Wednesday, 3 December 2025

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (14:12): I rise to speak to the motion in my name, a very important motion. I move:

That this house:

(1)   recognises the urgent need for strengthened family violence laws in Victoria, with Victoria Police responding to one family violence incident every 6 minutes;

(2)   notes that:

(a) Victoria Police attended over 100,000 family violence incidents in 2023–24, a 6 per cent increase from the previous year;

(b) coercive control, which is a pattern of abusive behaviour used to control someone within a relationship through manipulation, pressure and fear needs to be recognised as a criminal offence in its own right;

(c) other Australian jurisdictions such as New South Wales and Queensland have already acted to outlaw coercive control;

(3)   further notes the government has already voted against implementing Clare’s law, a domestic violence disclosure scheme 12 months ago; and

(4)   demands that the government urgently expedite the passage of coercive control laws for Victoria.

I want to put on record the work of my colleague the Shadow Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence Cindy McLeish, who has done a power of work in this area. She has been out meeting with not only victims but also stakeholders and Victoria Police to understand the issue at hand. I acknowledge the work that the government did with the Royal Commission into Family Violence, but there is still much to do. When I had this shadow portfolio, I brought to the Parliament and also to my electorate a number of issues that Ms McLeish has also been prosecuting, and I will talk to them later.

What I want to do is really talk through some of these statistics, which are very alarming. That is why the Liberal and Nationals are calling on this to be to be undertaken, because we cannot wait any longer. The government have had long enough to implement some of these reforms, which quite frankly they have ignored and failed to do. As I said, the statistics are increasing at an alarming rate. The latest Crime Statistics Agency data for the year ending June 2025 show that serious assaults increased by 23.35 per cent from June of last year. Breaches of family violence orders had increased from June of last year to June this year by 16.68 per cent. Victim reports of stalking, harassment and threatening behaviour towards females have increased from a staggering 4878 cases just last year to 5422 cases in this year – and obviously we are not at the end of the year, and those numbers, sadly, will continue to increase.

In terms of this issue around what the police are doing, they are doing their utmost. They are under so much pressure, given the crime crisis that has exploded in this state. They are being called out and there are dedicated units that are doing exceptional work in this area, and I want to place on record everybody’s acknowledgement of and thanks for the work that they do in this area, because it is an important area, especially for women, who are largely subjected to this sort of behaviour. But it is not only women, I have to say. There are men in violent relationships as well who are subjected to some of these coercive powers and some of the issues that we speak about in relation to women. But it is well understood that largely women are the victims of these horrendous crimes. Perpetrators of coercive control do use a number of techniques to establish power over their victims, including threats, degradation, isolation from family and friends, monitoring and surveillance, gaslighting, enforcing trivial demands and alternating punishment with rewards. Victims can be under that control and really feel very isolated and emotional that they have nowhere to turn to, and so they are put under more pressure.

I want to just go back to something that I was doing. I mentioned what the shadow minister Cindy McLeish has been bringing into the public domain, and she has already brought in a great deal and done a lot in putting forward policies to keep women safe and to stop these statistics from continuing to rise like they do. Last year the government voted against a ‘right to ask, right to know’ Clare’s law that we put forward. I want to speak to that because it is a scheme that was introduced in the UK in 2014, and since that time it has facilitated thousands of disclosures, including a total of 58,612 applications in 2023–24 with 24,505 disclosures – and it goes on. South Australia has implemented this scheme. It is something that I am very familiar with because back in 2017 I had a policy on this area, which Ms McLeish has built on. At the time I had gone and spoken to many people. We were watching what was happening in New South Wales, and Pru Goward, who was the Minister for Family and Community Services and Minister for Prevention of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, led the way in this very important area. They were doing some fantastic work and started the case for Clare’s law in Australia. At the time I met with a woman, Samantha Handley, who was the subject of that, a very sad story but an amazingly brave woman. She just encapsulates exactly the issue around coercive powers and why Clare’s law is required.

I want to go back to an article that I referenced. Samantha stood with me when we announced this policy, which was ridiculed by Labor. It was shameful, actually. It was rather embarrassing too, given the enormity of the issue at hand. Labor just disregarded this and basically ridiculed this important initiative we were putting forward. I was putting it forward based on this woman’s story, and I want to just remind members why we put this policy forward and why we will commit to it in November 2026, should Victorians vote for the change that we so desperately need in this state – because it is policies like this that will improve people’s lives. I am just going to quote from this article of 2016, which was titled ‘Child basher’s ex: why we need a domestic violence disclosure scheme’:

SAMANTHA Handley was with her ex partner for three years before she found out from a shocking newspaper article he had been jailed for bashing an ex-girlfriend’s 18-month-old baby years before they met.

…

She believed she was in a loving relationship, before his control over her slowly built up and she realised he had become abusive.

And even still, she held on to the belief that he wasn’t capable of serious harm until she saw the headline “BABY BASHER JAILED” …

And the headline is quite shocking.

She went on to say that she believes that if she had the information about her partner, if it had been disclosed – her family members were coming to her saying, ‘Something’s not right with this guy.’ They knew; they instinctively knew. Yet she was in this relationship where this coercion and power was very dominant. She goes on to say:

I think what was going through my head was, I knew logically, I agreed, but I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t break free, I couldn’t break this off …

I was so isolated from everyone and he had such a hold on me I felt like if he wasn’t present in my life I didn’t have a life.

The article goes on to say:

Samantha says Brown made her feel bad about herself and became emotionally abusive.

Behind closed doors he was controlling her and coercing her into things that were so shameful she felt she could never go to the police or anyone who she was close to about it.

And this was the case. It was coercion and control, it was that power domination of an abuser, and yet he had this horrible, terrible criminal record. She was in Victoria. He was in New South Wales when he did these crimes, with a former girlfriend – or the ACT; I cannot quite recall, actually, but nevertheless it all played out in the Wagga courts. It was only when her friends and family were coming to her saying, ‘You’ve got to get out of this relationship,’ that she started to dig and was horrified to find this terrible, terrible headline: ‘Wagga baby basher jailed: 12-month sentence for “repugnant” act’. She said that she felt sick when she saw this article about her – well, when this article was being written – partner.

At the time and even now in Victoria, there are no resources available for victims of domestic violence or people at risk to access their partner’s criminal history. That is why we did what we did – and we spoke about Clare’s law back in 2017 for the 2018 election. I am really thrilled that the work that Cindy McLeish is doing is really getting noticed now, because it is not just those coercion laws that we need – and she has highlighted that. I mean, I have tabled the second-reading speech today. You see it in other jurisdictions: New South Wales became the first state or territory in Australia to criminalise coercive control; in Queensland in March 2021 the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce was established to examine coercive control; and the Criminal Law (Coercive Control and Affirmative Consent) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023 was passed by the Queensland Parliament. There is, in other states, now an ability for authorities to prosecute patterns of manipulative and controlling behaviour, and that is why Victoria needs to do the same, to catch up to other jurisdictions.

