Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Deputy Speaker, I thank Ms Johnston for bringing on this bill and all the incredible work that she has done for it. The Greens will fully support it. This is an objectively straightforward legislative amendment compared to what we have to do in reforming the Family Violence Act in Tasmania and contemporising it. It is a small amendment, but it will result in great, positive change for Tasmanians who are seeking to leave unsafe relationships and to obtain family violence orders without the fear of the related costs being weaponised by the perpetrator, or those for whom an FVO is possibly financially unattainable.
It is too common for women fleeing domestic violence to have abuse prolonged through former partners wrongly using the legal system, for example, deliberately running up legal costs, delaying legal procedures and vexatiously applying an FVO to harass or intimidate the victim/survivor.
It was back in July 2015 that the Women’s Legal Service Tasmania produced the report Their Stories, Our Lives: Tasmanian Women’s Experience with Family Violence Orders. This report was compiled with both the experiences of women who had been affected by family violence as well as the experiences of solicitors of Women’s Legal Service Tasmania. The report provided a snapshot of what they could see on a daily basis and the barriers to achieving just outcomes for those affected by family violence. One of the barriers highlighted in the report was the problems extending to the duration of family violence orders due to the requirement that there must be a substantial change in circumstances since the order was made or varied.
The report identified that if the perpetrator had not breached the order and had therefore not committed any family violence during the life of the order, it was unlikely that the application for the order to be extended would be granted. However, the victim would still feel at significant risk and is still placed in an unfair situation of having to wait for family violence to be perpetrated again before they could do anything about it. In the words of one of the Women’s Legal Service Tasmania solicitors, ‘It is very difficult to tell a frightened woman that they have to wait for something to happen before they can apply for another order’. That report is now nine years old, but it speaks to the amendments that are being debated here today. I acknowledge – and we hope – that the wide‑ranging review of the Family Violence Act is currently underway as Ms Johnston and Ms White have outlined. These two amendments proposed in this bill will address two issues as soon as it goes through, and they are a relatively simple fix. They can be amended now to make our legal system safer, so we should get on with it.
The amendment for the extension of a family violence order eases the complexity of the FVO extension process. Presently in Tasmania, as has been outlined, orders are generally for 12 months and the extension is only granted if the applicant demonstrates substantial change in the relevant circumstances. That requirement of the substantial change in relevant circumstances has often been narrowly interpreted by the courts as meaning the breach of an order. This fails to recognise circumstances where there is no breach or where victim/survivors do not report breaches due to the fear of the consequences of reporting.
We do not want women waiting for the breach of an order before requesting an extension, because every breach means more violence and more threats, even the risk of more deaths. Looking at other interstate FVO comparisons, everyone does these differently. No other jurisdiction appears to have such a high bar for requesting an extension, as is the case presently in Tasmania. For some jurisdictions, requests for extensions are not so much of an issue because they have longer timeframes for the original domestic violence orders. For example, in New South Wales, the standard length of their equivalent to an FVO is two years. In Queensland, orders are made for minimum of five years unless the court is satisfied that a shorter order can be made.
In the Northern Territory, they have DVOs (domestic violence orders) and there the law is absolutely explicit that they do not take into consideration if domestic violence has been committed over the course of the DVO. Rather, for an extension, courts consider what is reasonably fair regarding whether the victim/survivor feels that there will be ongoing abuse or if there is any ongoing perceived risk. We therefore support amending section 20 of the act so that an application for the extension of an FVO would not require a change in the relevant circumstances.
We also support the new clauses regarding the awarding of costs in section 34 of the Family Violence Act. It is unthinkable that presently lawyers have to advise their clients to be cautious when applying for an FVO that could very well save their lives. The new clauses will turn the tables on the misuse of the costs associated with FVOs as a form of control or as a threat by providing the court the power to award the costs, or part of, to the liable party objecting to the application, or by withdrawing an application that is made ‘for the purpose of controlling or intimidating, or causing mental harm to, or apprehension or fear in, another party to the application’, or ‘for a purpose or in the manner that is malicious, frivolous, vexatious or in bad faith’.
This is contemporising our legislation to reflect our greater understanding of how our systems can be misused by abusers. It will make an extraordinary difference for Tasmanian women. I also want to thank Tasmanian Legal Aid for all of their work over many years on this.
Again, thank you to Ms Johnston for making it happen, and to all of your staff who did such a tremendous job in organising all of the briefings and having ongoing, open and collaborative conversations to make these much‑needed changes.
The Greens support the bill.
