Family violence penalty push

FAMILY violence perpetrators would get a property settlement penalty in the divorce court under a plan pitched to Canberra by a Hobart support service and peak women’s group.

Women’s Legal Services Australia and Hobart’s Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS) are lobbying for changes to the Family Law Act to require courts to consider family violence when determining property split.

Relationship violence currently does not automatically affect a Family Court property settlement decision unless, generally, it can be proved to have affected a party’s ability to earn a living.

However SASS, in a submission to the federal parliamentary inquiry into the law and family violence, has called for the courts to be compelled to consider the wrongdoings of a family violence perpetrator in property splits.

And Women’s Legal Services Australia has called for the courts to take family violence into account “as a negative con- tribution by the perpetrator’’.

“The courts should be required to consider the effect of family violence on the property settlement process and … the court should consider both the impact that the violence has on the victim and the negative contribution made by the perpetrator through being violent,’’ the service noted.

SASS chief executive Jill Maxwell said yesterday sexual assault and violence within a relationship was more common than many people thought and should be considered in a property split.

“It’s an important factor to consider,’’ Ms Maxwell said.

However, lawyer Greg Richardson said while family violence was a stain on the community and a horrible thing, there was no justification to return to the faultbased family law that existed pre-1975 in Australia.

“You would be going back 40 years by reintroducing fault, which I thought we had done away with.’’

Mr Richardson said victims of family violence had other avenues, both civil and criminal, to pursue perpetrators.