SURVIVORS’ COURAGEOUS VOICES HAVE BEEN HEARD

JUSTICE Margaret Mcmurdo’s taskforce into domestic violence received more than 700 submissions from women and girls who shared their harrowing experiences. Those brave voices have contributed to the state government’s commitment yesterday to criminalise coercive control by 2023 following the handing down in December of Justice Mcmurdo’s Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce’s first report, Hear Her Voice.

The government said it would invest $363m to better protect women against domestic violence, as well as conduct a commission of inquiry into police practices.

... it’s the very least that should be done to protect women at risk of violence

Hannah Clarke, who along with her three children Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4, and Trey, 3, was murdered by her exhusband Rowan Baxter in 2020, was a victim of coercive control.

Attorney-general Shannon Fentiman said the reform package was “historic” and would fundamentally transform the system to be “trauma informed” with survivors at the forefront.

“We know that non-physical violence is just as dangerous as physical violence, and that coercive control is the biggest predicting factor for intimate partner homicide,” she said. “Queensland women and children deserve to live free from the threat of violence.”

It is a sad indictment on society that laws like these need to be drafted, but it’s the very least that should be done to protect women at risk of violence.