Women Speak Tasmania has made a submission to the Tasmanian Department of Justice on the Family Violence Reforms Bill 2026, with particular focus on the proposed criminal offence of coercive control.
What is coercive control?
Coercive control describes a pattern of behaviour used to dominate, control or restrict another person. It can include intimidation, threats, isolation, surveillance, financial control, sexual coercion, controlling access to children, reproductive coercion and other forms of psychological or emotional abuse.
Unlike a single incident of family violence, coercive control is generally understood as a pattern of behaviour that needs to be considered in its wider context. The proposed Tasmanian legislation reflects this by introducing a course-of-conduct framework.
Women Speak Tasmania supports the principle that serious coercive and controlling behaviour should be recognised by the criminal law. We also recognise that coercive control can be an important part of the experience of family violence for women.
But creating a new criminal offence requires careful drafting.
Why does the wording matter?
The proposed offence would apply where a person engages in a course of conduct towards a current or former spouse or partner, and the conduct has, or is likely to have, a detrimental effect on the other person’s physical, sexual, emotional or psychological wellbeing, or causes fear of harm.
Importantly, the proposed offence does not require actual harm to have occurred in every case. It also contains a mental element based on what the person knew or ought to have known, together with a provision dealing with recklessness.
WST’s concern is not with recognising genuine coercive control. Our concern is making sure that the criminal law is sufficiently precise to distinguish coercive domination from the many difficult and sometimes highly conflictual situations that arise when relationships break down.
A woman leaving an abusive relationship may change passwords, restrict access to her home, refuse unwanted contact, separate finances, seek help from police or courts, or take steps to protect her children. Those actions may restrict another person’s activities, but they are not necessarily coercive control.
The law must therefore be capable of distinguishing protective and proportionate conduct from conduct intended to dominate and control.
The threshold for harm
One of WST’s main recommendations concerns the proposed threshold of “any detrimental effect.”
We consider that a criminal offence should require a more meaningful threshold of harm. Ordinary disagreement, arguments, relationship conflict, disappointment or hurt feelings should not, without more, become the basis for criminal liability.
WST therefore recommends that the legislation require a serious detrimental effect on physical, sexual, emotional, psychological or financial wellbeing, with corresponding clarification of the reference to fear of harm.
The purpose is not to minimise emotional or psychological abuse. It is to ensure that the criminal offence is directed at genuinely serious conduct rather than allowing the criminal law to become involved in ordinary relationship disputes.
What about recklessness?
The Bill provides that a person is taken to know the relevant circumstances if they are reckless as to those circumstances.
WST questions whether this additional provision is necessary when the proposed offence already includes the standard that a person “knows or ought to have known” that their conduct would have the relevant effect.
This matters because criminal offences need a clear and appropriately defined mental element. The law should not inadvertently make it easier to characterise a person as a perpetrator based on conduct whose significance or effect was not reasonably apparent in the circumstances.
This issue also deserves careful consideration in light of the experience of other jurisdictions. NSW introduced its coercive-control offence in 2024, and its statutory review is considering, among other matters, whether the mental element should extend to recklessness.
Protective conduct must be recognised
The Bill contains an important provision dealing with whether conduct was objectively reasonable in the circumstances.
WST supports this safeguard but considers that the legislation and accompanying guidance should make the circumstances more explicit.
For example, a person may reasonably:
- restrict another person’s access to their home;
- change passwords or financial arrangements;
- prevent unwanted surveillance or contact;
- leave or end an abusive relationship;
- protect a child from harm;
- refuse an abusive or controlling demand; or
- seek assistance from police, courts or other authorities.
These actions should not be viewed in isolation.
The surrounding circumstances matter, including the history of the relationship, any existing family violence, the reason for the conduct and the safety concerns facing the person taking the action.
This is particularly important because people experiencing family violence can sometimes be misidentified as the perpetrator, especially where both parties make allegations against one another.
The Bill should recognise the reality of coercive control
WST welcomes the Bill’s use of examples to illustrate conduct that may constitute coercive control. We recommend that the examples go further and expressly recognise forms of abuse that are increasingly relevant to women and children.
These include the misuse of intimate images and recordings, including digitally altered or generated material; using children or contact with children as leverage; and reproductive coercion.
These examples would help make clear that coercive control is not limited to physical violence or face-to-face intimidation.
Monitoring will be essential
A new criminal offence cannot simply be passed and left to operate without careful monitoring.
WST recommends that Tasmania collect sex-disaggregated data about the people alleged to have committed the offence and the people experiencing family violence, together with information about their relationship, whether children are involved, the nature of the conduct, charges and outcomes.
It is particularly important to identify cases where a person experiencing family violence has themselves been identified as the alleged perpetrator.
The experience of NSW demonstrates why early monitoring is useful. Between July 2024 and June 2026, NSW Police recorded 682 coercive-control incidents and 42 charges. These figures are police-recorded data and should not be treated as a measure of the prevalence of coercive control, but they demonstrate the importance of monitoring how a new offence operates in practice.
WST recommends an independent review of the Tasmanian offence after it has been operating for a sufficient period to assess its effects.
Family violence is not limited to intimate partners
The proposed coercive-control offence is confined to current and former spouse or partner relationships.
WST considers that Tasmania should also examine family violence occurring outside those relationships. This includes violence against mothers by adolescent or adult children, abuse of older women by family members and other forms of family violence occurring within families.
These forms of violence can be serious and complex, and they deserve proper attention rather than being overlooked simply because they do not fit within an intimate-partner model.
Our position
Women Speak Tasmania supports the recognition of serious coercive control in Tasmania’s family violence laws.
Our submission argues that the legislation must nevertheless be precise, proportionate and workable in practice.
The criminal law should identify sustained patterns of domination and control without creating a framework in which ordinary relationship conflict, reasonable protective action, or the actions of a woman attempting to leave an abusive relationship can potentially be mischaracterised as criminal coercive control.
We have therefore made seven recommendations covering the harm threshold, the mental element, protective conduct, implementation and monitoring, independent review, and further consideration of family violence outside spouse or partner relationships.
Our submission is about getting the law right from the beginning: protecting women and children from genuine coercive control while ensuring that the criminal law does not inadvertently place those experiencing family violence at greater risk of being treated as perpetrators.
Read the full Women Speak Tasmania submission below.