Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to support the motion from the member for Swan. Financial and economic abuse are forms of domestic violence. They are patterns of abusive behaviour by which an abuser uses money to exert power and control over their partner. Last year, more than 600,000 Australians were victims of financial abuse. Ninety per cent of women seeking help from domestic violence services report that they have experienced financial abuse, and we know that these figures underestimate the extent of the issue.

Financial abuse is prosecuted in different ways. Some people take out loans and credit cards in their partner's name, leaving them with debts and compromised credit ratings for years after the relationship ends. Some abuse their partners by not allowing them to work, by limiting their spending money, by forcing them to make early withdrawals from their superannuation, by making them take on debt against their will or sometimes even their knowledge or by taking control of their social security benefits.

Like all forms of domestic violence, financial abuse can happen to anyone regardless of their wealth or social economic status. It often develops and evolves insidiously. Coercive control, including financial abuse, is commonly described by victim-survivors as the worst form of abuse that they experienced. It can have a more immediate and ongoing impact than physical forms of violence, but it is also a predictor of severe physical violence and even homicide.

Sadly, we have to acknowledge that the disabled are particularly susceptible to this form of abuse. The disability royal commission found that disabled women are abused almost twice as often as non-disabled women. Perpetrators can be anyone in the victim's life, but they are often their caregiver. Lack of access to financial resources and barriers to accessing social security entitlements can increase the risk of financial abuse of disabled people. Other forms of financial abuse against those people may include legal guardians denying access to money, services withholding disability support or government payments and support workers misusing National Disability Insurance Scheme funds.

I have heard repeatedly from women in Kooyong about this issue. They have told me that they feel that their abusers are never held to account despite multiple reports filed with police and domestic violence orders against their perpetrators. In their view, sadly, police seem unable to act on allegations of coercive control, even when those perpetrators are in breach of court orders. I have heard from women who have lost their homes and who are now homeless due to financial abuse and forced to couch surf with friends. I am also hearing from many women who are distressed by the incidence of domestic violence in Australia more broadly about the anger that they feel that so little is done to curb the violence perpetrated against them.

There are several steps that we can take, and that we must take, to address the important issue of financial and economic abuse. Firstly, we must support the existence of family violence financial counsellors to help abused individuals make a case for their debts to be waived or to be transferred back to the abusive family member. We should encourage large businesses to understand the need for policies and procedures that support customers who are experiencing domestic financial and economic abuse. I applaud the efforts of the Commonwealth Bank and other institutions which are working to report technology facilitated abuse to law enforcement. Major businesses should provide trauma informed, culturally safe support, promoting the safety and wellbeing of survivors and holding people who choose to use this sort of violence to account. We have to improve police responses and we have to improve the way that the justice system supports victim-survivors.

Finally, we need to legislate a specific criminal offence of coercive and controlling behaviour in all states and territories of this country. We have to ensure that people who choose to use coercive control are held to account. Despite being one of the most insidious and most common forms of domestic violence, coercive control has been legislated as a standalone offence only in Tasmania. Movement in other states and territories has been too slow to date. We can and we must do more to protect Australians from financial and economic abuse.

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