I rise today to proudly speak in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025. Firstly, I just want to commend the member for Mildura for her powerful contribution and sharing her experience that she has been through. The bills that we bring to this place are so important for the community here in Victoria, and we can see why.
This bill continues the Allan Labor government’s unwavering commitment to ending violence against women and children here in Victoria, and it is not just another justice bill. It is a deeply considered survivor-informed package of reforms that strengthens our response to family violence, stalking and sexual offending across the entire justice system. It expands protections, it closes loopholes, it modernises processes and it ensures that our legal frameworks reflect contemporary understanding of coercion, control, risk and trauma.
It reflects one very simple truth: Victoria will always stand with victim-survivors not just in sentiment but in action. This bill is another step in a long journey towards building a state where every woman, every child and every member of our community can live free from fear and harm.
The statistics speak to the urgency of this bill. In the 12 months to June 2025 recorded family violence incidents rose 7.7 per cent to 106,427 incidents, with a rate of 1499.6 per every 100,000 Victorians. There are a lot of people that experience this and that are affected by this. We also know that 64.4 per cent of perpetrators are repeat offenders. Family violence remains the number one law and order issue in our state. It is the leading cause of police call-outs. It is the leading cause of homelessness for women and children. It is the leading cause of injury, fear and trauma in too many Victorian homes. Behind every statistic is a story: a child who cannot sleep because dad might come back, a mother who must choose between safety and financial survival or a family forced to rebuild their lives after years of coercion and fear.
Our government has implemented all 227 recommendations of the Royal Commission into Family Violence, and we have invested more than any government in Australian history – opening the Orange Door network, establishing Respect Victoria, expanding specialist family violence courts and delivering landmark reforms such as affirmative consent – yet we know the job is not done. This bill continues that work. One of the strengths of this bill is that it has been shaped by those who understand these issues best: victim-survivors themselves, frontline practitioners, legal experts, police, courts, Aboriginal community controlled organisations and multicultural service providers. The minister’s office made clear that these reforms were suggested directly by victim-survivors and people with lived experiences and developed after extensive consultation across the sector, and that included the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, Djirra, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, the Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council, the Aboriginal Justice Caucus and sexual assault support providers. This is how we legislate properly, by listening first.
The bill expands the definition of ‘family violence’ to include stalking, recognising its prevalence in family violence dynamics; systems abuse, where perpetrators weaponise institutions like courts, child protection or immigration agencies to intimidate and control victim-survivors; and mistreatment of animals, acknowledging that pets and livestock are often targeted to cause fear and emotional harm. These changes reflect contemporary understandings of coercive control and psychological harm, and they send a clear message that violence is not only physical; coercion, manipulation and intimidation are also violence.
Misidentification, where the true victim is incorrectly identified as the aggressor, is one of the most serious systematic failures in the current framework. It disproportionately affects Aboriginal women, migrant and refugee women, women with disabilities and the LGBTIQA+ community. For these groups, cultural misunderstanding, trauma responses and defensive actions can be misinterpreted as aggression. This bill requires police and courts to actively consider the risk of misidentification when issuing a family violence intervention order (FVIO) or a family violence safety notice, including the relationship context, defensive or protective behaviour and whether the person comes from a cohort known to be at elevated risk of misidentification. These changes are essential to preventing victim-survivors being further harmed by the very systems meant to protect them.
Victim-survivors told us again and again that FVIOs are too short and too frequently require them to return to court, interrupting work and caring responsibilities and forcing repeated contact with perpetrators. The bill makes major improvements: a default two-year FVIO, replacing the current practice of mostly 12-month orders – for offenders in custody for family violence crimes, FVIOs will last the length of their sentence plus 12 months, covering the dangerous period after release – and strengthened service provisions, especially for prisoners who deliberately evade services.
These reforms reduce trauma, increase accountability and keep victims safer for longer. This bill finally stops young people from ageing out of protection simply because they turn 18. If a child is protected under their parent’s FVIO, they will remain protected for the full duration of the order. The bill also sets a minimum age of 12 to be subject to an FVIO, ensures courts consider a young person’s ability to understand and comply with an order and aligns protections with the raised age of criminal responsibility. These reforms prevent unfair criminalisation and deliver protections suited to children’s developmental needs.
The bill modernises and strengthens service requirements, including changing the threshold for substituted service from ‘not possible’ to ‘not practicable’, allowing courts to order substituted service on their own motion and deeming service for respondents in prison where documents are left with the prison governor. Too often perpetrators purposely avoid service to delay accountability, and these changes close that loophole.
I had a personal experience with regard to family violence with a friend of mine back in 2007. Her partner bashed her, beat her up, and she went to the police. I went with her to the courts to get an intervention order in December 2007. They separated for a couple of months, but then they got back together. He strangled her to death four months later. That was 18 years ago. The guy got 18 years, so he is probably due for release very soon. But we will never get to see her again. She was my partner’s best friend. That is why these bills are so important – for us to try and stamp out family violence, stamp out stalking and ensure that we are there to protect our community. We just heard from the member for Mildura about her personal experience. We have all probably got experiences in this place of personal relationships, people that we have all heard this from. I will leave it at that. I commend the bill to the house.