Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Friday I will be chairing a hearing into financial abuse as part of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services. This inquiry was brought to the committee by my good friend in the House the member for Swan, Zaneta Mascarenhas. Ms Mascarenhas has long been an advocate for women's issues, and her insights have been of great benefit to the quality of the evidence received so far. I also want to indicate the unanimous support of the members of the committee in advancing with this inquiry.

Financial abuse is a form of intimate-partner violence whereby money or the financial system is used as a means of coercive control. It's insidious in nature, deeply scarring in harm and, unfortunately, not widely known in the community. Its breadth can be hard for ordinary, decent Australians to comprehend, and it was often frightening to hear the cunning methods that abusers employ. The committee has heard evidence from financial institutions, victim-survivors, advocacy groups, academics, frontline workers and independent experts on the prevalence and devastating impact that this form of intimate-partner violence causes. Evidence to the committee has outlined the mismatch in understanding of the debilitating impacts of financial abuse—including financial coercion, manipulation and fraud—and the existing legislation and enforcement mechanisms. I should also put on the record that we have heard about financial abuse by children of their parents and the abuse that's enabled in that context by a range of sophisticated instruments that give power to children which is then abused by those who acquire that power.

The sophistication of abusers in controlling and turning the apparatus of the financial system against victims, often with lifetime impacts, warrants action, and on Friday last week we heard from a remarkable woman who gave chilling evidence: Julie Adams, the mother of a victim of intimate-partner violence. Her daughter was Molly Jane Wilkes, may she now rest in peace. Julie described her daughter as a beautiful, feisty and kind 22-year-old who, sadly, took her own life after years of coercive control by her husband. In November 2020, Molly left to go to the USA to visit her, at the time, ex-partner, and just a few months later they were married. During their very short marriage, Molly was subject to relentless abuse and extreme control. Julie said that her daughter's abuse was emotional, financial, sexual and only occasionally physical. He sent thousands of messages calling Molly vile, derogatory names and demanded she provide money at his will. As an illegal alien in the US, she lived an extremely lonely and isolated life. When she finally hung herself—death by suicide in the garage of their home in Las Vegas on 28 July—she was alone, but her bags were packed. She was trying to leave. In the context of the hearing last week, we heard a new term that was truly shocking to me, and that is 'suicide by domestic violence'—just the constancy of harassment and intimidation leading people to such a point of hopelessness that they feel they cannot go on. Sadly, by evidence of her mother, Julie Adams, that was the case that we saw with Molly Jane Wilkes.

Sadly, in a story the committee has heard many times, the financial abuse of Molly Jane Wilkes didn't end with her death. Molly's perpetrator was eligible, under the superannuation act as it stands, to claim her $64,000 of superannuation and death benefits. He was legally able to benefit from her death—the death of a woman he abused. This loophole in legislation exists and even if Molly's abuser was convicted of a domestic violence offence, he still would have been eligible for the payout. This situation cannot be allowed to continue. Superannuation is such an important system that was created to level the playing field. I will lend my efforts to ensuring that— (Time expired)