PUBLICATIONS

The police, the law, your rights, and what to expect if you are experiencing family violence

This report outlines the impact of dangerously delayed and inadequate service responses on the lives of victim-survivors of family violence. Victim-survivors and family violence practitioners alike have expressed their frustrations with being unable to access or offer consistent and responsive service responses due to lack of, or changes in, funding and resources (Safe & Equal, 2025).

Engender Equality is Tasmania’s statewide provider of therapeutic services for victim-survivors recovering and healing from family violence, primarily delivered through medium to long-term therapeutic counselling. At present, there are approximately 200 people on Engender’s waitlist statewide, with an average wait time of 24 months in the South, and 12 months in the North and North West.

These disturbing and heartbreaking numbers continue to grow, year on year, as growth in demand from victim-survivors outstrips Engender’s funding from the State Government. The negative and often irreversible impacts of such long wait-times on victim-survivors, and their children, are well documented (see Engender’s 2026 report ‘Delayed Support, Heightened Harm: The Impacts of Long Wait Times for Specialist Family Violence Services’).

Engender strives to deliver relevant and responsive therapeutic services to Tasmanians who have experienced intimate partner violence, where all people accessing our services receive timely and tailored support, suitable for their needs.

To be an effective support service for victim-survivors of intimate partner violence, Engender recognised the need to diversify our therapeutic services to include a short-term counselling response. It was anticipated that this approach would better support people who will benefit from a responsive and short-term counselling intervention whilst also serving to reduce our wait time for medium to longer term counselling.

In 2025, Engender used its cash reserves to pilot a therapeutically beneficial and cost-effective program to test this theory. This program was called the ‘Brief Intervention Pilot Program’ or ‘BIPP’.

This report aims to contribute to a better understanding of the systems abuse experienced by Tasmanian victim-survivors of family violence.

Systems abuse has long been recognised in Australia as a form of family violence, often experienced in the post-separation context. In this report we provide preliminary insights into the extent and complexity of these often opaque practices which are commonly faced by victim-survivors. It highlights the need for a more in-depth and extensive study of systems abuse in this State.

There are ongoing reports of the discredited theory of ‘Parental Alienation’ (‘PA’) (also referred to as ‘Parental Alienation Behaviours’ or ‘Parental Alienation Syndrome’) being promoted online within certain practices and institutions. PA is widely criticised in Australia and overseas for its methodological weakness, lack of empirical foundation and weaponisation by people who use violence.

Practitioners are encouraged to monitor and counter the promotion of PA using the information provided in the Statement below and request further information from Engender Equality if required.

This report reflects the successful completion of a unique project aimed at strengthening Tasmania’s response to family and sexual violence experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, people with innate variations of sex characteristics (intersex), queer, asexual and other gender and sexually diverse (LGBTIQA+) people.

A toolkit for medical practitioners in Tasmania.

Leaving an abusive or controlling relationship can be a very stressful and dangerous time as family violence is often heightened during a separation. Every woman’s situation is different but you don’t have to face separation alone. A family violence counsellor can provide you with emotional support and safety planning, particularly in the event you have to leave your partner in a hurry.

Reproductive coercion is both a form of interpersonal abuse and a form of sexual violence. It is usually perpetrated against women by male partners and almost always manifests within a broader pattern of controlling behaviours known as ‘coercive control’.