Rachel Payne MP has spoken on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Coercive Control, Good Character, Risk Assessment and Other Matters) Bill 2026, welcoming key reforms while arguing the bill falls short of the whole-of-system change victim-survivors need.
(TRIGGER WARNING: This article references assault and family violence.)
Full Transcript
Jessica’s Story
Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:09):
I rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Coercive Control, Good Character, Risk Assessment and Other Matters) Bill 2026 on behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria. Family violence is an epidemic in Australia. Intimate partner violence is the leading contributor to ill health and premature death for women in Australia. This year more than one woman a week has been murdered by a current partner or ex-partner in Australia. For every single one of those women and their children harmed by family and intimate partner violence, I would like to say: you matter just as much as anyone else.
Behind every statistic is a person whose life was tragically cut short. One such life was that of Jessica Geddes, who was just 27 when she was murdered by her abusive partner. She was a bright young woman who dreamed of studying medicine and taught herself to play guitar and piano. I have spoken in this chamber about Jessica’s story many times. Most recently in October last year, but I believe it is a story that deserves to be heard again. Jessica was experiencing housing instability and was subject to coercive control and physical, emotional and financial abuse.
She was forced to beg for food, cigarettes and money. Telling neighbours that her partner Robert would beat her if she did not return without what he wanted. Despite this, police received 36 public order reports relating to Jessica. Most of them concerned her begging. As part of this Justice Legislation Amendment bill I am reintroducing my amendment to repeal the relevant provisions of the Summary Offences Act 1966 to decriminalise begging in Victoria. I will speak to this further in the committee stage of this bill.
Despite being decriminalised in Western Australia, New South Wales, the ACT and Tasmania, begging remains an offence in Victoria. Punishable by a fine or, worse, imprisonment. For vulnerable women like Jessica Geddes, decriminalising begging could have made a life-changing difference. It could have shifted the focus from punishing her for begging to recognising that she was a woman experiencing abuse. And in desperate need of help and potentially helping her connect with the support and safety that she desperately needed.
The Risks Within Coercive Control Reform
Importantly, as this bill recognises, family violence and its impacts are not always visible. It can take many forms, including physical and sexual violence, emotional abuse, coercive control, intimidation and financial abuse. This bill contains some important reforms that prioritise safety. The safety of victim survivors and improve the efficiency of our justice system. Those reforms are welcome, and in some respects they represent meaningful progress in Victoria for victim-survivors. Progress must be tempered with consideration of unintended and uneven consequences when safety is at stake.
Firstly, as many stakeholders have pointed out, the criminalisation of coercive control is real progress. But if it is enacted through a standalone coercive control offence, it may be difficult to apply it effectively. Coercive control often involves subtle patterns of behaviour that are difficult to identify, investigate and prove in court. Moreover, this offence may be weaponised by perpetrators. The powerful almost always use the system to their benefit. And there are very real risks that this could be what happens here. First Nations women, women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and other marginalised women are at a real risk of being on the receiving end of these reforms, unfairly and unequally. The justice system does marginalised women no favours, and protections must be put in place for them.
Whole-of-System Reform, Not a Single Law
There are very real risks that the system could be gamed by perpetrators with power and privilege. Another thing to note is that Victoria already has tools to respond to coercive and controlling behaviour. Through the family violence intervention order, or FVIO, system. Unlike the criminal justice system, FVIOs are focused on preventing harm and protecting victim-survivors. They also respond to patterns of behaviour before violence escalates. We all know FVIOs are imperfect. But we also know that a tougher, punishment-focused approach to family violence could have unintended consequences. Being tough on crime sounds good, but it almost always results in worse outcomes. These include increased stress, fear and retraumatisation for victim-survivors, particularly where criminal prosecutions are unsuccessful. Victoria’s family violence, health and community legal centres have been calling for something broader for decades: whole-of-system reform.
We cannot do this with one piece of legislation. So we need to fundamentally strengthen how coercive control is identified, prevented and responded to. We need this across Victoria’s family violence and legal systems. A stronger focus on early intervention, safety and support is essential. Essential to better outcomes for victim-survivors, and this will not be achieved by the introduction of a new law. In other words, sadly, this bill simply does not go far enough. It falls short of delivering the victim-centred justice system that victim-survivors deserve.
Good Character Reforms
I am reminded now of the issue of good character reforms. In December last year I raised this issue in this chamber. Asking the Attorney-General to investigate banning good character references in child sexual abuse cases. I argued then and I would argue again that no-one convicted of sexual abuse can be considered a good bloke. Sentencing should reflect the harm caused by the crime and not the public face. The reputation a perpetrator has deliberately and carefully built, in part to protect themselves.
People with good character do not enact patterns of violence, coercion, intimidation and control. As with sexual abuse, when sentencing for family violence crimes, the focus should be on the harm caused and the victim’s safety, not on what the perpetrator’s friends, family, teammates or anyone else thinks of them. They did the crime; that is their character. Removing good character references for victim survivors of family violence is essential. These changes have already been introduced in New South Wales, and Victoria is now following suit. I welcome this.