As I mentioned, it was the UK scheme around Clare’s law that really led the charge, and it was former UK Prime Minister Theresa May who established coercive and controlling behaviour as a criminal offence in the Serious Crime Act 2015, which saw England and Wales become the first nations to do so. So it is not without precedent. That was 10 years ago, and since that time the Liberals and the Nationals have been talking about these issues, given the government’s work that they did with the Royal Commission into Family Violence. Here is a big gap, and they have failed over a significant number of years now to really address the gap. As I said, I was talking about Clare’s law eight years ago, in 2017. Eight years ago we were providing to the Victorian public a solution around disclosure. We have brought it back, and we will do this because this government will not do it. That is what our shadow minister has said. Under a Wilson-led government we will implement this. And we will implement laws around coercion if this government, the Labor government, again fails to understand what is happening in jurisdictions in this country and what is happening in other nations.

There are far too many horrible statistics in relation to family violence. We all acknowledge that. More must be done. It has got to have a focus that is concentrating on real, practical outcomes that can actually be achieved and stop these statistics from rising. I think that it is very disappointing that the government has voted down what we have put before the Parliament in the past. It has already voted against, as I said, implementing Clare’s law, which has been in other jurisdictions like the UK for years and in other jurisdictions in this country. What we are proposing with the bill that we put forward into the Parliament – we have not fully debated it as yet – is to create a standalone offence, based on the New South Wales model, with a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment for a course of conduct including emotional, psychological, financial or physical abuse, threats, isolation and surveillance. These are the coercive powers that put too many women into that dreadful, isolated space. It is really a catch-up, as Victoria is lagging well behind other states in this area. You would think that they would be leading the way, but they are not. They are lagging. They are behind Queensland, they are behind New South Wales and they are behind other states on Clare’s law. They have really dropped the ball in this area, and I think that demonstrates another area of concern for many, many Victorians around what needs to be done.

I do want to make, again, those points around Victoria Police having attended over a hundred thousand family violence incidents. This is a 6 per cent increase on the previous year. These statistics are not getting any better, they are getting worse. We know that through COVID and the lockdowns they spiralled out of control, the number of domestic violence incidents that were occurring behind closed doors because of a whole range of reasons in lockdown, and since then it has only got worse. There is a lot that the government has responsibility for. They could be taking more practical measures to improve outcomes for so many Victorians and to assist the police in bringing those statistics down. The police are doing all they can. A hundred thousand family violence incidents is an appalling statistic. More needs to be done in relation to going to the root cause of why this violence is occurring. We never really do that. The government talks up here, but we are not looking at the root cause of why this violence is on the increase. Why is it? Is it drug and alcohol abuse, is it mental health problems, is it financial pressures, cost-of-living pressures – what is happening here? Is it social media and this terrible perversion of what is seen to be normal for too many young people, what they see on social media. I am not blaming the government for that particular issue – that is governments at all levels. There needs to be a huge amount done in relation to those areas, because too many young people are getting caught up in what is very, very dangerous activity. They see it, and they are influenced far too easily. They need greater guidance, greater education and greater role models to say it is not okay. It is just not okay to be undertaking this appalling behaviour. I am not saying this just to young people but to anyone.

I want to again commend my colleague Cindy McLeish on the work she has done. I would hope that every member of this chamber would support this motion. It is an important motion. It needs to be done. I have to say, given we were talking about Clare’s law eight years ago and nothing has been done, I do not hold my breath for the government to undertake this very important work. But I can give this assurance to this house and to the people of Victoria: a Wilson-led government will absolutely implement these reforms that need to be undertaken for the sake of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Victorians.

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:31): I rise to speak on motion 1191 in Ms Crozier’s name on behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria. This motion follows the Crimes Amendment (Coercive Control) Bill 2025, introduced by the opposition to create a new offence in relation to coercive control. That is where a person engages in a course of conduct against an intimate partner that involves abusive behaviour and intends the conduct to coerce their intimate partner to comply with the person’s demands or to control them. We are concerned that this bill is a blunt instrument for a complex problem. Despite being modelled on New South Wales legislation, it does not include safeguards that are designed to mitigate unintended consequences that would harm vulnerable communities. While the motion before us today is not this bill and we do agree with encouraging this government to consider the appropriateness of a standalone offence for coercive control, how we go about this needs to be well considered.

The prevalence of family violence is deeply disturbing. Last year Victoria Police responded to 104,786 family violence incidents. That is one incident every 6 minutes – the highest number on record. The LGA with the highest rate of family violence is Casey, in my electorate. Data from the Crime Statistics Agency also shows us that family violence intervention orders are being repeatedly breached. Between July 2023 and June 2024, 2010 people alleged to have breached a family violence intervention order had previously been arrested for a breach, and a large number of those were within 30 days. Alarmingly, these rates are increasing. In the last six years there has been a 64 per cent increase in people repeatedly breaching family violence intervention orders.

We need to consider where we can strengthen our family violence laws in Victoria. Currently in Victoria coercive and controlling behaviour is recognised as part of the definition of ‘family violence’ in the Family Violence Protection Act 2008. This allows for coercive control to be addressed through family violence intervention orders, which, if breached, constitute a criminal offence. The relationship between family violence and coercive control is well established. The changes to legislation in New South Wales mentioned in this motion were prompted by a review that found coercive control was a precursor to 97 per cent of intimate partner homicides between 2000 and 2018.

Whether the creation of a standalone offence for coercive control would be more effective than the existing approach in Victoria is contentious. Several stakeholders made their position known in the 2022 consultation on the national principles to address coercive control. They were asked to consider whether these principles effectively described key issues to consider when deciding whether or how to criminalise coercive control and the potential unintended consequences of criminalisation. At the time the Federation of Community Legal Centres, the Law Institute of Victoria, Women’s Legal Service Victoria, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and Domestic Violence Victoria all made submissions opposing the creation of a standalone offence to criminalise coercive control. This consultation found that a focus should be placed upon shifting from the development of a specific offence to a broader legislative response to coercive control. This consultation also found that potential unintended consequences of criminalising coercive control include overincarceration, retraumatisation, avenues for manipulation and exploitation by perpetrators and reinforcing the issue of misidentification, particularly for groups of people who experience discrimination in the justice system.

In their submission the Law Institute of Victoria noted that:

Criminalisation of coercive control is likely to have disproportionate and detrimental adverse consequences for disadvantaged groups.

Research demonstrates that criminal sanctions in response to FDV may lead to victim-survivors being less willing to engage in the justice system, either due to past negative experiences with the criminal justice system or a desire to avoid incarceration or impose a criminal record on the perpetrator.

They also noted that:

As of yet, there is no evidence to suggest that introducing a standalone offence of coercive control increases women’s safety outcomes or improves their access to justice.

