intervention order processes, legal representation and conditions are clearly needed, it is our responsibility on this side of the chamber to rigorously examine the legislation to ensure it avoids unintended consequences and delivers laws that work not only for those that seek protection but for the broader community as well.

What is a little bit troubling is the government’s failure, once again, to deliver on its promise when it comes to stalking reforms. Stalking offences are at their highest levels in more than a decade. Non–‍family violence stalking offences rose by 9.4 per cent in the year to June 2025, while family violence–related stalking offences increased by 6.9 per cent.

That means that thousands of Victorians, predominantly women, are living in fear while the justice system struggles to keep pace.

We cannot forget the tragic case of Celeste Manno, murdered in 2020 by a man who had stalked her despite her repeated reports to authorities. Her mother Aggie has fought tirelessly for change, leading to the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s review of stalking. That review produced 45 recommendations – comprehensive evidence-based reforms to strengthen the legal framework, improve risk identification, modernise police responses and increase victim protections. Yet, more than two years later, this government has failed to provide a formal response. Implementation remains minimal as this bill only implements two of the 45 reforms. Those recommendations were two years ago. There was a lot of time before that, some years, that the work was being done as well. So it is several years this government has been unable to act to implement the 45 recommendations. We are here today with only two being implemented: recommendation 26, which allows courts to make interim personal safety intervention orders on their own motion, and recommendation 33 clarifying the stalking offence under section 21A of the Crimes Act 1958. Even then, recommendation 33 has only been partially implemented. So that leaves the overwhelming majority of reforms, such as the improved police response, enhanced risk assessment tools, better information sharing and clearer pathways for victims, entirely unaddressed. This is after an inquiry, with those recommendations being investigated and carefully put forward. So the government’s delay is not just bureaucratic negligence, it is a betrayal of victims who continue to live in fear.

I cannot help but think about the young victim in my hometown of Warrnambool, who had a man who was threatening to kill her arrested, but he was released on bail. He then boasted to the police that he would do a burnout in the court car park. This brazen disregard for the law is not just a local headline; it is a stark reminder of the systemic failure in how stalking- and threat-related offences are managed. Cases like these in Warrnambool show us that tinkering at the edges is not enough. Without comprehensive reform, better risk assessment tools, stronger police responses and clearer pathways for victims, we will continue to see offenders emboldened, like the gentleman I have already quoted that boasted about doing burnouts. Victims are then left more vulnerable and communities questioning whether the justice system is actually truly on their side, and you can understand that vulnerability and fear.

Honestly, it is hard to know whether this Allan Labor government truly does care about victims of domestic violence. Time and again we hear promises and we see glossy advertising campaigns, but when it comes to that lived reality, women and children fleeing violence, the support really is not there. Right now victims of family violence are waiting 2½ years on public housing lists. They are a priority on that list, and yet it is still 2½ years before they can actually get any help or support. Many of those women come into my office, and it is just terrifying to listen to their stories and the fear that they are experiencing. So in those 2½ years women and children are left unsupported. They have got the courage up to leave, thinking that they will be supported. They have seen the ads on telly, and they hear that this is a government that will support them – and then the opposite is what happens, and they are forced to fend for themselves in the most precarious circumstances. It is almost impossible to listen to the fear and the story of fear in their voices when they come to talk to me. Many of them sleep in their cars, often with four children, to try and keep the children and themselves safe, as the government congratulates itself on its so-called reforms.

The government has spent millions advertising that it has helped women escape domestic violence, but the truth is really stark: escaping violence is not just about leaving a dangerous home; it is about having somewhere to go. Somewhere safe, a bed to sleep in, a house to live in, access to legal assistance – these are the practical supports victims need, and these are the various supports the government has failed to deliver.

Advertising campaigns do not protect women and children – housing does; legal assistance does; real, practical support does. Until this government stops patting itself on the back and starts delivering the basics, victims of domestic violence will continue to be left behind, the community will continue to pay the price for its neglect – and every day that passes without comprehensive reform is another day the system fails to protect those who are most at risk of and subjected to family violence, to stalking, to homelessness .

The Premier announced a commitment to these reforms back in May 2024, yet here we are in November 2025 debating a bill that tinkers around the edges whilst leaving the heart of the problem untouched. While we will not oppose the family violence amendments in this bill, nor the stalking reforms it contains, I cannot stand here without calling out the government for its failure to act decisively. I cannot stand here without calling out the fact that only two of the 45 recommendations are being enacted today.

Victoria deserves more than half-measures. Victorians deserve a government that responds to independent reviews with urgency, especially reviews when people are getting attacked, being victims of stalking and feeling like that at any moment they could fear for their life. There is an urgency to that, and we should be listening to victims and to their families. That delivers comprehensive reform, not weak legislation that leaves glaring gaps in the protection.

This bill is a missed opportunity, and until the government takes stalking reforms seriously and implements all of the recommendations, until it implements the full suite of recommendations, it will continue to fail the very people that we stand here as committed legislators wanting to see change for. We need to put the supports around these people who are being stalked and terrified so that they can live in peace and have the support that they should have, and as a society I cannot believe that anyone would not want to see that in place.

