Submission

This submission provides an analysis of police powers and responsibilities in Tasmania, from a particular gender and family/sexual violence perspective.

Engender Equality highlights the critical need for additional support from specialist family violence practitioners to inform the police response to family and sexual violence.

Engender Equality also calls for an independent mechanism to respond to victim-survivors experiences of systems abuse.

This case study has been jointly produced by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) and Engender Equality to showcase our partnership that has successfully run in Nipaluna/Hobart for over four (4) years.

The partnership stands under a shared vision for the Tasmanian community, where all victim-survivors have access to relevant and tailored services to support their healing and recovery.

Through this partnership we have built a place-based collaboration for Tasmanian Aboriginal families in a safe and trauma informed environment.

Laurel House and Engender Equality welcome the opportunity to provide feedback on the proposed amendments to Section 20 and Section 34 of the Family Violence Act 20024.

This submission has been developed in consultation and collaboration with a range of stakeholders including Lutruwita/Tasmanian victim-survivors of family, domestic, and sexual violence, children, parents and caregivers of children who have been subjected to violence, other supporters of victim-survivors, and professionals who work it the sexual and family violence sectors.

This submission is in relation to the ‘consultation draft’ of Change for Children: “Tasmania’s 10 year strategy for upholding the rights of children by preventing, identifying and responding to child sexual abuse”. It has been developed utilising the practice wisdom and lived expertise of Engender Equality staff and contractors, and that of Tasmania’s Family and Sexual Violence Alliance (FSVA).

Engender Equality, a dedicated family violence service committed to fostering safe and supportive environments, seeks to express concern regarding the proposed Miscellaneous (Conversion Practices) Bill 2024 in Tasmania. As advocates for the wellbeing and safety of individuals and families impacted by family violence and gender-based violence, we express our reservations about the Bill’s current form and its potential implications.

Engender Equality is Tasmania’s statewide specialist family violence service, providing frontline counselling and support to all people affected by family violence and abuse, alongside advocacy, community education and training to address gender inequality and gendered violence in all its forms. Established in 1987, we are a Tasmanian leader in promoting gender equality and addressing family violence to benefit the whole community. We welcome the opportunity to comment on the Family Law Amendment Bill 2023.

This submission promotes calls for a gendered lens to be applied to imprisonment and detention to consider the unique experiences of women in the Tasmanian Prison System.

Engender Equality and the lived-experience group, Advocates for Change, give feedback on the the development of the National Principles to Address Coercive Control.

Tasmania requires a new Family and Sexual Violence Action Plan that is both strategically directed towards, and sufficiently resourced to deliver, community-based prevention and response activities that meet the needs of Tasmania’s highly dispersed, largely rural, socially and economically disadvantaged population.

In many ways the draft Strategy achieves its objectives in reflecting critical life domains in which women’s experiences are far from equal – in relation to safety and economic security, for example. In our assessment, however, it falls short of translating these objectives into realisable outcomes for the women we know and work alongside across Tasmanian communities.