But since this time a number of Australian jurisdictions have gone ahead to introduce a standalone offence of coercive control. Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia have all introduced the standalone offence. Meanwhile, Western Australia and the ACT have publicly committed to doing so in the future. In New South Wales, between when the legislation came into force on 1 July 2024 and 19 September 2025, they recorded 297 incidents of coercive control, but only nine charges have been laid. As of 19 September none of these charges had been tested by the courts. The three finalised in court related to two withdrawals by the prosecution and one guilty plea.

While we understand that the government is exploring making coercive control a standalone criminal offence, we agree that it is important that the work is not rushed in a way that will result in unintended consequences or the offence being underutilised, like it is in New South Wales. When New South Wales criminalised coercive control, it also put in place protective measures including but not limited to the establishment of a taskforce to provide ongoing advice on the legislation and multiple statutory reviews. We support the Victorian government considering the introduction of coercive controls in Victoria and doing so in a timely manner that considers appropriate protective measures. However, ‘timely’ does not mean rushed. There is a real risk that a standalone coercive control offence could end up harming more than it could help. We need to do the work to make sure it does not.

 Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:38): I rise to make a contribution on this motion standing in Ms Crozier’s name. I understand that this is part of the Liberal–Nationals’ most recent attempt to look at politicising family violence, and it is very disappointing. I note that there is also some legislation that is going to be brought by those opposite, but today this motion is about looking at, and I guess trying to undermine, this government’s approach to family violence.

What I might say at the outset is that nobody has done more for family violence in Victoria than the Allan Labor government and, prior to that, the Andrews Labor government. That was because we committed to and undertook and delivered on a Royal Commission into Family Violence. That was really a watershed moment in Victoria’s history, because it was a really significant deep dive and thorough look at what was going on in Victoria in terms of forms of family violence. I have to say that during the 2018 election campaign the Victorian Liberal Party did not commit to implementing all of the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence, yet here we are today debating a motion about coercive control. The point is that it is all very rich, isn’t it, to now all of a sudden turn up and say that you believe in and support family violence reforms and looking at coercive control having failed to show up at the relevant times and at the appropriate times. They only want to do it because it is politically expedient to do it. During the 2018 election campaign the Liberal Party was reluctant to commit to all of the 227 recommendations, citing them as a financial impost. Well, the financial impost for Victoria is the ongoing cost and harm experienced by women and children who are subject to family violence. It costs the Victorian economy, it costs people’s lives and livelihoods and it does untold damage. The impacts of family violence and coercive control can be felt in family homes, and for children it is something that they continue to experience throughout their lifetimes. It has lasting effects on them, and so the impacts of it are significant.

The Allan Labor government has continued to commit to working on family violence reforms, and coercive control is no different. Coercive control is insidious, it is abusive, it is manipulative, and we stand side by side with victim-survivors of family violence and domestic violence. All of us in this chamber, no matter who we are, see what is on the news. We all see news reports of when women and children have been the victims of family violence. It is devastating. It is heartbreaking to watch, and we all feel powerless that we are unable to protect somebody in our family, neighbours or friends from the ongoing impacts of family violence; it is devastating. But there is no silver bullet to all of this. There is no one right response. There are multiple responses. You only have to look at the sorts of things that the government has been doing to ensure that women and children who are the victims of family violence can be made aware of the supports and the services that they can actually make use of to ensure that they can get the help that they need. Orange Door is just one of those services.

We have implemented every single one of the Royal Commission into Family Violence recommendations. One of those, as I said, is the Orange Door services – there are 37 Orange Door sites across Victoria, and they provide immediate and simple access for women escaping violence – and establishing the nation’s first dedicated prevention agency, Respect Victoria. I want to thank people who work in this sector. It is a very challenging sector to work in. I have visited Orange Door locations in my electorate. I am forever impressed by the work that goes on in those services and the day-to-day stories that I have heard and seen people working with, whether it is women who are having to seek a safe house in a refuge, fleeing with their children and even with their pets. Pets are used as a tool in family violence and as a means of coercive control to make a woman stay in the home because they worry that their pets might be used or abused or in fact killed to control them. There are a myriad of ways in which abusers and perpetrators seek to control women. But the good thing is, as I said before, that this government has implemented every single recommendation of the family violence royal commission and will continue to work on making sure that women and children can be safe.

As I said earlier, those opposite talked about it being a financial impost. Well, it is not a financial impost keeping women and children safe. It is important that everybody in society has a right to feel safe and a right to live whatever their authentic life is, free from violence and intimidation. The fact is that abusers and perpetrators use these sorts of measures to control women’s behaviour. We still have work to do. We still have to get to the root cause as to why people and men in particular – the majority of these people who inflict family violence on women are men – feel they need to exert such coercive control measures. That is something that will take a long time to understand, and the work will continue on that. Some of that lies with men as well and getting them to take responsibility for their behaviour and work on their behaviour.

Significantly, the Allan Labor government will do what it takes to protect victim-survivors of family violence and to hold perpetrators to account. We will legislate to criminalise coercive control next year, but we will do it hand in hand with the family violence support sector and victim-survivors. We will get it right for Victorians and for Victoria. We will not copy and paste from other jurisdictions which are completely unlike our own. We have our own unique circumstances here in Victoria that we must make sure we get right, and we must make sure we have at the centre of that the victim-survivor experience and listening to their experiences and what they want us to do.

We also need to make sure that, as I said, the workforce that work in this sector have the right tools and the resources they need to be able to combat coercive control. This lays the necessary groundwork in order to then put in further measures to criminalise coercive control. People, we know, with lived experience have clearly called for criminalisation of coercive control as part of a stronger system response. In December 2024 a national survey of victim-survivors of family violence found that 87.5 per cent of survey participants believed coercive control should be a criminal offence. But this government will not rush through laws, because, as I said, we want to make sure we get it right. We want to make sure we get it right, and we want to make sure that victim-survivors’ experiences are at the centre of it. We are not using this for political purposes like those opposite. As I said, when the Royal Commission into Family Violence was held, those opposite did not support it. They said it was a financial impost. But now here we are in 2025, in the lead-up to the 2026 election, and what we see is political expediency, and we would expect nothing less from those opposite.

While we know this has strong support from people with lived experiences, there are concerns in the legal assistance sector and the family violence support sector around unintended consequences. We understand that, we acknowledge that and we will continue to work with those sectors to work through those issues. As I said, we cannot copy another state and their approach in what they do and what they have done. What we need to do is make sure we have the right context for Victoria and that we listen to victim-survivors in Victoria, not just copy what someone else might have said in another jurisdiction. We will make sure we take a very careful evidence-based approach that centres on lived experience and sector consultation, ensuring that any reforms strike the right balance between accountability, safety and support so we are clear that any future responses must not become another lever for perpetrators to enable them to further manipulate systems to control or harm victim-survivors. We must hold them to account. I will leave my contribution there, but the government will not oppose this motion.