 Anthony CIANFLONE (Pascoe Vale) (12:02): I rise to speak in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025, a bill that strengthens our laws, modernises our justice system and, above all, protects women and children from harm. In beginning, I just want to acknowledge the powerful contributions that have been made by so many members from across the chamber so far on this debate: the lead ministers that spoke to commence the debate; the member for Mordialloc, the Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change – for his absolutely outstanding work in championing reform in this space, we thank him; the member for Bellarine, with her powerful outline of the toxic attitudes of many young boys and young men and the need to combat those in order to address this issue over future years; the member for Mildura for her absolutely powerful, conscientious and real-world lived experience as a victim-survivor herself – that contribution has very much left an impression undoubtedly on all of us and beyond in this chamber; and of course my very good friend and colleague here the member for Glen Waverley, who shared the very deeply felt and tragic experience of his best friend, who we lost, sadly, to the hand of men’s violence, and his courage, his family’s courage and support in relation to that very sad case. There are a lot of lessons to be learned and a lot of relevance in relation to this bill, particularly with respect to stalking.

This is a bill about safety. It is a bill about accountability. But it is also a bill that is about respect – respect for the stories that victim-survivors have carried for years, respect for their courage in coming forward and respect for frontline workers who deal with the aftermath of violence every single day. As the member for Pascoe Vale, Coburg and Brunswick West, but also as a local dad myself, I remain deeply committed to doing all I can to stamp out and prevent family violence and gender-based violence, because everyone deserves to feel safe in their homes and their communities. As part of this, I think it is also timely to acknowledge the work of Respect Victoria, who yesterday launched their 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence campaign here in Parliament.

This bill is an important step to making sure our justice system continues to respond to violence with clarity, strength but also compassion. Family violence happens across all our communities, in all kinds of relationships and all too often. The numbers alone demand us to keep taking further action. Family violence is the number one law and order issue in Victoria.

In 2023 Victoria Police responded to 94,170 family violence incidents. In the 12 months to June 2025 the number of recorded incidents increased by a further 7.7 per cent to over 106,400 incidents. The rate also increased by 5.9 per cent to 1500 incidents per 100,000 Victorians. The family violence database of 2023–24 recorded that 64.4 per cent of family violence perpetrators were repeat offenders with a previous police record of a family violence incident. In essence, Victoria Police responds to one family violence incident every 6 minutes, with nearly three-quarters of victims being women and girls. Across Merri-bek, in my community, family violence continues to remain an ongoing scourge. In 2024 Victoria Police recorded 1789 family violence related incidents. In 2025 this again rose to 1889 incidents, a 5.6 per cent increase. Affected family members and victims continue to overwhelmingly be women in my community – 1429 women.

But the numbers of course do not tell the full story. We have heard firsthand stories through members’ contributions here today. The real-world journey of a victim-survivor begins long before a call to 000 and continues long after a statement is taken or an order is made. Too often that journey involves retelling of their experience repeatedly, confronting the person who hurt them, facing a court process that can retraumatise them or falling through the gaps in the system that was never designed to manage the complexity of coercive, psychological and ongoing harm. This bill recognises those gaps, and that is why the bill has been shaped by extensive consultation with victim-survivors; frontline practitioners; Victoria Police; courts; legal services, including the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and Djirra; community legal centres; and countless advocates across family violence, sexual assault and stalking sectors. The reforms in this bill are practical, targeted and reflect those real-world experiences.

Firstly, the bill broadens the definition of ‘family violence’ so that it accurately reflects modern forms of abuse. It explicitly includes stalking, a common precursor to lethal violence; systems abuse, where perpetrators weaponise institutions to inflict harm; and mistreatment of animals, a tactic that is far more common and more devastating than most people realise. By recognising these behaviours in law, we empower the courts, police and services to intervene earlier and more effectively.

Secondly, the bill reduces misidentification, especially for vulnerable groups. Misidentification, believe it or not, is one of the most harmful failures in our system. When the wrong person is named as the perpetrator the consequences can be catastrophic: loss of housing, child protection involvement and exposure to further violence. The bill requires courts and police to properly consider the risk of misidentification, particularly in minority and disadvantaged community cohorts. These reforms ensure that the true perpetrator, not the victim, is held accountable.

Thirdly, victims have told the government they are tired of having to return for family violence intervention order renewals because orders were too short; in practice, most of these orders last 12 months or less, even when the risk persists. This bill introduces a default two-year family violence intervention order, a simple but powerful change that gives victim-survivors longer protection, greater stability and less exposure to retraumatising through the court process. For perpetrators in custody the orders will now apply for a length of their sentence plus 12 months, covering the high-risk period after their release.

Fourth, we are ending the practice of children ageing out of protection at 18 years. Under current practice, some children listed on their parent’s order lose protection the day they turn 18, even when the risk remains. This bill fixes that. Young people will now remain protected for the full duration of the order without needing to return to court to relive their trauma. This is sensible, this is fair, and it reflects the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s clear advice.

