Report of the Inquiry Into Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence

PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs March 2021 CANBERRA © Commonwealth of Australia ISBN 978-1-76092-207-8 (Printed Version) ISBN 978-1-76092-208-5 (HTML Version) This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License. The details of this licence are available on the Creative Commons website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/. Contents Foreword ........................................................................................................................................... ix Membership of the Committee ..................................................................................................... xiii Terms of reference ........................................................................................................................... xv List of abbreviations ...................................................................................................................... xvii List of recommendations ............................................................................................................... xxi The Report 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 Conduct of the inquiry ......................................................................................................... 2 Scope of the inquiry .............................................................................................................. 3 Previous parliamentary inquiries ....................................................................................... 5 Other notable reports ............................................................................................... 6 Defining family violence ...................................................................................................... 7 Structure of this report ......................................................................................................... 8 A note on terminology.......................................................................................................... 9 2 Family violence in Australia and the National Plan ....................................... 11 Definition of family violence ............................................................................................. 11 Data and statistics on family, domestic and sexual violence ........................................ 16 Prevalence of family, domestic and sexual violence .......................................... 16 Data collection and reporting ................................................................................ 20 Implications of the COVID-19 pandemic ......................................................................... 26 iii iv Australian Government response to COVID-19 ................................................. 26 Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic ..................................................................... 28 Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic ............................................................... 34 The current and next National Plan ................................................................................. 37 Overview of the current National Plan ................................................................ 37 Evidence to inform the next National Plan ......................................................... 42 Committee comment .......................................................................................................... 48 3 Governance, coordination and evaluation ........................................................ 57 Roles and responsibilities of Australian governments .................................................. 57 Australian government ......................................................................................... 58 State and territory governments ........................................................................... 58 Local governments ................................................................................................. 60 Investing in preventing and responding to family violence ......................................... 67 Distribution of COVID-19 funding ....................................................................... 71 Opportunities for improved coordination ....................................................................... 73 Coordination mechanisms ..................................................................................... 73 Monitoring and evaluation ................................................................................................ 79 Monitoring and evaluation of the National Plan ................................................ 80 Evaluation of programs and services ................................................................... 84 A national commissioner for family, domestic and sexual violence ............................ 89 Victorian Family Violence Reform Implementation Monitor ........................... 92 ACT Coordinator-General for Family Safety ...................................................... 93 Committee comment .......................................................................................................... 94 4 Non-physical forms of violence ........................................................................ 103 Coercive control ............................................................................................................... 103 What is coercive control? ..................................................................................... 104 The impact of coercive control ............................................................................ 108 Coercive control as a predictor of physical violence ........................................ 109 Criminalisation of coercive control ................................................................................. 111 v Existing coercive control offences ....................................................................... 112 Views on the introduction of new specific coercive control offences ............ 123 Other responses to coercive control ................................................................................ 129 Technology-facilitated abuse ........................................................................................... 133 Responses to technology-facilitated abuse ........................................................ 138 Financial abuse .................................................................................................................. 144 Responses to financial abuse ............................................................................... 149 Other complex forms of violence .................................................................................... 152 Committee comment ........................................................................................................ 158 5 Violence in diverse communities ..................................................................... 169 Children and young people ............................................................................................. 170 Indigenous Australians .................................................................................................... 175 Regional, rural and remote communities ..................................................................... 184 People identifying as LGBTQI ......................................................................................... 186 People living with disability ............................................................................................ 190 Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities ....................................... 193 Elder abuse ......................................................................................................................... 198 Men as victim-survivors ................................................................................................... 202 Committee comment ........................................................................................................ 206 6 Primary prevention ............................................................................................. 215 What is primary prevention? ........................................................................................... 215 The drivers of family, domestic and sexual violence ................................................... 221 Primary prevention initiatives ........................................................................................ 228 Respectful relationships education..................................................................... 230 Workplaces ............................................................................................................ 232 Sporting settings ................................................................................................... 235 Media campaigns and social marketing ............................................................ 237 Primary prevention for diverse communities ............................................................... 239 Data and evaluation on primary prevention ................................................................. 242 vi Committee comment .......................................................................................................

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