Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh now it makes sense. Just a warning, this podcast deals with domestic violence. If you are a loved one is struggling, you can call one eight hundred respect on one eight hundred seven three seven seven thirty two. Good morning and welcome to the Daily ODS. It is Friday, the eighth of March.
I'm Billy, I'm Sam.
Today it is International Women's Day and we are going to be talking about something that disproportionately impacts women, and that is coercive control. This week, Queensland became the second state in Australia to criminalize coercive control as a standalone offense. Now, if you haven't heard of coercive control, it is a pattern of controlling and isolating behavior.
In a relationship.
It's one of the more invisible types of domestic violence, but evidence shows it is extremely harmful and is one of the most common forms of how people experience domestic abuse. We're going to look at the push to criminalize coerce of control around the country in today's deep dive. But for Sam, what's making headlines.
Minister for Women Katie Gallagher has announced Australia's first national gender equality strategy called Working for Women. The strategy involves a ten year plan which will focus on areas including gender based violence, economic equality and health. The strategy's aim is to quote shift the attitudes and stereotypes that drive
gender inequality. The launch comes after the government announced people who receive paid parental leave from the government will also receive superannuation on top of that payment.
The son of a former federal defense minister has died after an army training accident. Lance Corporal Jacks Fitzgibbon was injured during a parachuting incident this week at an army base in western Sydney. The Australian Defense Force confirmed yes the soldier was the son of formal Labour MP Joel Fitzgibbon, who served as a Defense Minister from two thousand and
seven to two thousand and nine. A statement from the Fitzgibbons said, quote Serving in the Special Forces was Jack's dream job and we take comfort from the fact he died serving his nation. The ADF has launched a formal investigation into what happened.
An URL player for the Sydney Roosters, Spencer Lenu, has pleaded guilty to making a racist remark during a game in Las Vegas. Over the weekend, Brisbane Broncos player Ezra mam alleged Lenu had made a racist comment against him. The Sydney Roosters issued a statement apologizing to Ezra, his family and the First Nation's community. Lenu said, I am sincerely sorry to cause him such distress and I said the word, but I didn't mean it in a racist way.
And today's good news. A gray whale has been spotted in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in over two centuries. According to the New Englandarium, the whale was spotted off the New England coast and was thought to be extinct from that area. The whale was seen diving and resurfacing multiple times and seemed to be feeding. A research technician said quote, we were laughing because of how wild and exciting this was to see an animal that disappeared from the Atlantic hundreds of years ago.
Go whales, Go whales. So Billy. Queensland this week became the second state in Australia to criminalize coercive control as a standalone of fence. New South Wales was the first state to do this back in twenty twenty two, and you gave us a little bit of an explanation of what coercive control is in the intro, but let's have more of an in depth discussion about this.
Yeah.
So, coercive control is a form of domestic violence where a person denies a victim survivor autonomy and independence over time. And it's a whole range of things, And it's important to emphasize that it's about a pattern of controlling behavior, and it can include a whole range of things like isolating your partner from their friends and family, controlling their finances, making threats, monitoring them and their behavior, constantly humiliating and
insulting them. And like I said, it's about a pattern of this behavior, So it's not about isolated incidents, but how this kind of behavior can really control a partner over years.
Because previously this discussion about domestic violence was really tied to physical harm, right.
Yeah, exactly. I think ten twenty years ago, the conversation about domestic violence was really limited to physical harm. I mean, I think of when I was growing up, when there were conversations about domestic violence, you instantly would think of a person being hit. But what we know now is that that is a very limited understanding of how someone can experience domestic abuse, and we now know that coercive control is one of the most common ways that people
will experience domestic abuse. Soals view of domestic and family violence in Australia found that over eighty percent of men who had killed a current or previous female partner had exhibited nonviolent behaviors, so things like coercive control against the partners that they killed. That's a huge percentage eighty percent. And so now in Queensland, if found guilty of this crime, there will be a penalty of up to fourteen years imprisonment.
And why do you think we've had more of these conversations about coercive controlled in the last couple of years.
Well, I think it really entered the mainstream conversation in early twenty twenty when Hannah Clark was murdered.
There's been an outpouring of grief for a mother and her three children who were burnt to death in their car in Brisbane's East yesterday. There's also anger at the man accused of setting them alight.