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (14:48): That was another extraordinary contribution and another example of complete doublespeak. What I heard from the member opposite was in fact that she agrees, I believe, with the motion. She agrees with the intent of the motion. She knows that this is following a lot of domestic violence. However, because it was not the government’s idea, they are passing up the opportunity to act on urgent matters at the moment. Also, I will just highlight how funny it was really that the example that was used was that they are not copying other states. What I will say is I find it quite entertaining –

Sonja Terpstra interjected.

Georgie Crozier: On a point of order, Acting President, Ms Terpstra is leaving the chamber – probably a good thing. She is speaking from out of her chair, and I would ask you to bring the member back to order, given she is being rather destructive to my colleague’s speech here.

Sonja Terpstra: There is no point of order, Acting President, and I ask that you instruct Ms Crozier to stop disrupting the chamber.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): On the point of order, members interjecting need to do so from their place.

Renee HEATH: What I was saying was that it is very interesting, the doublespeak. Just last week the Premier literally said, ‘If you want to look at some legislation with adult crime, adult time, look to Queensland.’ I just thought it is worth pointing out that that is not hatred, that is just pointing out the obvious. Anyway, I rise in strong support –

Sonja Terpstra: On a point of order, Acting President, on relevance, Queensland has nothing to do with this motion. I would ask that you bring the member back to the motion.

Georgie Crozier: On the point of order, Acting President, I think Ms Terpstra is misinterpreting what Dr Heath was saying. Dr Heath has every right to provide context to the motion, which she was providing an example of, which was very accurate actually.

Sonja Terpstra: Further to the point of order, there is no point of order there. Ms Crozier was debating the point. I would ask that you ask her to stop interrupting this chamber and that the debate continue uninterrupted.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): On the point of order, I find that the motion does reference other states.

Renee HEATH: I am rising today to speak in strong support of this extremely important and extremely well researched and thought-out motion. I thank Ms Crozier and Ms McLeish for the amazing work they have done. The reality is this is not a nice topic, this is not political pointscoring; this is life and death for many, many Victorians. The reason is that almost 100 per cent of intimate partner and domestic homicides – almost 100 percent; 97 per cent – are preceded by coercive control.

In health we talk all the time about how we have to go upstream. If there are people having heart attacks and if there are people having health issues, there is no point just having an ambulance drag them out of the water all the time. What you have actually got to do is go upstream and build guardrails to prevent people from getting there. This is a guardrail. This is something that will protect men and women, but mostly women, in this state and that will actually recognise the emotional harm and torment that a lot of these people are dealing with.

I tell you what, when almost 100 per cent of intimate partner and domestic homicides are preceded by coercive control, it is a little bit late by the time you have got there. That is a physical sign of the torment, the control and the anguish that that person has lived with but has not been able to see because it has been emotional abuse, it has been gaslighting and it has been something that is not seen on the outside. Coercive control does not show up as bruises. Coercive control does not show up as blood on the floor. Coercive control slowly chips away at the person, the actual spirit and the actual personality of who that person is. It is so destructive and it is so damaging. I am so proud of the work that our team have done on this. That is not political pointscoring; it is actually important. I am so proud to be standing up.

Sonja Terpstra interjected.

Renee HEATH: I will just highlight the comments from Ms Terpstra, who just said I am disgraceful.

Sonja Terpstra: On a point of order, Acting President, I ask you to bring the member back to the motion and to not verbal me. I did not make those comments. I ask that Dr Heath withdraw, because I am offended.

Renee HEATH: I am happy to withdraw whatever she is offended about.

Sonja Terpstra: Further to the point of order, I ask that Dr Heath withdraw, and she should do so without qualification.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): Dr Heath, would you like to withdraw?

Renee HEATH: Can I just continue? I withdraw.

Sonja Terpstra: Thank you.

Renee HEATH: No worries. Here we go. It is a bit touchy in here today.

We will just go through the facts. In New South Wales a similar form of legislation was introduced in 2024 – as of 1 July last year coercive control is now a criminal offence, carrying a maximum jail term of seven years imprisonment. I believe that is important. Secondly, in Queensland since 26 May 2025 coercive control is now a criminal offence, carrying a maximum penalty of up to 14 years in prison. What our laws will do is make it carry a seven-year maximum penalty. Other states, like Western Australia, are taking a phased approach to legislation and systematic reform, education and training. In 2024 Tasmania introduced two criminal offences of coercive control, being economic abuse and emotional abuse. I think this is so important, and this is something that a progressive state like Victoria should be leading the way in. It is so embarrassing that we are lagging behind, but it is not about the embarrassment. This is about the damage that it does to Victorians, the damage that it does to families. This is going upstream. It is building safeguards around people. It is absolutely setting the tone, saying that the threshold of somebody being beaten, sometimes being killed, is just far too far; this should have been pulled up earlier, before now.

There have been quite a lot of points of order that have eaten into my time, but there are two stories that have really impacted me and made me believe so strongly in this. One of them I have spoken about before. Katie Haley was a victim of coercive control by her partner. The most dangerous time for somebody that is suffering domestic violence is just before a partner leaves. Well, she was going to leave, and her partner beat her to death with a barbell on their son’s bed. He – I have spoken about it many times in this place – received 427 days off his sentence, taking him below the non-parole period, because he was locked up during COVID. This is the reality of why this legislation is important.

The second one that I want to talk about in this short amount of time is a lady in my region who was the victim for many, many years of incredible coercive control and abuse by her husband. When she finally said that she was going to leave, he doused her in petrol and lit a match. That lady, an incredible lady and somebody that has become quite a good friend of mine, if laws like this had been in place to take it upstream to protect somebody like that, would not have to live with disfigurement – not only the emotional and mental disfigurement but the physical disfigurement that she now has – because the legal threshold was far too high.

This is important legislation. I am so proud to be here supporting it. I think that it is something that we are seeing the crossbench support because they know how important it is, how vital this is. I think it follows on from the incredible work last week, and it is in line with the fact that with non-disclosure agreements the whole game has changed. This is about giving women supports that they need. It is about going upstream and making sure that behaviour is not tolerated that is just chipping away at people and destroying them as people. I am very thankful to be able to speak to this, and I commend the motion to the house.

 John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (14:58): I rise to speak on this extremely important issue of coercive control. Coercive control often refers to non-physical abuse in relationships, be it emotional or psychological abuse or be it financial or cultural abuse. However, it is outlined by Respect Victoria that it can also refer to physical or sexual forms of abuse, such as stealthing, which was made a crime by laws passed in 2022. While coercive control is primarily associated with non-physical abuse, it is well recorded that elements of coercive control are often present as a precursor to or early warning sign of violence in relationships. Often signs of coercive control can be an early phase in an escalation towards violence and towards physical and sexual abuse.

