Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a member of this committee who helped put together this report, I wanted to really commend it to the government and to speak about a couple of key aspects. It's got 88 recommendations, it's quite a considerable document, and there are a number of aspects that I wanted to draw to the chamber's attention that I think are the most important. Those are the issues of coercive control and technology based abuse, and there is one important recommendation that I want to commend to the government when it comes to stopping this kind of abuse.

I have to say that serving on this committee was a very important but at times very harrowing and eye-opening experience for all of us. We know scourge of domestic and family violence on our country, and it comes in many forms. Perpetrators are continually adapting their methods of asserting control over and using force on their victims. It is not just physical abuse but also other forms of abuse, particularly coercive control, that the committee heard about. This is an insidious form of violence. It doesn't show itself easily, like bruises or cuts or broken bones do, but it is probably an even more effective means of control and manipulation. It is behaviour that seeks to isolate victims and intimidate them, to ultimately control another person.

We heard from victims who were put in states of complete fear, at the total mercy of somebody else's actions. Criminals who seek to use coercive control as a weapon withhold finances, access to health care and educational opportunities and even access to children. Importantly—and this is the key point about the importance of addressing coercive control—it is a major predictor of fear and physical violence, particularly homicide. This shows the seriousness of these crimes and the consequences of a path of coercive control.

In my state of Queensland, we recently lost Kelly Wilkinson, a 27-year-old young mum from Runaway Bay on the Gold Coast, who died by the hands of her ex-partner. He set her on fire. Weeks before this horrific crime, Kelly had reached out about her ex-partner to both police and local support groups. She recognised his behaviour; she knew that he was exerting coercive control. She was let down. It isn't good enough. We cannot hear any more of these stories. The behaviour must be stopped, and the way we do that is by having proper legislation that captures coercion and coercive behaviour, and has consistency across all states. Police and other law enforcement need to have legislative powers so that, when they are contacted by the Kellys of this world, they can act very quickly to stop those perpetrators.

At present, each state and territory approaches coercive control and the legislation to prevent it differently. Some have better legislation than others. Some, unfortunately, have no legislation. To truly capture all of the behaviours that involve coercive control and have them dealt with properly under law so that law enforcement can protect victims and survivors, the committee has recommended that the federal government work with the states and territories to establish 'shared principles to guide any future offences of coercive and controlling behaviour, with a view to ensuring consistency' across all jurisdictions. To that call for consistency, I would add a very strong call for states to get on with the job of legislating against coercive control.

That leads on to aspects of how coercive control occurs. Some of it is well documented, but I wanted to take the opportunity to speak to the part of the committee report that documents, in particular, technology facilitated coercive control, which I think is a relatively new but unfortunately quickly expanding form of that offence. Technology is being used to commit some of the most horrific forms of coercive control. Criminals with the most insidious intentions are using social media platforms for all sorts of things. But, when it comes to domestic and family violence, devices and platforms are being used to further control, stalk and intimidate victims.

A recent example is messaging on banking platforms. You'd think this would be a pretty innocuous form of technology—somebody is making an electronic bank transfer to another and they have an opportunity to write a short message about what that transfer relates to. Well, as we are learning, even these most innocuous forms of technology come with great risk. A month or two ago, I was in the Economics Committee talking to the major banks. In answering my questions, the Commonwealth Bank revealed that thousands of customers are sending hundreds of thousands of abusive and coercive messages to people, particularly in domestic violence situations, across this seemingly innocuous technology. It's only recently that the banks, to their credit, have picked up on it. Having done so, they're starting to fully understand and reveal the full scope of the horror, which we didn't understand before.