Protecting Victim-Survivors from Discrimination
We also need protections for victim-survivors against discrimination. One thing we forget in the headlines and the news cycle, which moves so fast, is that family violence affects every part of a person’s life: work, recreation, health, parenting, family, friendships, haircuts, dentist appointments, housing, play dates – all of it. A woman who has experienced family violence should never face discrimination because of what has happened to her. If she is brave enough to tell an employer that she is experiencing family violence, she must not be penalised. If she discloses to the school, her children must be helped and not judged. Then if a landlord finds out, they must not evict or punish her.
These things happen all too often. Any discrimination of this sort must be outlawed, and I would like to congratulate and acknowledge my friend Georgie Purcell in this chamber for the work that she has done in this space to make these laws come into effect in this bill. Making it unlawful to discriminate against someone because they have experienced or are experiencing family violence recognises that victim-survivors face disadvantage not only because of the violence itself but also because of how others respond to their circumstances.
The new protection in this bill will apply to important areas of everyday life, including employment, education, housing, access to goods and services, clubs, sport and local government. It will provide legal recourse to a woman who is treated unfairly at work if she needs time away to attend court or access support services or if she is denied accommodation or treated differently when accessing essential services. Family violence can leave women financially insecure, isolated and vulnerable to homelessness. If women are then discriminated against while trying to find employment, secure housing or access education and services, it can make it much harder for them to leave an abusive relationship and rebuild their lives. This bill sends a clear message: women who are experiencing or have experienced family violence should not be disadvantaged because of someone else’s crime. Victim-survivors should be supported, not judged.
Expanding Fines Relief
Another positive reform in this bill is the expansion of fines relief and exemptions for victim-survivors, a significant and long-called-for reform. This change recognises a simple but critical reality: people experiencing family violence should not be further burdened by financial penalties arising from circumstances beyond their control. Often fines are actively used by perpetrators to entrench disadvantage and punish victim-survivors. Perpetrators will literally accrue fines in their victims’ names to stop them rebuilding their lives. In other cases, the stress and chaos of surviving leads to the accumulation of fines. What may have started as a relatively small infringement – theirs or the perpetrator’s – can and does become a much larger problem when a person experiencing family violence cannot afford to pay. Additional costs and enforcement measures can lead to debt and that debt growing, creating a cycle that is particularly difficult to escape for people experiencing family violence.
Expanding the family violence scheme to include fines will remove another barrier victim-survivors of family violence face to both leaving and starting again. Fines reform will help ensure our legal system supports victim survivors to escape the violence rather than creating further obstacles or financial burden. Similarly, expanding the family violence scheme to include excessive speeding fines will allow eligible victim survivors to seek relief from fines connected to their circumstances. The reforms represent an important step towards supporting victim-survivors to rebuild their lives with greater safety, stability and independence, not punishment.
Cancelling Outdated Imprisonment Warrants
I would like to take the opportunity to speak to our amendments on the Fines Reform Act 2014. Our amendments would cancel old imprisonment warrants issued for unpaid fines under the former fines enforcement regime, before the safeguards introduced by the Fines Reform Act 2014 came into effect on 31 December 2017. This would ensure that people are not imprisoned today under outdated laws and practices that have since been recognised as requiring reform.
The amendment would also resolve imprisonment as an enforcement option for unpaid fines by repealing the relevant provisions of the Fines Reform Act. No vulnerable person should face imprisonment simply because they are unable to pay a fine. I would like to acknowledge the stakeholders that have advocated tirelessly for these reforms, including the infringements working group, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, Financial Counselling Victoria, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, Inner Melbourne Community Legal and Justice Connect.
Stopping Violence Before It Starts
However, it is important to remember that legislation alone cannot end family violence. Ultimately, the goal must be not only to respond to violence but to stop it in the first place. We must pause and ask: what on earth is going on when women are more at risk in their homes than on the streets? Over the last couple of months, I have been calling for the Carroll government to support the extension of the Alexis family violence response model statewide. The Alexis model is something we can do right now. It provides an important early intervention approach that places specialist family violence workers in all police units. And it supports the identification of family violence and enables timely, coordinated responses before risk escalates.
It has been successfully trialled in three locations and has led to an 85 per cent reduction in recidivism. This is the goal: stop it before it starts, prevent it from happening again and prevent it from getting worse. The Alexis model is tested, and in dollar terms, it is actually really affordable. Incredibly, I had the Parliamentary Budget Office cost a statewide expansion and it would cost just over $10 million per year to be implemented across Victoria. Supporting the Alexis family violence model is an investment in prevention, early intervention, safer families and communities and a more responsive family violence system for Victoria.
These reforms are welcome and represent meaningful progress for victim-survivors. But when safety is at stake, we must also consider their unintended and uneven consequences. We must continue investing in early intervention and prevention, particularly for people who are most vulnerable, so that we can address risk before it escalates into harm. On behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria, we support this bill, and I request that my amendments be circulated.
A Bill That Goes Some of the Way
Rachel’s contribution welcomes real progress in this Justice Legislation Amendment bill — good character reforms, discrimination protections, and expanded fines relief for victim-survivors — while cautioning that a standalone coercive control offence carries real risks of being misused against the very women it’s meant to protect, particularly the most marginalised. Her consistent message throughout: legislation alone won’t end family violence, and prevention models like Alexis deserve the same urgency as reform.