Coercive control is currently covered within family violence law under the Family Violence Protection Act 2008, which includes coercive behaviour under its definition of ‘family violence’. It is altogether right and proper that coercive control be considered a criminal act in this way. The Allan Labor government is, however, exploring making coercive control a standalone criminal offence. Whether we determine that current arrangements are satisfactory or whether we decide that a new piece of legislation may be required, coercive control will never be acceptable or legal here in Victoria. Making a change such as introducing a standalone offence for coercive control is not something which can be rushed on issues this important, issues this sensitive and issues that are impactful on too many people’s lives. We cannot afford to rush this piece of legislation through, and we cannot afford to risk a well-intentioned but rushed and flawed piece of legislation which may carry with it unintended consequences which could undermine our government’s work to combat family violence.

The fight against family violence is a necessary and an important one and one that all of us here in this chamber are united in. On issues like this it is appropriate that the opposition puts forward a motion so that we have a chance to debate it. On issues like this one those opposite have an important contribution to make, as do members of the crossbench. Whilst coercive control is not inherently a gender-based problem – anybody can be abused and anybody can be an abuser, no matter their gender or what kind of relationship they are in – women are more likely than men to be victims of that sort of abuse. A 2021–22 national study by the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 27 per cent of women and 15 per cent of men aged over 18 had experienced violence or emotional or economic abuse by a partner. Clearly both of these figures are too high.

The Allan Labor government is committing to opposing and reducing family violence and gender-based violence at every turn. That is why we currently have a bill before the Parliament seeking to address the issue so that we can keep Victorians safe. Our bill introduces a two-year minimum term for family violence intervention orders and extends their length once the perpetrator is out of prison; ensures that kids listed on the family violence intervention order maintain the protection that they received beyond their 18th birthday; widens the definition of ‘family violence’ to include more forms of abuse, whether they are certain systems of abuse, stalking or mistreatment of animals; enables protective orders for behaviour which occurs interstate; and makes judgements on stalking offences better able to be applied in the courts. Some of these changes are simple, but they will make a serious difference for the number of people affected by family violence. They constitute only a small part of what the Allan Labor government is doing to stand by and support victim-survivors of coercive control, family violence and all forms of gender-based violence.

To give a sense of scale of the reform undertaken by this government over the last decade, when the Royal Commission into Family Violence handed down its final report in 2016, it made 227 recommendations about how we could transform and improve our state’s family violence services. I was not in this place at the time the report was handed down, but I was very proud to be a member of this place as a recently elected member in January 2023 when it was announced that every single one of those recommendations had been implemented. These reforms took some significant steps. They include the establishment of Respect Victoria, an organisation dedicated to preventing family violence through their work in research, informing policymakers and educating members of the public by producing evidence-based research, public campaign materials and educational resources for the use in schools and other contexts.

Respect Victoria is playing a vital role in making Victoria a safer place for women and all people affected by family violence, including coercive control. Respect Victoria is a vital organisation which seeks to drive the cultural change which is needed if we want to stamp out family violence, including instances of coercive control, for good. They also do important work engaging the public, bringing people with them and inviting them to be part of the change. We saw this, for example, in the role Respect Victoria played in the Walk Against Family Violence 2025 last week, when thousands of members of the public came out to show their solidarity with victim-survivors and their commitment to working until they have a society free from family violence. The reforms also include the establishment of the family violence information sharing scheme, better enabling accurate risk assessment and management across organisations. When we have better information our systems are able to make better decisions. They include the establishment of the specialist family violence courts, which are dedicated to improving access to justice for victim-survivors, enabling them to feel safe when they go through that process.

The royal commission made it clear that we need to invest heavily in our primary prevention systems as well as response and support systems. Our ability to respond when family violence incidents occur and our ability to support victim-survivors is one of the most important things we need to be prepared for as a state, but so too is primary prevention of the utmost importance. Preventing violence before it happens is critical for many reasons. Some people will talk about primary prevention in terms of it being good value for money. It is cheaper to prevent violence than it is to provide support and services to victim-survivors. Further, individuals who experience family violence often experience significant economic disruption in their own lives, which could have been avoided had the violence been prevented in the first place. These people are right to talk about the issues in these terms because it is true. But family violence is not primarily an economic and financial issue. It is primarily a moral issue about how we keep Victorians safe.

Everybody deserves to be and to feel safe in this state, especially when they are in their own home. The Allan Labor government has already invested significantly in primary prevention work through Respect Victoria. We understand that violence can begin well before the impact is visible. It begins with attitudes towards gender, relationships, entitlement and respect. Coercive control thrives in environments where certain behaviours are excused or minimised. The Allan Labor government has made it clear that there is no such place for coercive attitudes in this state. Section 5 of the Victorian Family Violence Protection Act 2008 includes coercive behaviour in its definition of ‘family violence’, meaning it can already constitute a criminal offence.

We stand by victim-survivors of family violence and always will. Our service providers do remarkable work across the state, with Safe Steps, a 24-hour support line providing immediate, confidential assistance to those who need it. The Orange Door is a statewide family violence and wellbeing entry point that is also free and confidential and connects people with specialist support. The Orange Door was a key recommendation in the 2016 Royal Commission into Family Violence. It highlighted that victim-survivors were being retraumatised by being forced to tell their stories multiple times, services were fragmented and hard to access, responses were varied across the state and there was no way to assess risk or share information. The Orange Door was created to fill these services. It helps tens of thousands of Victorians every year. Its impact includes a coordinated family violence response, specialist support for children, safe housing and safety planning, behaviour change pathways and stronger collaboration between local services. It ensures that nobody has to navigate the family violence system alone. It is these services that ensure that victim-survivors are believed and supported to ensure safety is the number one priority. That is our priority in the Allan Labor government, keeping Victorians safe, reducing family violence and ensuring that victim-survivors are given dignity, support, respect and justice.

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (15:07): I am genuinely pleased to speak today in support of this motion 1191 in Ms Crozier’s name. I will start by paying tribute to the work of my colleague in the lower house the member for Eildon Cindy McLeish, who has developed this policy, and to the new Liberal leader and Leader of the Opposition Jess Wilson, who has chosen to take this on as her first commitment to new legislation which Ms Crozier introduced today.

I want to speak generally about the topic of coercive control – what it is and why it matters. For too long our justice system has struggled to grapple with a central truth of domestic abuse, which is that the most damaging violence does not always leave bruises. It is not about single acts. A person, usually but not always a woman, can have their life shattered and their autonomy destroyed without a single punch being thrown. The concept of coercive control explains this. It recognises domestic abuse as a regime of domination in which one partner uses threats, humiliation, isolation, surveillance and financial imprisonment to strip the other of independence and liberty. It is not a single incident or a bad argument but an attack on a very personality. Our legal system, like others, has traditionally not understood this and for many years required a discrete incident of assault or criminal damage. To be crude, it needed victims to suffer visible injuries before society would accept that they had been harmed at all. I am very proud to support this motion and the bill that we also introduced, which thoroughly transforms that outdated model.