One of the other most concerning developments is remote access Trojans, or RATs. RATs are purchased from online sellers and can be installed on victims' devices. If you were seeking to exert coercive control, you could purchase a subscription for a RAT—which is just a software program—just as you would purchase a subscription for Microsoft Word. You could install it on a victim's device and you would then have full access to that device, whether it's a laptop, a phone or an iPad. You'd see the keystrokes and you could observe banking passwords. You could stalk their diaries, often without their consent. It is used to assert control and instil great fear. Before this inquiry, I confess I didn't know what RATs were, how they could be used or, indeed, the prevalence of their use. But, having been briefed by the AFP and having served on this committee, I am now fully across the horror that these things pose. They are not in and of themselves illegal, but I have to say I can see no legal or reasonable use for such a technology. I think there's work to be done on, again, giving law enforcement more powers to crack down on those who use RATs to exercise coercive control. In particular, the committee has recommended a public awareness campaign on this technology so that victims-survivors and the general community are aware how they can be used for coercive control and how to recognise the signs of a device being monitored. I think this is a very important recommendation, and I commend it to the government to take up.

Finally, if I could be so bold as to single one out, I would highlight what I think is the most important of the 88 recommendations. More often than not, when the committee heard this harrowing testimony, we heard the phrase 'If only I had known'. If only they had known how poorly he had treated a previous partner, that he was already subject to and had broken a previous AVO or that he already had a conviction which was part of a pattern of escalating behaviour, that victim-survivor could have protected themselves and their children. It is with that in mind that I believe the most important recommendation for government to take action on is the introduction of a register of convicted family, domestic and sexual violence offenders, similar to the proposed national public register of child sex offenders.

What a powerful tool a public register would be. It would allow victim-survivors to take back some of the power from these perpetrators. It would mean that the crimes of these perpetrators and their escalating behaviour would follow them throughout their lives, as they should. In my mind, the moment that you engage in this kind of behaviour, you give up the right to some kind of anonymity and you deserve having your behaviour follow you as long as you walk this place. Others deserve the opportunity to be warned off you and warned of your behaviour. With a register like this, women could search the same of a prospective partner and be able to find if they have a history of violence or abuse towards other partners or women. Power would be handed back to them so they can decide and be informed about who they allow to enter their lives. It is a very simple idea and something we all take for granted. We control who enters our lives. We control who engages with our family. But we need the information to be able to make informed decisions, and the register would allow us to do that.

The fact that it might also, hopefully, make these offenders think twice about committing this behaviour in the first place if this behaviour was to follow them for the rest of their life would be an even better incidental benefit. The main benefit is for victim-survivors to take back the power, but, if it deterred even one bit of offending, it would make the whole thing worth it. I commend in particular those three recommendations and the whole report to the government.

Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to speak on this report and this inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence. I'm pleased to see fellow committee members and the committee chair in the chamber with me and I acknowledge the work that we all did together in this very important inquiry. It was a privilege for me to be a member of the committee for this inquiry. Its work was at times heartbreaking in its findings.

I want to acknowledge the contributions and the testimonies from individuals who shared their experiences of family, domestic and sexual violence, because their voices were so vital to this process and I do want to thank them for sharing their stories. Please know that your efforts were not in vain. I also want to thank all the service providers and the experts who shared their knowledge and their experience with the committee. The breadth and the quality of the evidence that we gathered made it clear just how much more work there is to be done in this country to address family violence.

The national conversation we are having at the moment about violence against women is incredibly important. We know that, in Australia, one woman is murdered by her current or former domestic partner every week. Since this inquiry commenced in June last year, more than 40 women will have been murdered by their current or former partner. This just should not be acceptable in our country. If it was happening in any setting other than a domestic setting, it would rightly be seen and talked about as a national emergency. And so what is needed is an ambitious and urgent response.

This inquiry went some of the way to working out what we need to do next. There were more than 350 submissions, 47 confidential submissions, 16 days of inquiries and 90 hours of evidence over many months. That culminated in the 88 recommendations which we hope will inform the development of the next national plan and which are grouped across five key themes: that the next national plan should involve a more uniform approach across jurisdictions, that the next national plan must seek to engender a culture of accountability and greater workforce support, that education is critical, that there remains a greater need for greater awareness and understanding of the many forms of family violence, that the welfare of victim-survivors and their children should be paramount and that the next national plan must continue to hold perpetrators to account for their use of violence.

