On page after pages of Queensland’s just-released ‘Hear Her Voice’ report, women share stories to make the blood cold of violent, coercive men.
The report is long – three volumes, spanning almost 1000 pages. Some of it is hard to read. Confronting.
And what makes it harder still, is the fact that many victims, brave enough to seek help and redress from the police, were disbelieved, their experiences minimised, police failing to investigate properly their complaints.
In all, the report makes 89 recommendations for change, key of which is criminalising coercive control by 2023. It says the period before coercive control becomes a crime should be used for the education of police, the criminal justice system, the community.
The taskforce had its genesis after the nation was left shocked and reeling when Hannah Clarke and her three beautiful young children were murdered in a suburban Brisbane street. Hannah’s estranged husband ambushed her as she set out for the school run in her car, pouring petrol on them and setting them alight. He, too, died that day.
But not all domestic violence advocacy groups and jurisdictions agree that coercive control laws are the best way forward.
Whilst Western Australia and Tasmania have coercive control offences enshrined in their legislation, and South Australia is in the process of doing so, Victoria has not – and the issue has prompted divergent opinions and debate about whether such laws are the most effective way to handle the problem.
Also, in 2021, a New South Wales parliamentary committee recommended that coercive control be criminalised.
Victoria, it seems, is the outlier when it comes to criminalisation of coercive control.
But it should be remembered that Victoria is also the only State to have run a royal commission into family violence. It made 227 recommendations. So far, 204 of them have been implemented and 23 are in progress. The Government has pledged all will be implemented.
Source: If DV survivors’ horrific stories don’t warrant action, what does?