Fifth, the bill introduces a minimum age of 12 for family violence intervention order respondents, to require courts to consider a young person or vulnerable person’s ability to understand and comply with the order, and to avoid further unfair criminalisation.

Sixth, we are streamlining the family violence intervention orders and stopping perpetrators dodging accountability as well.

Seven, we are introducing reforms to address stalking and personal safety. Stalking has been a longstanding offence in Victoria, but this bill further clarifies the meaning of ‘course of conduct’. It updates the definition of ‘recklessness’, recognises harm of stalking to animals and modernises the structure of the offence for police and courts. This ensures the law reflects the lived experience of stalking victims, particularly women. I particularly acknowledge the tragic case of Celeste Manno, whose life was tragically taken at the hands of a male stalker, and the ongoing advocacy of the work by her mum Aggie Di Mauro and the ongoing impacts and trauma as a result to her dad Tony and the entire Manno family.

Eighth, we are allowing the courts to issue interim personal safety intervention orders. If police or the court encounter evidence of stalking or violence during bail or a criminal matter, the court can now issue an interim personal safety intervention order automatically. There is no need for a separate application, and this protects victims faster with less burden.

Ninth, the bill extends a provision already used in family violence and sexual offences by providing stronger protections for witnesses. Tenth, the bill makes several important changes to sexual trials, including processes that improve the trial process and simplify things, particularly to avoid retraumatising victims.

This of course builds on our work as a state in leading the country when it comes to preventing family violence and gender-based violence. We launched the landmark Royal Commission into Family Violence and have implemented all 227 royal commission recommendations, opened the 36 Orange Door sites and established Respect Victoria, along with a number of other investments to combat issues in this space.

Locally we are doing a lot of work in this space as well. We have opened the Harvest Square housing project in Brunswick West in partnership with Women’s Housing Ltd, which specifically is there to support women and children fleeing family violence situations, and it is doing incredible work already. I have met with several of the women directly being housed in that site.

I want to acknowledge the work of Phil Cleary as well. On 4 May we commemorated Vicki Cleary Day at Coburg City Oval, hosted by the hardworking brother and staunch gender equality and community service advocate Phil Cleary. The annual event pays tribute to the late Vicki Cleary, who tragically was murdered in 1987 at the hands of male violence in Coburg. A former partner stalked and took her life as she was leaving her workplace, a local kinder on Cameron Street. With the life of one woman still being taken at the hands of men through violence every three to four days across the country, Vicki Cleary Day also highlights the need for ongoing reform more broadly to change men’s attitudes. Phil does incredible work through local schools, sporting clubs and community groups across Victoria, promoting the need to respect women, because we know violence starts with attitudes, particularly amongst young boys. I continue to advocate and support Phil’s work and the significant opportunity for government to continue to partner with him, which the minister is very much aware of, and I draw her attention to it. As a dad myself of two local young daughters, I want them to grow up in a world that is more respectful towards women, not just for them but for every other young girl in our community. I thank Phil for his ongoing work and the work of the Coburg Football Club in this space and also the member for Eltham and the member for Mordialloc, who have attended his events in the past.

I will leave my contribution there, time permitting. But again, this is all about safety, respect and protection of women and children across our communities.

 Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (12:12): I am pleased to rise today to contribute on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025. From the outset, we do not oppose this bill. Again, these contributions, as we have heard today, can get quite emotional, and rightly so. We have heard from various members today: my good friend the member for Glen Waverley with his contribution and my very good friend the member for Mildura. The member for Mildura is a good friend of mine, and to hear what they have to go through is heartbreaking. I am not the big, tough tradie everyone thinks I am.

Members interjecting.

Wayne FARNHAM: Yes, I am middle aged, and spreading too. When we talk about family violence, I know the government is trying to do the right thing here, I really do. The statistics are pretty horrific in the state of Victoria, they really are. The government is trying to get on board with this, and as MPs we all are. We all see it come through our office. We hear the cases. I was just telling the member for Mordialloc about a case I have had in my office where this guy I can tell was ready to explode. He is trying to do all the right things, and he is getting frustrated. I just said to him, ‘If you feel like yelling at someone, come in and talk to me. Yell at me. I can be your punching bag. I’m okay.’

There are a lot of factors that contribute to family violence and the safety of women as well, and they are the factors we need to look at and the factors we need to fix.

The housing waiting list for women trying to escape family violence is far too long. If anyone in this chamber has ever actually had to put an intervention order on someone – the ramifications for breaking intervention orders are not good enough. I can tell you a personal experience of mine when I had to put an intervention order on someone. That intervention order got broken four times. There were no ramifications for it. I am big, tough guy; I can handle myself. I was not that fussed about it. But for a woman it is different. You heard the member for Mildura. Listen to her story – that is a real story. This is where we as legislators on both sides of this chamber really need to smarten up.

