Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, the Greens welcome and strongly support this bill. I also thank the member for Elwick for bringing it forward in this place and the independent member for Franklin, Mr O’Byrne, for taking it through downstairs. Is it not good when legislation comes before the Houses of parliament on which we can all agree? And we do all agree that this is a pretty straightforward amendment to the Family Violence Act. It is evidence-based, it is a positive reform to the act, and it was necessary that we added an extra layer of definition to family violence that includes harm or cruelty to pets as a form of coercion; the weaponisation of pets.
We ask ourselves in these debates, who harms animals? I have never been able to understand it, other than to acknowledge that some people are very damaged. The people who harm animals are violent, damaged people, and they are the same people who inflict violence on women, intimate partners and children. In fact, there is an extensive body of evidence, to confirm that people who harm animals are much more likely to be cruel and violent towards other human beings.
This bill comes 14 years after the Australian Law Reform Commission’s landmark 2010 report, which recommended that injury to animals should be incorporated into each Australian jurisdiction’s family violence legislation as a form of family violence. This work is somewhat overdue. I note how positive it is that we have a power-sharing parliament in the other place. We have diversity across the two Houses and it has created a political environment where we are seeing reform, innovative approaches to legislative improvement, a lot of more constructive dialogue and cooperation in the public interest, and that is very positive. It is time that as a state we brought ourselves into line with other states across the country on this issue, to try to keep women and children, intimate partners and pets safer by explicitly recognising harm to animals as a form of family violence.
We warmly welcome the inclusion of pets because, as we know, our pets are family. Indeed, widening the definition of family violence also needs to examine, at some future point, incorporating a broader meaning of family that may, for example, incorporate the pernicious crime of elder abuse, which also may be argued as a form of coercive control within a family. The role of pets, as we know, cannot be overstated at the best of times, but as other members have alluded to, there is a particular comfort, possibly to children in violent family situations, from the love of and the connection to and the warmth of the unqualified love of a family pet.
We know, and this is evidence-based, that victims can stay in an unsafe situation because their pets are family. If you tie that in with information that we have from the Dogs’ Home (in May this year it found that 15 per cent of Dogs’ Home surrenders were because of rental refusal) – if you have a woman trying to escape a violent situation in the home and needing to find somewhere else to live and take the family pet, there is a huge issue here in the private rental market as it is. I will just divert myself briefly here: the government made a commitment to legislate for pets in rentals. We are still waiting. That was a promise made to the people of Tasmania.
An Animal Studies Journal research article from 2018 headed Animal Victims of Domestic and Family Violence, and this has been referred to, found that 70 per cent of women fleeing family violence reported their pet had been abused or they feared for their pet’s welfare, thus fear for pets and a love of them as family members and a recognition of their unique vulnerability are reasons why victim/survivors can delay leaving violent relationships and potentially with tragic consequences; people are staying in unsafe situations for a whole range of reasons, and one of them is that they are afraid to lose their family pet – their family member. There is also the issue when couples separate; one of the most emotionally fraught issues can be who gets custody of the pet and these tensions can also be exacerbated for the one in four couples who do not have children.
Statistically, we know it is all too common for family violence perpetrators to weaponise pets as a form of abuse or coercive control, which is why our parliament needs to and will unanimously pass this bill. I find it a source of frustration ‑ and the member for Launceston referred to this ‑ that we still, under law, and in so much of our conversation, refer to pets as property and they become objectified, but beyond family violence there is an act of animal justice that we need to fulfil in ensuring our pets are not simply treated as general household items or assets or traded around like they can be in property settlements or disputes. They are sentient beings with a rich array of emotions, as all of us who have pets know full well. My partner is away at the moment so I invited the dogs up onto the bed last night. I confess. I know it is grotty, but they both smiled, I saw them, they smiled, because they are never allowed to do that.
We warmly welcome this bill. We note that Western Australia has some similar provisions to Tasmania’s existing legislation where hurting a pet could be considered ’emotional abuse or damage caused to property’. Western Australia’s restraining order laws include ‘causing death or injury to an animal that is the property of a family member’. In Victoria animal abuse may now form the basis of an intervention order to protect the victim/survivor and their pet under the Family Violence Protection Act of 2008. This bill that we will pass today aligns Tasmania with the Victorian and Queensland approach in line with the recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Institute Report of 2010.
I also extend my thanks on behalf of the Greens to all the organisations listed by previous speakers, not-for-profit and community organisations which have been advocating tirelessly on behalf of victim/survivors, women and children, and for Lucy’s Project, Engender Equality and all the organisations and people working in this difficult and important area.
We have a significant outstanding policy issue that is connected to this legislation and that is the paucity of crisis accommodation in the state. It is something that successive governments have failed to keep up with. That says two things: on the one hand, it says that intimate partner violence is a wicked and persistent problem and for a whole range of reasons as a society we have not been able to tackle it; it also says that the government has not placed enough of a priority on prevention and on making sure there is the crisis and long-term accommodation available for people who are escaping intimate partner violence.
It was 10 years ago that the former minister for children, Jacquie Petrusma, spoke to me as the Leader of the Greens. We spoke to Labor’s shadow Attorney‑General, Lara Giddings. We agreed that it was time for us to put all the politics aside – which on this issue we absolutely must – and work together across the parliament to put forward collaborative evidence‑based solutions and policy responses to the persistence of family violence in our community.
Following that, we had the then shadow treasurer, Scott Bacon, stand with the then deputy premier Jeremy Rockliff, and the then Greens member for Franklin, Nick McKim, to show that it is so important for men to demonstrate, step up and speak out on behalf of women and children too. There will be a debate in the other place this week – 10 years on from that collaborative initiative.
One of the things I remember when we started doing this work was how pleased people were in the community that they could see politicians working together from across parties to deal with a wicked problem that has enormous impacts and generational impacts on our community.
There will be a debate downstairs. About 10 years on from that initiative, here we are still with one woman in Australia being killed ‑
Ms Rattray – More than one.
Ms O’CONNOR – More than one, by an intimate partner every week. Here we are. Far too little has tangibly changed.
Indeed, you could argue when you look around you that some of the attitudes towards women and girls are a result of social media and men being given licence to be misogynists by the likes of Donald Trump. Some of the attitudes have in fact got worse. It is very, very worrying.
I worry about the young women and girls heading out into the world in this climate where misogyny seems to be on the march again, after we had made such measured progress. It feels like, in policy terms, we are kind of jumping up and down on the one spot.
This is good legislation. It will give Tasmania Police some extra capacity to intervene. I hope it leads to a safer Tasmania for people who are trapped in these circumstances and for the pets they love, who unarguably love them right back.
