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Barnardos Australia was invited to comment on the Exposure Draft Bill criminalising coercive control in intimate partner relationships. Read here.
Our CEO Deirdre Cheers endorsed an open letter prepared by the NSW Women’s Alliance to the NSW Attorney General and Minister Ward calling for a longer consultation process on the Coercive Control Bill and expressing concerns about several aspects of the Bill.
Dr Robert Urquhart, Head of Knowledge, Research & Outcomes, also facilitated an in-depth consultation with our Domestic and Family Violence (DFV) Strategy Group members. The Strategy Group members provided expert feedback as practitioners, highlighting the gaps in the legislation regarding the safety needs of children and young people and the use of third parties by perpetrators as a means of control, which informed our submission. In addition, our practitioners’ themes strongly resonated with feedback from Departmental First Nations roundtables with Aboriginal practitioners in Dubbo and Kempsey, which Tina West, Manager Gurung Wellama, and Robert attended to represent Barnardos.
The Department of Communities and Justice also invited Barnardos to comment on two new five-year plans – the NSW Domestic and Family Plan (read submission here) and the NSW Sexual Violence Plan (read submission here).
All three submissions below highlight the need to recognise children and young people as equal victim-survivors of DFV in their own right with their own safety and support needs.