I am not going to go into too many statistics; they have all been read out. I will probably talk about the practical implications of the bill. In my electorate we are actually above the state average. We are at 1952 people per 100,000, which is above the state average, so we need to do more. There were 45 recommendations; we are bringing in two. This report was done three years ago, and I have said this in the chamber before: why do we wait? If there is a report that has been done and the recommendations have been done, why does it take three years? I just do not understand it, I really do not.

Again I will reference the member for Mordialloc, because he is the Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change – and behaviours do have to change; they really do. I think as men in this chamber we should not walk past that behaviour when we see it. I cannot think of the exact phrase at the moment, but if you see something as a man, intervene. Do not accept that behaviour. Talk to the person, or if you can physically handle it, physically intervene. Do not accept it. There was the case in McDonald’s not that long ago where two men grabbed a guy and said, ‘We don’t talk to women like that.’ That was a good example of how to intervene, how to educate people, and that is what we need to do.

Talking about men – and this is a bit of a failure, I think, of the government – we need to invest more in men’s mental health, to educate them to respect women, to cut the violence. Men’s mental health is so important, because unfortunately we guys at times are not the sharpest tools in the shed. We do not handle our emotions very well and we do not communicate very well, and this can lead to this family violence space. I am sure everyone in this chamber knows a man like that. My father was like that; he could not communicate. I have got better as I have got older. When I was younger I was not much of a communicator.

These are the things that we need to look at. If we are so serious about reducing domestic violence, family violence, assaults, sexual assaults, everything across the board, everything we talk about here, this is the direction we need to take. And we need to do more on both sides. The government is here. The government are the legislators. If we put forward a reasoned amendment, the government should look at it and say, ‘That’s a good idea.’ If we want to get rid of it, we have to work together; it is that simple. I will leave it there.

 John LISTER (Werribee) (12:19): I would like to thank the member for Narracan for his heartfelt contribution and reflections on this bill and particularly for sharing his experience in this field. I think something that this Parliament can be proud of and something I have found as a new member of Parliament particularly is the support that we have across the chamber when it comes to being able to share experiences and where we are coming from in representing our communities in a safe way. I really appreciate that.

Community safety is our priority on this side, because every Victorian deserves to feel safe in this state that we love and call home. There are far too many victims in our community, and too often women and children are the victims of crimes perpetuated by a family member or loved one. It is still pretty horrific to think that in the majority of cases, particularly in the Wyndham area, you are more likely to be assaulted by someone that you know than someone that finds you in a random way.

In 2023 Victoria Police responded to 94,170 family violence incidents, one every 6 minutes, with nearly three-quarters of victims being women and girls.

I am proud to be part of a government that has implemented all the recommendations of that landmark Royal Commission into Family Violence, delivering these statewide reforms. Our government remains committed to ending family and sexual violence in Victoria, but there is more work to be done. We need to hold offenders to account and ensure victim-survivors have the support they need to stay safe.

We have worked closely with victim-survivors in developing this legislation, listened to their stories of fear and desperation and worked with experts in this field to build on our family violence reforms that we have seen for many years now to provide greater protection to women and children across communities like mine – because it is a fact that communities like mine in Wyndham have seen the overwhelming bulk of that scourge of family violence. It is a significant portion of those high-harm offences that we have seen in the year to June 2025. There was a slight decrease in the number of family violence incidents in that last year, but it is still far higher than we have ever seen and still forms a huge proportion of the workload that our local police at Werribee deal with. Services in Wyndham have been backed by the government, including our women’s health hub, our dedicated family violence unit working out of the Werribee police complex and recently with our new Magistrates Court at the Wyndham court complex having that dedicated family violence list, and in the future we will have a family violence court as we roll out the services from that facility.

This particular amendment is about addressing some of those concerns that we have seen over the years as we have been rolling out these reforms. We know that family violence intervention orders (FVIOs) and family violence safety notices play a central role in the justice framework for addressing family violence. This bill amends the Family Violence Protection Act 2008 to introduce a new default length for a final FVIO of two years to ensure longer protection for victim-survivors and reduce their need to go back to the court. The new default length will provide greater certainty for those victim-survivors.

With this bill we are also strengthening and modernising the definition of family violence to recognise stalking, which I know many people in this chamber have already spoken about at length; that particular abuse of different systems around victim-survivors; and also the mistreatment of animals. For many victim-survivors, stalking is a very real threat used by perpetrators to intimidate, harass and frighten. We are amending the Family Violence Protection Act with this bill to expressly include stalking in the definition of family violence and make it clear that courts can include conditions in those FVIOs prohibiting a respondent from locating or attempting to locate an affected family member.

We spoke briefly about systems abuse. It is a tactic that is prevalent in all of family violence, and I have seen it myself in schools in the way that perpetrators use the school system to be able to exert that control and how teachers and year-level staff are often trying to navigate quite a tricky situation regarding who can access that child and the information about that child that we are responsible for. This bill expressly captures that systems abuse to make sure that we have those contemporary understandings in this legislation.