I want to talk in some more detail about the UK experience. At the time it was introduced, driven by Conservative Home Secretary and later Prime Minister Theresa May, various jurisdictions, including the UK, had previously addressed limited aspects of the problem. Tasmania had criminalised emotional and economic abuse, for instance, and the fact of long-term psychological injury was recognised in a number of systems. However, those reforms were generally focused on individual elements, such as emotional distress, or isolated acts, like threats or withholding financial support. The UK’s 2015 law made a conceptual leap. For the first time in a common-law jurisdiction, Parliament embedded the full sociological theory of coercive control into law. The landmark offence under section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 shifted the focus from isolated incidents to the systematic pattern of behaviour that creates what survivors call invisible chains. The offence recognises ongoing behaviour rather than snapshots in time. It treats the removal of a person’s liberty as a core harm and acknowledges the autonomy itself as a legal interest worthy of protection. It captures conduct that aims to make the victim subordinate and dependent by controlling their movement, communication, financial resources, household activity and personal relationships.

Statutory guidance in the UK identifies common examples. These include isolating a person from family and friends; monitoring their calls and movements by phone tracking or spyware; restricting access to food, sleep or medical care; controlling finances and income; creating debt in the victim’s name; threatening to expose private information; threatening children or pets; preventing education or work; micromanaging daily tasks and personal experience; gaslighting; and enforced humiliation or sexual degradation. These are not mere disagreements; they all add up to nothing short of captivity. Professor Evan Stark, whose work was heavily leaned upon, described coercive control in 2007 as a strategic course of oppressive conduct that creates invisible chains which are at least as coercive as physical abuse.

The 2015 law finally gave a name and a crime to what had previously been invisible and very hard to prosecute. It shifted the entire paradigm of domestic abuse from ‘Did he hit her?’ to ‘Is she free?’ I know from people in the UK that it was not just run-of-the-mill legislation discussed in Parliament then confined to the police and courts; it did actually change the way people thought about domestic violence and abuse. There was enormous coverage on TV and radio and in the media, and not just on the news programs. It became a significant subject of public debate and was even featured as a storyline in a long-running radio drama. The reason this change was needed is because previous laws failed victims. Unfortunately, that remains the case in Victoria. Historically, offences have tended to rely on incident-based proof. Assault often implies physical force, harassment requires overt threats and stalking is usually pursued after separation. Coercive control often begins early in a relationship and escalates long before any physical injury occurs and sometimes without any physical injury at all. Police attending a household might see no bruising and conclude that nothing criminal has occurred. Victims have often been expected to produce tangible evidence: photographs of injuries or medical records or witnesses. But how do you prove you have a bank account you are not allowed to access? How can police or a court see constant fear or intimidation? There have also been barriers, including practical and procedural time limits. Charges for offences might need to be laid within a few months, but victims trapped in controlling relationships may be isolated for years before they can find help.

The UK law and now our bill that has been introduced and is the purpose of this motion recognise that harm is cumulative, patterns matter and, in a course of conduct which dominates and deprives a partner, liberty matters. We have the opportunity here to give the police the ability to intervene before the final crisis, be that hospitalisation or worse. The member for Eildon’s work recognises that forced dependency is a form of human rights abuse. It brings the law into alignment with what frontline workers and survivors have argued for decades, which is that domestic abuse is not about anger or tempers but about power. Victoria cannot afford to lag behind. We must ensure our legal system reflects the fact that freedom, dignity and independence are not luxuries but an essential part of life, and deprivation of them is every bit as damaging as specific physical harm.

Of course implementation will matter. Police training must be thorough. Community awareness must be strengthened. Support services must be properly funded. These are reasons to commit ourselves to doing this well, not reasons to delay protection that is already overdue. Prosecutions in the UK began slowly but have increased steadily and are now a vital tool for police and prosecutors.

Coercive control seeks to remove a person’s will and replace it with the perpetrator’s. It is the theft of liberty, which is perhaps the oldest crime in the book. Our law should stand with those whose lives are being stolen in silence. This bill and this motion represent progress. They reflect a more accurate understanding of domestic abuse. They show that Parliament is prepared to listen, to learn and to protect those who have had their voices suppressed by fear for far too long. I urge everyone to support the motion.

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (15:16): I rise to speak on Ms Crozier’s motion before the house today. This is an important motion on an undeniably serious topic. Family violence is one of the gravest challenges facing our state. Victoria Police respond to a family violence incident every 6 minutes. More than 100,000 incidents were attended in the last year, which is a 6 per cent increase.

Coercive control is insidious, manipulative and abusive, and we stand with every victim-survivor who has been forced to live under that shadow. Work is already underway alongside the sector to strengthen our response to coercive control so it will become a standalone criminal offence in this state. This work must be done carefully. It must be done hand in hand with the family violence sector and with the people with lived experience, and it must not create unintended consequences that could harm the very people we are here to protect. We do not support their bill because it is rushed, it is underdone and it is unfit for passage. It is not informed by consultation with the Victorian sector, and we have no assurances that it would not produce dangerous unintended consequences.

I have had a moment to look at the other jurisdictions to see how their processes have gone when implementing similar proposals. In New South Wales they began consultations in October 2020. They introduced their reforms two years later, in November 2022. Queensland began consultations in 2021 and introduced reforms 2½ years later in October 2023. Can I take the time to acknowledge the work of Shannon Fentiman in Queensland, who I know has done remarkable work in this space. That is what a considered, careful consultative process looks like. I want to say that the Allan Labor government will always do what it takes to protect victim-survivors and hold perpetrators to account. We will legislate to criminalise coercive control next year, but we will do it properly. We will do it hand in hand with the sector.

I have got to take some time to actually reflect on the systems that we have here in Victoria, having been involved before life in this place in the development of the multi-agency risk assessment and management framework, which is incredibly important; the information-sharing reforms; and the industry taskforce, which I sat on as a member for, I think, around 18 months, which really was a part of the comprehensive system that leads the nation when it comes to our response to family violence. I was only reflecting last week about my work representing one of the service providers, a peak body in the Royal Commission into Family Violence work.

This is a state that has implemented every single recommendation of the Royal Commission into Family Violence – 227 reforms that have fundamentally reshaped our justice system, our service system and our community understanding of family violence. We have opened 37 Orange Doors across the state. We have established Respect Victoria, the nation’s first dedicated prevention agency, and we will continue to lead the country in reform and investment. Victim-survivors continue to call for coercive control to be criminalised – 87.5 per cent of participants in a December 2024 national survey supported this, but the same survey and sector leaders have also raised concerns about unintended consequences, which remain unanswered by those opposite. We will get this right.