Those of us who are Labor members of this committee have some additional comments that we want to make, because the evidence taken by the committee was unequivocal. The scale of this problem is greater than either the resources or the resolve that the Australian government has currently brought to the task. We added to the committee's findings that there is the need for a proper policy process as the next national plan is developed. There must be adequate and informed consultation as part of the development of that plan. We must consider the implications of the federal government's inaction on previous inquiries and the need for us to learn from the mass of work that has already been done in this area, including the Victorian royal commission. As a member from Victoria, I must commend the Victorian government for the way it has been leading governments' responses in this space and for the work that is under way in my home state.

We must recognise the Commonwealth's role and the ability of the Commonwealth to do more in areas that we have control of, including in particular the strong evidence received by the committee for the need for the introduction of 10 days paid domestic violence leave per year for victim/survivors. When you think about all of the impacts on a person's life when they're experiencing family violence, it makes basic sense that they would need space and time from their workplace to try and deal with some of those implications. There's a clear role for the Commonwealth to step in here.

I actually spent last night watching the latest episode of Jess Hill's excellent documentary, See what you made me do. I think that documentary does an excellent job of publicly conveying many of the things that were highlighted to us during this inquiry: the pervasive terror that too many women live under and the massive gaps that remain in the systems that should support and protect them; the way that First Nations women disproportionately experience this; and the entitlement and sense of control that too many men seem to believe they have the right to exercise over women. We must be prepared to confront this.

Our response to family violence must be about resetting the norms in our society that implicitly tell men they are entitled to harm women. While I welcome this report and believe its 88 recommendations must be urgently implemented, I do very much fear that this government is not up to the task, because this is a government that, for eight years, ignored and neglected women's safety. In fact, it's a government that, since coming to office, has spent as much on government advertising as they have helping to stop family violence. It's a government that seems to be playing catch-up now that it has realised it has a political problem in the women's space, with women feeling ignored, unheard and unsupported throughout its term. It is hard to feel confident that this is the government that we need to address the horrific levels of violence that Australian women are experiencing. It's hard to imagine that this government is going to address the underlying issue of gender inequality, and we see that in this place this week, where members who have targeted women in behaviour online continue to hold important positions in this place and are not being held to account by the government. What does this say around that sense of entitlement that I've been talking about? What does it say to men that they're allowed to do to women, when we in this place continue to condone this kind of behaviour?

The government has put money into some of these services in the budget this week, and that is welcome. But it's not enough.

A government member: $1.1 billion is a lot of money.

It's a lot of money, but it's catch-up from money that hasn't been there in the past, and we do need more. We do need a greater commitment. We do need this understanding that funding of front line services is absolutely essential. Funding of our courts and the systems that sit around it, and of the training that we need that helps women get out of these situations, is absolutely essential. We need funding to solve the problems that get women into this in the first place. We need funding for education, for the things that will change men's behaviours, for the things that will change the structures in our society that creates these inequalities—that funding is essential as well. That's what I want to see more of from this government. That's what I know a Labor government would do, because we are committed not just to addressing family and domestic violence but to addressing so many of those things that are the driving forces of this, like the fact that women are so often unequal in financial security and the fact that most women earn less money than men.

Again in this budget what we did not see was any substantial increase in wages for the areas where women predominantly work—that is, our childcare, aged-care and disability service sectors. These services are predominantly staffed by females and yet there was nothing in this budget that will raise their wages. By perpetuating these inequalities, we're perpetuating some of the structures that mean women are at risk of family and domestic violence at a much higher level than men.

Some of the things that I'm been proud are in Labor's women's budget statement, and some of the things that Labor believes we need to address in these underlying issues, are a national gender equality strategy, so that we can look at these issues across the breadth of government and across everything we do, and work on this as a holistic issue. We do need gender-responsive budgeting. We should know how everything affects women and how it is helping women to get to a more equal position in our community. And, of course, we do need equal representation in this place, because I do not think that we would be having this conversation today and I do not think that this report would have been written in the way that it has been today if there were not enough women in this place who were helping to raise it as an issue and to make sure that it was front and centre. There has been support from the many men I know who also want to champion this, and many women outside this place have also been raising their voice.