Something that is particularly close to me, too, because a lot of the research around this came out of the vet school at Werribee with the University of Melbourne, is this link between animals and family violence. Animals are used to perpetrate family violence, whether it is through targeting pets, or animals that victim-survivors rely on for their livelihoods, things like withholding an animal’s food, water or medication or threatening to harm that animal. The link between abuse of animals and family violence is well established. In that research done with Melbourne University Volant and others found that 52.9 per cent of Victorian women who experienced family violence had a pet hurt or killed by their partner – half of victim-survivors.

This bill broadens that definition of family violence to recognise this reality.

We know that family violence can and does occur against anyone. Women and children are amongst those who are particularly affected. Something that is particularly close to my wheelhouse is the effect on children, because quite often they are caught in between in this. It is something that I have seen particularly working as a year level coordinator. Quite often you would be having really difficult conversations between staff about how to talk to the different parents about the child, because that child would often be used as a pawn in these situations, and you would have to try and negotiate and work your way through that. Having that guidance is really important. But something that is particularly apparent is this idea that if someone turns 18 they are not automatically an adult, they are still part of growing up in our community. We recognised this a few years ago with reforms to the way we have out-of-home care, supporting young people who are in that system to have that opportunity to stay with care for longer than just when they are 18. It only makes sense that our FVIOs also reflect this reality.

I have seen firsthand how children who are exposed to family violence can face trauma, developmental delays and poor mental health as well. From speaking to Werribee police at length these last few months, quite often a lot of the young offenders that we have been speaking about so often in this place had their first contact with police in a family violence context. So it is particularly important that we have these reforms where a child who is listed as an affected family member on an FVIO and turns 18 remains protected for the duration of that FVIO. It is particularly important in years 11 and 12 that we give them that certainty as they are navigating those last few years and working out what their next steps are in life. Quite often with that family background it means that they do not have that support all the time. We can, through our system and the work that we do in our system, make sure that we have that little bit of certainty for them. So often I have worked with children who have gotten to that stage of years 11 and 12 and feel like the systems have fallen away from them as they transition into adult life, further study, finding work and becoming an adult member of society. They are stressful enough, those years.

This reform, while it seems small and just something very legal, is really important to give that certainty to those young people so they can feel like they can thrive in those last few years of school and make sure that whatever happens after school they have still got that protection from that FVIO. The reality is, the moment that that kid turns 18, their family situation does not just magically get fixed. Quite often they will be living at home with younger siblings as well, and there are still those same issues around family violence. We have seen steps, like I said, taken by this government in other areas of young people’s lives. I think it is particularly important, from my experience as a teacher, that we do have these kinds of reforms to make sure that we acknowledge that turning 18 is not just about magically becoming an adult when you get your birthday card and a cake; it is still part of a journey that you are on, and the system should be supporting you as you navigate that.

This bill strengthens protections as well by raising the minimum age of a respondent to an FVIO to 12 years, aligning with the changes made here to the minimum age of criminal responsibility and making sure that is raised from 10 to 12 years following the work that we have done with the Youth Justice Act 2024. I look forward to hearing the other contributions from people in this house. I think it is a particularly important issue and a sensitive issue, and I commend the bill to the house.

 John PESUTTO (Hawthorn) (12:29): I rise to speak on this Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025, which deals with stalking and family violence–related notices. I want to acknowledge at the outset the speakers who preceded me and congratulate them on their heart-wrenching stories and courage in sharing what are very personal experiences with this house and ultimately with the Victorian people.

I recall a meeting a couple of years ago. In fact in this term I would argue that one of the hardest meetings I have ever had to conduct was with Aggie Di Mauro, Celeste Manno’s mum. It was hard to watch Aggie relate the full arc and span of her grief, because at a human level you can only empathise with how hard it was. But do you know what the hardest thing was? The fact that I had no words. No words could comfort Aggie, given the gross failure of the system to protect Celeste. What do you say? The bells were sounding, the alarms were ringing and yet Aggie lost Celeste in circumstances that should never have materialised.

That of course was the basis for the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s report. It looked into stalking – because so much more needs to be done; I think we all agree on that. The Law Reform Commission did release its report in 2022, more than three years ago. Here we are today dealing with a couple of measures, two of the 45 recommendations made in that report. I think, channelling what I said earlier about how you give comfort to someone like Aggie and her family and that not enough was done in 2020 to protect Celeste, it might well be asked today: is this Parliament doing all that it can do to address the shortcomings of our family violence system, particularly but not only in relation to stalking?

I am afraid that the conclusion could fairly be drawn that the Parliament should be doing more today. We should be passing a bill through this house that acquits all 45 of those recommendations. There is so much more we need to do on expediting applications for family violence intervention orders, personal safety intervention orders and other forms of injunctive remedies that particularly women and children seek in circumstances of urgency. There is more we need to do to resource our courts, particularly the Magistrates’ Court, the busiest court in our state, so that it can transact on behalf of women and children in particular, who need urgent judicial relief in the form of family violence intervention orders and the like, which the Law Reform Commission’s report dealt with at length. There are recommendations in the VLRC report about awareness campaigns, education campaigns and resourcing Victoria Police. And yet here we are today passing a bill – a bill we will not oppose but support – but it does not go nearly far enough to address what are urgent circumstances.

