Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Honourable Speaker, I will keep my contribution short because I understand Mr O’Byrne needs to go into Committee. The Greens welcome this bill. It is 14 years after the Australian Law Reform Commission’s landmark report recommended that injury to animals should be incorporated into each Australian jurisdiction’s family violence legislation. It is beyond time that that work was done. It is time that Tasmania lifted itself into line with other states across the country to get families and pets safer. Thank you to the member for Franklin, Mr O’Byrne, for bringing in this much-needed legislative reform to the House, for doing so because it is something that needs to be done, not just because family violence is currently in the media headlines, doing it because the weaponisation of family pets is simply unacceptable.
This is a comparatively basic legislative amendment, but it will create great change within the community and it will create a safer and fairer Tasmania. This is the first of several amendments and discussions that this place must have to amend and contemporise Tasmania’s Family Violence Act to ensure that it is nation leading.
Pets are family and the role of pets cannot be understated at the very best of times, let alone for those in family and domestic violence situations. Too often we see victims staying in unsafe situations because their pets are family and their pets may be used as a form of family violence through attempts to control the partner’s action as a form of coercive control or abuse.
An Animal Studies Journal article from 2018 titled ‘Animal Victims of Domestic and Family Violence’ found that 70 per cent of women fleeing family violence reported that their pet had been abused and/or that they had concerns for their pet’s welfare.
As it stands at the present in Tasmania, people are staying in unsafe situations because they are afraid to lose their pet. The pets provide much needed health and emotional support as a member of their family. Naturally, when couples separate, one of the emotionally fraught issues can be deciding who gets their pets, and these tensions can become exacerbated, particularly for the number of couples who do not have children but have pets as their family.
Statistically, we know that it is all too common for family violence perpetrators to weaponise pets as a form of abuse or coercive control. That is why this bill is so important, ensuring that Tasmanian law enforcement can take appropriate action to keep Tasmanians safe and ensuring that our legislation is contemporary.
It is staggering that pets are currently classified basically as personal property under both Australian and Tasmanian law. Beyond family violence, it is also an act of animal justice to ensure that our pets are not simply treated as general household items or assets, as assets might be treated in property settlements or disputes.
The Greens welcome this bill, lifting Tasmania into line with other states across the country, noting that Western Australia has legislation similar to Tasmania’s existing legislation, where hurting a pet could be considered the same as emotional abuse or damage caused to property. Western Australia’s restraining order includes ‘causing death or injury to an animal that is the property of the family member’. In Victoria, animal abuse may now form the basis of an intervention order to protect a victim/survivor and their pet, and that is under their Family Violence Protection Act 2008. This bill aligns Tasmania with the Victorian and Queensland approach, as per the recommendation of the 2010 ALRC report.
I thank all the organisations and not-for-profits who have been advocating for this reform tirelessly, not just in Tasmania but right across the nation, including Lucy’s Project, which has already been highlighted by Mr O’Byrne.
It is worth noting that a hurdle that still remains for Tasmanians escaping family violence is the lack of crisis accommodation and transitional accommodation generally, but the even fewer locations that can currently accommodate pets. This is why it is absolutely imperative that this government do all that it can to rapidly upscale investment into crisis accommodation and other needs for those who are suffering family, domestic and sexual violence.
This is a very important fortnight to be making these changes. It is the tenth anniversary since the joint motion came to parliament in 2014. It is exactly the tenth anniversary next Tuesday. It is well beyond time that we looked again at the Family Violence Act and made sure that everything that we are doing today for Tasmanians, for families and for their pets is absolutely nation leading.
I also thank the Deputy Premier for his contribution and all the collaborative work that has gone into the amendments that Mr O’Byrne will move. The Greens will be supporting the bill.
