SUBMISSIONS

As a service specifically highlighting and challenging the role of rigid and limited gender ideas in the perpetuation of violence, Engender Equality welcomes the draft Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026.

Engender Equality is a specialist family violence service, that has long recognised the ways in which gender stereotypes and other gendered drivers of violence against women intersect and overlap with cis and hetero normative ideas that enable ongoing violence towards LGBTIQA+ folk. A commitment to LGBTIQA+ rights and inclusion has been evidenced in much of our work including in the development of LGBTIQA+ practice guidelines and in our current Dads for Gender Diversity project focussing on enhancing the capacity of fathers to affirm the gender identity of their trans children.

Just as gender inequity drives men’s violence against women, conversion practices arise in a society in which LGBTIQA+ folk are considered unequal to cisgender and heterosexual people. In such a context, forms of violence towards LGBTIQA+ folk such as conversion practices are too easily minimised and condoned.

Engender Equality welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Second Action Plan under the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032. Along with this submission, our colleagues have attended multiple consultation forums in person and online. We are hopeful that this dedicated consultative approach will be followed up with clear action and investment.

This submission aims to put forward recommendations and examples of scalable solutions from our own practice in Lutruwita/Tasmania. Engender works tirelessly across the spectrum of family violence practice and service delivery, often in partnership with other organisations and communities. We offer primary prevention education to communities, share our specialist family violence expertise with early intervention programs in generalist services, deliver family violence response services via place-based models, and innovate specialist therapeutic services for victim-survivors in the face of insurmountable demand for our support.

Engender is dedicated to the cause to end violence against women and children, and all forms of gender-based violence. We are eager to contribute our experience and learn from others on a national scale as part of future work under the Second Action Plan.

Every homicide, suicide or other death linked to family violence is a tragic loss of life. All family violence-related deaths are preventable. Every death is a lesson: an opportunity to understand where our responses can improve, and a reminder that preventing violence requires more than a crisis intervention. It requires sustained action to address the underlying drivers of violence to create a Tasmania where people can live free from violence.

Engender Equality welcomes the Tasmania Law Reform Institute’s review of the Coroners Act 1995 (Tas) and the opportunity to contribute to reforms that strengthen Tasmania’s response to family violence-related deaths. We strongly support the recent legislative changes that recognise deaths where family violence has materially contributed to the death as matters warranting heightened coronial scrutiny through mandatory inquests.

Tasmania can adequately and ultimately eliminate family violence. Achieving this requires a shared understanding of what family violence is and why it occurs. This must be reflected in legislation and serve as a cornerstone of all prevention, early intervention and response initiatives across government and non-government organisations and communities.

Violence against women, gender diverse people and children does not occur in a vacuum. While acts of violence are often enacted by one individual against another, violence occurs within broader social, cultural, and institutional contexts that shape both the conditions in which violence occurs and the responses available to those experiencing it. Gender-based violence is therefore not solely an interpersonal issue; it is embedded within systems.

Engender Equality responds to the inquiry into the relationship between domestic, family and sexual violence and suicide.

This submission relates to the relationship between DFSV victimisation and suicide.

Engender Equality welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on the Tasmanian Government’s proposed liquor licensing reforms. It is commendable that the consultation paper has stated the Government’s intention to adopt a “risk-based approach to managing the harms from liquor” and to consider alcohol’s role in family and domestic violence. In order to do this, Engender Equality advocates
for a well-informed analysis of the role of alcohol in reinforcing behaviours and systems that condone violence against women.

This submission is in relation to the Family Violence (Miscellaneous Reforms) Bill 2025. It has been developed utilising the practice wisdom and lived expertise of Engender Equality staff and the victim-survivors we support.

The proposed amendments to the Tasmanian Family Violence Act 2004 present an opportunity to strengthen the understanding of family violence across the justice response. While increasing protections for victim-survivors, the Act must ensure that responses to family violence are accurate, trauma-informed, and victim-centred. This is necessary in order to eliminate further experiences of victim-survivors being blamed and disbelieved for the violence they have endured.

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.