I do recall that when this government came to office in 2014 it repeatedly made statements – which I never disagreed with at the time – that family violence was the number one law and order issue in Victoria. The government was correct when it said in 2014 that family violence was Victoria’s number one law and order issue. What saddens me is that today, some 11 years later, the same government still says this, after the Royal Commission into Family Violence, which had all the resources that this Parliament could appropriately deliver. It was a serious effort, with over half a billion dollars in a very well intentioned and important exercise. There were 227 recommendations, virtually all of which have passed through this Parliament with bipartisan support, and countless other measures have, in addition to the recommendations of the royal commission, been implemented through this Parliament and through the work of various agencies and stakeholders.

After all of that effort, after all of the resourcing and after all of the bipartisan passages through this Parliament, it pains me that this same government says and continues to say – for it cannot be denied – that family violence remains Victoria’s number one law and order issue. How is that? We see today, whenever the Crime Statistics Agency – it is just one set of measures, it is not everything about the scourge of family violence, but there are important pieces of data in the Crime Statistics Agency’s material. Nearly 95,000 family violence incidents – that is not getting better. And the problem is that we stand here and we have stood here as an opposition for 11 years, offering in just about every case I can recall – there might be one or two exceptions, if that – offering our bipartisan support. And what does this government have to show to the Victorian people in the face of a continuing scourge of family violence? The truth is, and it cannot be denied, the data is getting worse. The data, when I use that term, is really about, for women and children in particular, things being as bad as they were 11 years ago, if not worse. So Victorians can rightly ask: what is not being done?

I started at the outset pointing out, as other speakers have pointed out, that there are 43 recommendations in the VLRC report which are unaddressed in this bill. You would have heard many of my colleagues and me say repeatedly that because of the financial mismanagement of this government, you can rightly ask: is it because there is no capacity to invest in the programs, the awareness campaigns, the resourcing for our courts and tribunals, and the resourcing for Victoria Police? Is that the failure? Because ultimately we continue to pass bills through this Parliament, and they pass with our support in just about every instance I can recall when it comes to the scourge of family violence. Why aren’t we seeing an improvement in results?

My message to the government is that whilst we do not oppose this bill – and you have heard many speakers say that – what will it take for the government to focus and reprioritise its operations and its attention so that we are dealing with these urgent matters? We have passed bills this week, and in recent weeks we were passing bills dealing with knife crime, aggravated burglaries – all urgent matters. Well, family violence, as the government itself continues to say, is our number one law and order issue. Yet today, Aggie Di Mauro and other victims and the families of victims can say, ‘Well, you’re passing this bill today, but you should have done more. Government, you can, must and should have done more.’ After 11 years, is the data and is the lived experience of family violence better today, with all of the bipartisan support that has been offered and all of the resources that have so far gone into family violence? Sadly, judging by all of the independently assessed and published data, things are going south. It is getting worse. We must do better. The government must do more. The government can do more. It owes it to the women and children and everybody in this great state.

 Kathleen MATTHEWS-WARD (Broadmeadows) (12:39): Everybody should feel safe and be safe, especially in their own home, and sadly, this is not the case. The Victorian Labor government has led the way on family violence reforms and has implemented all 227 recommendations of the royal commission. There are a lot of things happening in this space, including this legislation before the house today. But we know there is still so much work to do. Family violence is the number one issue for police in communities, and I know the police at Broadmeadows and Merri-bek do a great job, particularly the family violence unit there, seeing victims and helping families in some of their worst times.

In 2023 Victoria Police responded to 94,170 family violence incidents – one every 6 minutes – with nearly three-quarters of the victims being women and girls, and the number of incidents reported to VicPol has increased 8 per cent in the last 12 months, which is a huge jump. Very concerningly, sexual violence has increased 17 per cent in the last two years, and there has also been a massive increase in strangulation, which I just find abhorrent. It really frightens me, what women and girls are facing now. It is my biggest fear as a mother that my daughters will end up in situations or relationships where they are not respected and where they are at risk of harm from abuse, at risk of harm from violence and, quite frankly, at risk of death. We see that non-fatal strangulation can leave people with permanent disabilities, and it is really frightening. But I am also worried for the men and boys who are using this. I feel quite concerned that they will not have the opportunity to have respectful, reciprocal relationships that are quite joyful. Hopefully, many of us know what a good, healthy relationship is and how wonderful that can be.

Thinking that our children or the next generation will not have those opportunities because of the increase in family violence and disrespect between the genders really worries me. It worries a lot of people I know – mothers I know in particular, and fathers of course. We know that this increase in incidents is only those that are reported, and we know, unfortunately, that family violence and sexual violence is still very under-reported. In my electorate many incidents are not reported.