I'm sure many people will remember this story. I remember in twenty twenty it was kind of the big story at the start of twenty twenty apart from COVID, but it really dominated the news cycle in Australia. For those who need a reminder. In February twenty twenty, Hannah Clark and her three children were murdered by their children's father,
who was Hannah's estranged husband. And there was an inquest into what led to Hannah Clark and her children's murder, and it found that this man used really controlling behavior towards Hannah from early on in their relationship and that remained throughout the entirety of their relationship. And it was really alarming stuff how this controlling behavior manifested. So the inquest found that he was controlling a whole list of things that I have here in front of me, and
I'll list some of them. So it was controlling things like what she could wear. For example, it said she wasn't allowed to wear shorts or skirts above the knee. That was a rule that her husband at the time imposed on her. He also controlled what she ate. He attempted to isolate Hannah from her family and friends. He would hack into Hannah's Instagram account to read her messages without her knowing he would read her text messages while she was asleep. He also hid recording devices around the
house and in Hannah's car without her knowing. Hannah also actually told friends that she experienced sexual violence at the hands of this man in the form of coercive control. So she said that she was forced into having sex with him every night, and if she did refuse, he wouldn't talk to her for days, and he would yell at her and threaten her. This list that I have in front of me really just goes on and on about all of the different ways that he completely controlled
her and abused her. And so this law is about identifying that what he did to her is against the law and is a standalone criminal offense. And so after the murder of Hannah and her three children, it led to Hannah's family starting a campaign to raise awareness firstly about what coercive control is and recognizing that it absolutely is a form of domestic violence, and also to criminalize it.
They really led this movement around the country to criminalize coerse control, and they started with Queensland because that is the state where Hannah and her three children were murdered. And it's been a four year process to get to this week, but we are finally here where coercive control has become a criminal offense in Queensland.
I'm sure it's a really painful week for Hannah Clark's family. I mean, it's taken four years of lobbying to get the law to this point. Have we heard from them this week?
Yeah.
So Hannah's parents, Sue and Lloyd Clark, spoke outside of Parliament when this law was passed.
It's now up to the rest of us. Every day Queensland is we need to speak out against those signs of control when we see them in our mates, in our family members, and even in ourselves, and recognized that in Queensland this isn't just poor behavior anymore, it's a crime.
But Sue Clark also said that her work here is not done.
We will continue to speak out until coercive control is criminalized throughout Australia.
I'd love to talk to you about the rest of the country and where this law sits in other states and territories. But if we just stay on Queensland for one more second, was there any opposition to this law in the state.
So the Liberal National Party is the opposition in Queensland and they did support this bill, but they had some hesitations about how it was done. One thing that they raised is about how it is defined. This is a new term and it's a new term in law. As we said, Queensland is only the second state to do this,
so it's really hard to define. And like we went through with what happened to Hannah, there is a whole range of things that this can include, and so it's unlike some other crimes where it's not as specific.
Does that make sense, Yeah, And it's often the case that you can be so prescriptive in describing a certain set of behavior that it actually can disadvantage future victims if that doesn't meet the same criteria.
Yeah, exactly. But what the opposition here is saying it actually needs to be a little bit more specific and at the moment, and it's too broad. So this Shadow Attorney General Tim Nichols said there was a lack of particularization on what constitutes coercive control and he said that that needs to be addressed. Another thing that he raised
concerns about is how this will be rolled out. So he said education and training should now be the main priorities of both the community and the frontline workers in order to effectively roll this out. And he also asked for the government to explain how much funding it will put behind the necessary training to do this, but from
what he said, the government hasn't provided that information yet. Also, another thing that constantly comes up when we talk about coercive control is how these laws will impact First Nations communities.
So First Nations advocacy groups have repeatedly flagged that coercive control laws could actually further disadvantage women in their communities because they're worried it could lead to victim survivors being misidentified as perpose traders, which they say happens routinely already and this could just exacerbate that.
Really complicated to try and get this right. And I guess now as we look to how it could be rolled out nationally, how is it looking in the rest of Australia.
Yeah, so we mentioned Queensland is the second, New South Wales was the first and they did that in twenty twenty two. But there are conversations about how this could be implemented elsewhere. So South Australia has announced it is in the early stages of drafting laws to criminalize coercive control, and also in Western Australia there's a conversation about if this could happen there. A recent review also recommended strengthening
legislation to target coercive behavior. It's also worth mentioning that in Tasmania there are laws criminalizing family violence, which could include controlling behavior, but they just haven't specifically outlawed coercive control as a standalone offense.
Okay, And this isn't the only reform in this space that's happened in Queensland recently. I saw in our posts that you also mentioned stealthing in Queensland.
Yeah.
So stealthing, for those who don't know, is the non consensual removal of a condom during sex. And this has also become a crime in Queensland this week as part of that legislation with coercive control, and it means that
stealthying will now be recognized as rape in Queensland. And this is part of the state moving towards an affirmative consent model, which is another term I think we've heard a lot more about in recent years, and it's about recognizing that each person engaging in a sexual act needs to actively seek consent from the other person. Gotcha, And so this law in Queensland past this week brings the state into line with Tasmania, New South Wales Act and Victoria when it comes to stealthing.
We cover a lot of grounds in that episode that can be quite distressing to listen to. And if there's anything you want to discuss with a professional, you can call one eight hundred respects on one eight hundred seventy three seven seven three to two. That's all we've got time for on today's episode of The Daily oz. Thank you for listening. Please look after yourselves over the weekend, be kind to yourself and we'll speak to you again on Monday. My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a
proud Arunda Bungelung Calcoton woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations.
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.