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 .......................................................................................................