One of the examples that is quite common in my electorate is visa abuse. A lot of women arrive here on spouse visas. They do not have family and friends, they are in a foreign country, often they have limited English and they do not have knowledge of the of the laws here or the support systems that are available and have difficulty navigating how to best access help if they do find out it is available. So they are very vulnerable to those who choose to use coercion and violence. Of course it is not everyone, but those who abuse their position as a trusted and loving spouse – sadly, it is predominantly men – use misinformation and fear and threaten their wives, the mothers, with having the children removed if they complain to authorities. I know that is a big barrier to women seeking help and speaking up. Not only is this feeling for people on visas, but it persists in the community. I hear many stories of women in particular who are afraid to seek help. They are concerned about stigma in their community and very concerned about breaking up their family. They just want the violence to stop. I am very pleased that we have got programs to help with that, and I know we have increased funding to that.

I want to thank the member for Mordialloc for the really incredible work he is doing in helping men be better men, better partners and better husbands but also to have better lives because of that. We know that mental health can be at risk for a lot of men. We know suicide rates are really high, and it shows a picture of deep unhappiness. We know men want to be better too, and I really thank him and all of the men that stand up for this work and all those who are involved in the 16 days that started yesterday as well. I also want to thank the minister of course for her incredible leadership and her work, the advisers, who do such great work, and all of the department and everyone else who puts in so much time and effort to make sure that people are safe in the community and in their home. I thank previous ministers as well. I am really proud of the work this Labor government has put into reducing violence against women, violence in the community and family violence. We know that it is not just women who are victims, but predominantly, sadly, it is. I am pleased that we are investing in programs that help people who want to stop using violence, and I am pleased with the really important work that they are doing.

Just in the last few days I have had a number of male community leaders ask what they can do to help address family violence in their communities and make life better for women, children and men. There are so many incredible organisations in my electorate, too, that are doing really important work in this space. Northern Community Legal Centre has the Safe Landing project. They are doing a lot of work on visa abuse, and the wonderful Take the Next Step program. They do so much work in this space, and there are some incredible people there who will be really happy to see this legislation, particularly the reforms around the extension of the intervention orders to a default of two years. I think that gives a lot more time for people who want to get help to get help and for family law issues to be resolved if they are the case. But also it is quite traumatising to go through all the processes, and to have to do that more often is a burden both on the person and on the system.

Good People Act Now is run at Banksia Gardens by the incredible Georgia Ransome, and that empowers young people to challenge gender stereotypes, foster respectful relationships and advocate for gender equality. Safe Steps do really important work in my community, and Muslimahs, who I have met with a couple of times, offer culturally appropriate support to women and housing for those fleeing domestic violence. There are also a lot of community leaders who work really hard to make sure people know that there are services available.

I also want to give a big shout-out to Sam in my office. We get a lot of cases through the door – really traumatic cases who need help – and we help them navigate to those services. But particularly Sam, who sits on the front desk, hears their stories and does everything he can to make sure they feel safe and have hope and get the help they need. I thank him for his empathy and the incredible work he does for so many victim-survivors. He is truly remarkable.

I also thank all the electorate officers across the state in all of our offices, who I think deal with this issue more than we would like them to, and of course all of the frontline services in Victoria – Orange Door, and there are some multicultural services. There are so many services that help these people each and every day, and we know it has an impact on them. We thank them for the incredible work they do.

This bill has been developed in consultation with a broad range of stakeholders, including victim-survivors and their advocates and legal and government stakeholders whose input has been invaluable in helping to ensure the bill is workable, fair and effective. I want to thank them and everybody who has helped get these laws changed. The stalking offence: it will make a big difference to include that; I know people feel very unsafe when they are being stalked, and increasing the conditions on what is included there is really important. Protecting kids when they become 18, to be included in the intervention orders, is also really important. There is a lot going on when you turn 18, and to just have that extra protection for a bit longer I think is really important.

Again, I just want to thank everybody who works so hard in this sector. I have got so much else to say, but I am certainly not an expert. But there are so many experts, and I thank them for everything they have done to make people feel safer at home, safer in their communities and safer in Victoria. Thank you.

 Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (12:49): I rise to talk on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025 in front of us. Thank you to all the members that have stood up and spoken on this from their own personal stories. I think you can see how family violence affects nearly everybody in our community, unfortunately. Acting Speaker O’Keeffe, I know that you as a regional MP and also I, unfortunately, see it all too often. The member for East Gippsland, Tim Bull – I think he has the number one amount of family violence issues in Victoria, followed by me in the Latrobe Valley, and I think you come in at number four, Acting Speaker. So it is something that we do deal with in our offices. If not every couple of days, it is at least every week that we have someone coming through our doors.

As the member who was just up on her feet said, we need to take time to take stock of the wonderful work that our electorate officers do in our electorates and in our offices, because they are dealing with some harrowing stories and trying to get these people help and point them in the right direction. I do thank all officers right around the state, because it is something we wish did not happen but unfortunately does.