I would like to turn to another piece of crucial work before the Parliament, and that is the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025 – the women’s safety bill. The government does not just stand with victim-survivors; we work alongside them. The bill that I just mentioned includes reform shaped directly by people with lived experience. It includes misidentification of victims. It strengthens protections, and it has been built through extensive consultation with victim-survivors, Victoria Police, the courts, community legal centres, Djirra, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, family violence peaks and others, some of which I have had a long-term partnership and affiliation with. It is true that this is what serious, careful law reform looks like. Victoria leads the nation in preventing violence against women and girls not by accident but because Labor governments have made the investments and done the work. We have invested $108 million through the women’s safety package, including more case management, a co-responder model with Victoria Police and the Salvation Army and a landmark perpetrator study to identify drivers of violence and design stronger interventions. We have delivered a further $172 million in investment, including $80 million to support victim-survivors, $40 million to embed data-driven risk management, $41 million for men’s behaviour change programs, $27 million for sexual assault services and $24 million for family violence legal services. There are 13 specialist family violence courts operating, with the 14th opening in Wyndham thanks to a $155 million investment. These are not guesses; they are not rushed work. These are real reforms backed by real investment, built over a decade and grounded very much in the lived experience of victim-survivors.

We support the wording of this motion, but the government will not be rushed into flawed, dangerous lawmaking. It is true that coercive control is serious and that law reform must be taken seriously. We will legislate to criminalise coercive control, and we will do it in a way that protects victim-survivors, working with Victorian frameworks and considering the enormous efforts and changes that have already come into our system through the family violence royal commission. We rebuilt the system after that royal commission, invested billions and have reformed every part in our response, and we continue to do the work carefully, responsibly and always with the safety of women and children at the very centre. This is our commitment and this is why this government will not oppose the motion, but certainly we will look at the bill when it comes before the house and likely reject it. I leave my comments there.

 Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:23): I too rise in support of the motion that has been put forward by my colleague Ms Crozier:

That this house:

(1)   recognises the urgent need for strengthened family violence laws in Victoria, with Victoria Police responding to one family violence incident every 6 minutes –

and I must say that some of my region is known for some of the highest call-outs for family violence –

(2)   notes that:

(a) Victoria Police attended over 100,000 family violence incidents in 2023–24, a 6 per cent increase from the previous year –

again, I have to note that in the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region our family violence incidence is actually higher than, in many cases, the state average and the national average –

(b) coercive control, which is a pattern of abusive behaviour used to control someone within a relationship through manipulation, pressure and fear needs to be recognised as a criminal offence in its own right –

and this is because when people use coercive control it limits the ability of the partner who is being coerced and abused in this way to leave, to have any sense of freedom, to find ways to move out of their situation; it actually takes away their thinking powers, their opportunity to have those individual freedoms and individual rights, which of course is one of the values of the Liberal Party, to have those individual rights –

(c) other Australian jurisdictions such as New South Wales and Queensland have already acted to outlaw coercive control …

Indeed they had to, because as we know, there have been a number of incidents. If we look at the domestic violence situation with the murder of Brisbane woman Hannah Clarke and her children Aaliyah, Trey and Laianah, this should never have happened. If perhaps the laws had been a bit tighter and a bit more detailed, we would have had a situation where she might still be alive today. Certainly Victoria has its own nuances and its own problems, where we have situations too which are completely spiralling out of control, and not just with men against women but also in other ways where we need to see restrictions put in place. It further states:

(3)   further notes the government has already voted against implementing Clare’s law, a domestic violence disclosure scheme 12 months ago; and

(4)   demands that the government urgently expedite the passage of coercive control laws for Victoria.

I rise to speak in favour of this motion, knowing full well that in the Legislative Assembly one of our colleagues has brought a bill to the house. I was interested to hear Ms Terpstra from the other side saying, ‘How dare the coalition stand up for these rights.’ Well, of course we are going to stand up for these rights. We are going to stand up for women. We are going to stand up for men. We are going to stand up for people who are being abused, and we are certainly going to stand up for them in the situation of coercive control. To think, once again, that because it is not the government’s bill, because they did not propose it, because they have not written it, we now have to wait until next year for coercive control to come in as a bill that they want to have and that is not rushed. Well, nothing is being rushed in this government. They have been in for three years, and we are still waiting for them to get things under control.

The Liberals and Nationals have announced that we will criminalise coercive control through the Crimes Amendment (Coercive Control) Bill 2025, which is why we put that forward as an option for the Legislative Assembly. But of course in their arrogance they are not going to listen because it is not their idea. We argue that this will move Victoria from an incident-based approach to one that criminalises ongoing abusive and patterned behaviour.

What I do want to also note is the incredible need for reform in this area – the need for education, the need for people to have the opportunity to learn other patterns of behaviour. You do not change patterns of behaviour simply by locking somebody up. We do need to look at where these patterns of behaviour come from. In some cases coercive control may be generational. Reform needs to take place in the form of actually looking at the causes of it and finding ways to allow people to turn around their lives. It is being done around the world where they are looking at ways to reform and to educate in order to bring about change. If it is illegal – sure, there have to be consequences for actions. But in a situation like this, there are also needs to be opportunity for reform that allows people to turn their lives around.

The legislation that we had down in the Legislative Assembly was put together to provide a framework for those living in fear to understand what is happening, to know that there are consequences and to have that sense of assurance so that we can actually have a drive for cultural change in Victoria. Liberal–Nationals believe that individual people should have the right to control their own behaviours and that it is not okay to continually threaten, degrade, gaslight or force a partner to live in fear. It is not okay to isolate someone from family and friends. It is not okay to monitor their every activity, their phone calls, their emails or where they go. Liberals and Nationals plan to empower at-risk Victorians. We want to help families and friends understand coercive control and put power back in the hands of Victorians to keep people safe, particularly women. Noble words have to be matched with noble actions and effective actions.

Criminalising coercive control is not simple; it is complex. Evidence is difficult to gather, behaviours are subtle and cumulative, and victims often struggle to identify abuse until it escalates. Without proper resourcing, training and cultural change within police and courts, we cannot make this happen. We have the evidence to support our stance. The Crime Statistics Agency’s latest crime data for the year ending June 2025 shows family violence serious assault instances increased by 23.35 per cent from June 2024. Breaches of family violence orders had also increased from June 2024 to June 2025 by 16.68 per cent. Victim reports of stalking, harassment and threatening behaviours towards females increased from 4878 cases in 2024 to 5422 cases in 2025, and last year was the first time that family violence incident call-outs to police surpassed 100,000.

In Victoria coercive control is problematic because it is addressed through existing family violence laws. It is defined as a pattern of behaviour intended to dominate and control another person, undermining their freedom and independence. Victoria Police and Respect Victoria confirm that coercive control is often the underlying reason for family violence and can be addressed by the existing legal framework. Again I say here is an opportunity for reform and for education, but we cannot continue to also ignore these horrific facts.

