What does July mean? To some, it’s marks a new financial year. For others, it might be just another day, a new month. For those with lived experience of domestic violence in New South Wales, this particular July is significant.
For the first time, in any state of Australia, coercive control will become a criminal offence, in Section 54D of the Crimes Act (NSW) 1900 This means that victim/survivor experiences of intimate partner abuse will more properly be reflected in our legislation, in the way they tell us they have lived it.
Coercive control, as stated by Commonwealth Attorney General Mark Dreyfus in September 2023, almost always underpins domestic and family violence. We can think about it as the organising principle of intimate partner abuse – a toolbox from which an abuser may mix and match the various kinds of abuse, tailoring them to a particular relationship.
For example, in the case of Lisa Harnum, who was murdered by her partner in 2011, the relationship featured his extreme control and isolation of Lisa from friends, family and social networks, technological surveillance, with cameras everywhere in their apartment, and interference with her employment.
The history of Hannah Clarke, pictured, who was murdered in 2020 along with her three children, reflects behaviour by her husband of extreme sexual jealousy, sexual coercion, abduction of children, control of her clothing choices, and threats of suicide upon the ending of the relationship.
The ultimate aim of coercive controllers is to get what they want using dominance – to have the final say in decision making, to have more leisure time and get out of family responsibilities, to have their partner all to themselves, to have their needs met and their dinner on the table, to have compliant children, sex whenever they want on their terms, and not to have to compromise.
Abusers may lean heavily to gender roles and expectations in their treatment of their partners, expecting spotless homes, ‘perfect’ mothering and sexual compliance. The cumulative impact is a pattern of behaviour exhibited by an abuser over time which has a significant, detrimental effect on a victim, scaring them, isolating them, eroding their self-esteem, and making them unsafe.
There is a strong nexus between coercive control and domestic homicide. A review of NSW imtimate partner homicide deaths conducted between 2019 and 2021 found that 97% of victims had experienced coercive, controlling behaviours before being killed.
The NSW Parliamentary Joint Select Committee determined unanimously in 2022, following the testimony of survivors, services and frontline responders, that coercive control should become an offence – not just because it can lead to homicide, but that it is a crime in and of itself, depriving a victim of their full potential, self-expression, and individuality.
This marked shift in our understanding and prosecution of domestic violence is a welcome step forward, building on years of scholarship and front-line work to build a true picture of the lived experience of intimate partner abuse. It is supported by an overwhelming majority of survivor voices.
The corresponding community education campaigns are raising awareness and carry forward momentum for greater societal understanding of the drivers and presentations of abuse amongst our friends, colleagues, family members and local communities.
This new era of coercive control as a criminal offence also holds potential not only to save the lives of women and children, but to reduce future violence and abuse, in holding abusers accountable for their actions.
- Picture at top: The late Hannah Clarke (left) and Rowan Baxter their children, also deceased. Credit: Courtesy of Hannah’s friends and family.
Annabelle Daniel OAM, Founding CEO of Women’s Community Shelters, has worked with local communities around NSW to establish, open and support the 11 crisis shelters in the Women’s Community Shelters network, plus establish new transitional housing, and three large-scale meanwhile-use homes for women aged 55+ experiencing homelessness. She continues her efforts to create more crisis shelters and preventative programs addressing domestic violence and women's homelessness in New South Wales and Australia.