Last year in Latrobe we had 3891 cases of family violence, which, when you break that down, is an incredible, sickening statistic that we need to deal with. Unfortunately, I am not sure at this stage that it is going down.

We need to make sure when we bring legislation amendments into the chamber that we do have the ability to make them stronger, especially when we have recommendations, as we heard about from the member for Hawthorn. I think he said 45 recommendations came through, and we are only dealing with a couple of them here. Even though we are dealing with them and we are doing our best to make sure that we are doing the right thing, to be able to sit down with someone that has been through family violence, no matter what age they are – and it normally involves, unfortunately, a male perpetrator, but it does not only lie there. There are female family members that also commit family violence, but predominantly, as we hear, it is the male side of the situation which causes the grief. There are many, many reasons and excuses that they will come up with, but an excuse is just what it is. It is not good enough. We need to be stronger and put protections in place for families right around this great state.

We have had amendments come through which could possibly be harder and tougher. It is very hard to sit down with someone and, once they tell their story, actually look at them and say, ‘Well, there’s not a lot that we can do in this space because the laws don’t allow us to stop your partner, one, abusing you but then abusing the system so they don’t get caught up with it.’ Anything that we can do we need to make sure that we do. We do not oppose this amendment coming through, and neither should we, because this is the stuff that we need to do to keep our families safe.

Abuse comes in many formats, unfortunately. It is not just that physical abuse that we do see and hear about, and probably when you talk about family violence that is the number one thing that you go to. But there is also verbal abuse – that is a form of abuse – and emotional abuse and putting family members in situations where they are threatened and worried not only that physical abuse will happen to them but that they are not going to be given money to be able to go and do what they want to do – economic abuse. There is sexual abuse also, and the list can go on. At the end of the day we need to be more proactive in trying to help our constituents out.

As I said and as you well know, Acting Speaker, in regional Victoria the problems seem to be a lot greater than they are in inner-city Melbourne. It does go on everywhere. One of the conversations that I had back when the Hazelwood mine shut in Gippsland was about the uptake or spike in family violence, which they told me was very noticeable in that timeframe when it was shut down, and the Latrobe Valley Authority was put in place by the government to help work through a lot of situations there.

I fear – and I hope that it is only my own personal fear – that the upcoming closures of our power stations, after we have only just gone through the closing of a sawmill in Yarram, will put stresses not only on the people that work there but the families in general. And we need to make sure that we have all the safeguards that we can have, so that a change in society, whether it is a venue that has made people feel safe because of their jobs being locked in – we need to make sure that we are looking at the entire impact of that. One of those things, unfortunately, could be family violence.

The other one that we do see – and I know we do talk about it – with family violence is the amount of mums with their children that are fleeing family violence and the amount of people that are sleeping rough in their cars because they have nowhere else to go. And when they finally do come to our office and engage, to see where they can go and what they can do, that is normally not the first time, unfortunately, that they have been abused in that family home situation, where they are meant to be feeling loved and safe. Unfortunately, when they get to us they have probably been involved in that family violence for a very long time. So we need to make sure that our access to be able to house these mums with their kids – and it is predominantly the mums leaving with their children. Why is it the case – and I know that they need to be protected – that the family have to leave the family home and it is not the perpetrator that needs to be moved on out of there? We need to make sure that we have got those places and actions and triggers that we can pull to make sure that they are feeling safe and that we can support them. A lot of the time when we do sit down and talk about their options – as we say, we are not experts – we are just pointing them in the way of help for them. We need to make sure that on our end we are making it harder for the perpetrators of family violence to actually navigate their way through the court system or through the police system – that we are closing those gaps so they have not got anywhere to turn themselves. We need to be looking after our families.

As I said before, those 3891 people that experienced some form of family violence down in our area in the Latrobe Valley, and more heading towards East Gippsland – we need to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to drive those numbers down. It is not easy. With these amendments coming through to make it tougher – even though I feel that they could go further; we could make it harder – we need to be seen to be doing what we can. I do wish this a speedy passage.

 Steve McGHIE (Melton) (12:58): I rise today to contribute to the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025, and I think I have got 30 seconds to go. I just want to give a shout-out to Kym Valentine, who was here last week with FARE Australia, raising with us that family violence increases around delivery of alcohol to homes. She is trying to get legislation introduced to stop alcohol being delivered to homes and stop the increase of family violence and aggression. We know that it is tragic, and we know at different times of the year there is an increase in family violence, in particular around Christmas periods and things like that – grand final weekend. Again, a lot of that stems from alcohol intake. So full credit to Kym. I thank her for coming in last week, and we certainly support her in her efforts to try and get things changed around delivery of alcohol to families to reduce family violence.

We all know that family violence is prevalent within all of our communities. And all members have suggested here today that our electorate officers have been dealing with that – people coming in through the doors – and we know the great work that they do, how hard it is and how stressful it is, and the great support services that are out there that do great jobs. I extend my thanks to all of those workers that are supporting people that are going through family violence. It has already been –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Kim O’Keeffe): I am interrupting business as we will now break for lunch.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:02 pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.