There are many stories, but we only need to think back to the story of Hannah Clarke, which I mentioned earlier, in Queensland in 2020, when Ms Clarke and her three young children were set alight by her estranged husband. He reportedly controlled, abused, stalked and killed his estranged wife and their children and spent days planning the attack. An inquest found that he was a master of manipulation and that while there had been missed opportunities to hold him accountable and failures by all agencies to recognise the extreme risk he posed to Clarke and her children. Police had handled the situation appropriately. We cannot forget this tragic case. New evidence, according to the Guardian on 17 November this year, argues that police made potentially critical mistakes in the months before her murder and they failed to log disclosures of strangulation and stalking, downgrading serious complaints and even coaching her abuser on how to challenge protection orders.

We know that New South Wales as well has taken a more careful approach and that Queensland has had to change their legislation. But even with New South Wales, Victoria cannot afford to repeat the same mistakes. We realise that laws must be accompanied by specialist training for police and courts; investment in victim support services, housing and counselling; and clear messaging so victims and families and communities understand coercive control and know where to turn.

Coercive control must be confronted, and the Liberals and Nationals take this very seriously. We must ensure our messaging is clear, our implementation is careful and our investment in frontline services is real. We need to legislate for protection of those who need it most, and the statistics support this. We feel that this step in legislation will empower those affected, particularly across different populations and ethnic groups where it is prevalent.

 Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (15:33): I want to thank Ms Crozier for raising a really important issue. It is a really important issue for women and for our whole society. Family violence is not only a crime problem, though. It is shaped by gender inequality, by misogyny and by attitudes that minimise or excuse violent behaviour or even exclude women. I think we all agree on that. It is not possible to talk about coercive control without addressing the power dynamic from a gendered perspective. This motion is framed so narrowly that it completely fails to acknowledge, much less address, these underlying causes of coercive control. The motion does not even have the word ‘women’ in it. The reality is that the causes of family violence, including coercive control, are systemic, and the solutions must also be systemic. Yes, criminalisation of this behaviour is one aspect of the response, and our government will legislate next year. But on its own, and particularly as drafted by those across the chamber, it will not work.

I want to acknowledge Ms Payne, who mentioned that really what we see is a blunt instrument for a complex problem. And that is exactly what I am saying – I agree. I will give three examples of complexities. One of the examples of coercion is isolation: cutting off contact with friends, family or support systems. How are you going to identify that? What legal instrument will not only identify that problem but also criminalise that behaviour? Monitoring: checking phone messages, emails or social media, or tracking your whereabouts through devices or apps – what specific legal instruments will be used, and what permissions will be given to invade the privacy of a person who is innocent until proven guilty to identify that that is actually happening? There is no mention of that from those opposite at all. Again, there is no depth to the mechanisms recommended in this motion. Financial coercive control: limiting access to money, preventing you from working or taking out loans in your name – there is nothing in this legislation from those opposite telling us how to deal with that. How will we be identifying those behaviours? And how will we differentiate between that and a joint account that looks exactly the same when you look at the figures?

These are the complexities that show that there is not really that much commitment. Those on the other side of the chamber have consistently failed to commit to the implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Family Violence but also other priorities around gender, and they have a long record of threatening to cut family violence services if they make it into government. It was a member for Southern Metropolitan, the Shadow Minister for Health, who said the Liberal Party would consider the financial impost of the recommendations of the royal commission. You might as well say, ‘We can’t afford equality for women.’ Or you could say, ‘We will do equality for women if we can afford it.’ Keeping women and children safe is not a financial impost. It is the right thing to do. Women who are safe and respected thrive at work, thrive at school and thrive at home. These are just a couple of short examples in the very brief time that I have scored this afternoon on a topic that I am very interested in. I would like to see a lot more detail, which to me would demonstrate a lot more commitment to this issue rather than the politicising of women’s horrific experiences.

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:37): I have been listening to this debate, and there have been some quite extraordinary contributions and outbursts during the course of it. There were accusations of politicisation. It is not; it is about wanting practical measures that will address these issues. As I have said, I have been speaking to victims for many years, as has my colleague Cindy McLeish, who has been doing the work. I find it extraordinary that the government are quite testy on this issue because they have failed to introduce legislation that will address the very issues we are talking about: coercive power, which has terrible impacts on domestic violence victims and sufferers, and the issues I mentioned around Clare’s law. They have had years and years and years to do this, and they are finally telling Victorians, ‘Trust us, we’ll get there. We’re doing it.’ Well, it has been 10 years, and there are issues.

I had a terrific relationship with the former and late Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence Fiona Richardson. She was very good in her acknowledgement of the importance of this work and would consult regularly with me, and I was very grateful for her contributions and her commitment to this issue. There were problems with the Royal Commission into Family Violence. It was a royal commission that needed to do a lot of things. There were a lot of questions to be asked around that time, and I make no apology for doing so – no apology whatsoever. What the Liberals and Nationals are interested in is getting practical outcomes, and that is what this motion is about and what the bill that Ms McLeish and I have introduced into the Parliament is looking towards: practical outcomes and measures that will make a difference and save lives and assist with bringing the statistics down.

I am pleased that the government is supporting this motion. That is a start. They have acknowledged the work that we are doing here, even though they were pretty picky around the edges, saying it does not mention women or other little bits and pieces. That is just what they do. They are churlish. They zone in on one little thing. Obviously some of them who did contribute were not listening to what I said. They obviously had no interest in what I was saying. They were probably too interested – which is fair enough – and focused on upstairs and on what was happening in question time. But nevertheless this was an important debate on the issues we raised.

To say that the opposition has not done the consultation or spoken to anyone about it – I can guarantee that Cindy McLeish has done more consultation on this than probably many people within the government and probably many people sitting around in cabinet in order to understand the issue. She has undertaken consultation and spoken to international experts where this legislation is in place. She understands exactly what is required, and she has taken on board those issues that they have provided back to her. She has spoken to dozens of victims, as did I when I was in the role. Understanding the implications and the impacts of failures in the law to protect and how to improve it – that is what we were doing and that is what we will continue to seek to do. She has spoken to service providers and legislators in other states, so to say that she has not done the work is grossly unfair and quite frankly wrong.

Here we had many members of the government saying we are politicising this issue. No, we are not. We are bringing practical solutions to the Parliament. That is our role. That is what this is about. Yet, to go to Ms Bath’s point again, it has been a churlish pointscoring implication, almost saying, ‘What would you know?’ The arrogance of the government in saying to us on this side, ‘What would you know?’ Well, there are members on this side that, unfortunately, know only too well how difficult it is to be a victim of family violence and to be subjected to that.

I say again to all members of the government: thank you for supporting this motion. It is an important motion, which you acknowledged, and it is something that should have been done a long time ago. Ten years is a long time of warning after warning. The issues were there. They failed to do it. I commend the motion to the house.

Motion agreed to.