I have to pay tribute to the bravery and the courage of the women who stood out the front of this place and protested, the brave young women who came forward and told their stories and the victims-survivors who told their stories to this committee. I have to say again that, while I stand in this place, I will do everything I can to make sure your courage and your bravery does not go unnoticed, that it gets acted upon and that you get the response that you need. Our country needs to end this. Enough is enough. It is time to end the scourge of domestic and family violence. We need to do more.

Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I echo the sentiments of the member for Jagajaga. This was a difficult and confronting inquiry, but I did feel it was a great privilege to be able to participate in it. I'm very hopeful that it makes a start and is a step forward.

As laid out in stark language at the foreword of this report, the facts tell us that, in the time since this inquiry was referred, more than 40 women will have been murdered at the hands of a current or former partner. Sadly, we now know the name Kelly Wilkinson—a name quickly etched into our memory as that of Hannah Clarke. Just like Hannah, Kelly was horrifically murdered by her former partner and father of her children. Just like Hannah, Kelly had tried to seek help in order to stay safe. These horrific details that have emerged since Kelly's life was taken by her abuser point to some of the very issues that the report and its recommendations are working to address—that someone can be going to the police every day and still not be safe. Like Kelly, like Hannah and like so many women, this culminates in the most horrendous of outcomes.

Every day in Australia, countless women and children experience non-lethal family violence and abuse, the impact of which, as we heard time and time again throughout the inquiry, is profound and long lasting on victims-survivors and their families and friends and on the very fabric of our society. As the chair said yesterday, around 90 hours of evidence were submitted as part of this inquiry, and we must not let the stories we heard be in vain. With 88 recommendations—and it is my hope that all of them will be implemented—there is an opportunity to finally move the dial on this insidious issue that seeps through every corner of our society, sometimes so quietly that we do not hear the sounds of coercive control and sometimes so loudly that we're shaken awake when we read the story of yet another woman murdered by a current or former partner and ask ourselves, yet again, 'How could this happen?'

Though I can't highlight each recommendation today, there are a range of measures which, beyond responding to the current crisis, also focus on addressing the challenge of the principal drivers of family, domestic and sexual violence—that is, gender inequality; stereotypical attitudes towards gender roles, characteristics and behaviour; and disrespect of girls and women. All abuse starts with disrespect, and until we begin to truly address this challenge we won't see the societal shift that we desperately need.

I'd like to acknowledge the work of some Tasmanian organisations who provided evidence to the committee. Laurel House, based in the northern Tasmanian region, provide sexual assault support services, including counselling and crisis support to local women, children and men affected by sexual assault in our community. They also provide much-needed education services, including a new consent program, which is now being offered to schools in the northern Tasmanian region. I'd like to thank the team at Laurel House, and particularly acting chief executive Frances Pratt, for the important services they provide to the local community and for the submission that they made to this inquiry.

In the two years since I was elected, I've also been working closely with Yvette Cehtel, CEO of Women's Legal Service Tasmania, and we've had many, many discussions on what the reality of family and domestic violence in our state looks like, how the federal government can play a role in supporting women and their families facing these situations and how we as a government can also drive meaningful change. I greatly appreciate their submission to the inquiry, particularly around the issue of coercive control. Thanks also to Engender Equality, a leading voice against family violence in Tasmania, for their submission and for the endless and tireless work they undertake every day, day after day, to end family, domestic and intimate partner violence. With this report and the budget investment of $1.1 billion, I am hopeful that we will begin to see movement in the area of women's safety.

It is pleasing to see that much of the funding will go to addressing particular challenges that have been raised in this report. One such challenge raised at the committee was the high cost of legal support and the barrier that this creates for many victim-survivors in the justice system. The $120 million funding injection into specialised women's legal services will support thousands of women and children to safely escape violent relationships. This funding has been welcomed by service providers, including Women's Legal Services Australia. Additionally, there's significant funding to provide financial assistance to women escaping a violent relationship. We'll also provide relief to women in this incredibly distressing situation.

There are positive steps being taken to look at responding to the current crisis, but we must continue to move towards long-term structural reform that will create meaningful change. This is a start, it is a step forward, but it can't stop here. It must continue.

Debate adjourned.