A MALLEE family lawyer is encouraging further national discussion on financial abuse as a form of domestic violence as the Federal election campaign comes to an end.
Connect Family Law principal lawyer Michelle Oates said the Australian Labor Party and the Coalition policies to tackle financial abuse are a step in the right direction.
“I think we haven’t heard a lot about financial abuse and domestic and family violence in this campaign because it’s a difficult question to answer, but politicians need to be talking about it a lot more, with a focus on the solutions they are offering,” she said.
“The funding is just a drop in the ocean in solving this issue.”
Ms Oates’ experience practicing family law in the Mallee aligns with the Australian Institute of Family Studies’ findings that rural and regional women are more vulnerable to financial abuse.
“While this abuse is misunderstood, it is rampant and entrenched in family law,” she said.
“Most of our domestic violence matters have an element of financial abuse.
“In the Mallee, we see amplified effects because there are fewer support services, there’s a higher dependence on their abuser, and limited access to legal and financial services, so that isolation becomes a tool of control.
“Financial abuse does not discriminate; it can happen to anyone, and it often thrives in silence.”
Ms Oates is advocating for reforms to tax, debt relief and superannuation, more specialist financial abuse support in communities and training for frontline professionals to identify and address financial abuse.
“People frame it as not having access to money, but it’s about forced debt, denying access to financial records, sabotaging proceedings, withholding child support and it goes on,” she said.
“Perpetrators accrue online debts in their victim’s name, shut shared bank accounts so they require both signatures or a court order to release funds, and kick their victim off their healthcare policy while retaining the children so the abuser receives the benefits and refunds.
“Women often escape abusive relationships to then face ongoing financial abuse from their ex-partners using litigation and vexatious proceedings as a tool of control, emotional distress and financial burden – I could write a book on the steps abusers take.
“It’s terrible, but many of my clients say they wish they had a bruise or mark because then they’ll be believed.”
Policy commitments
Australian Labor Party
– Investigating welfare, debt and taxation reform to prevent perpetrators creating debts for their victims and holding them liable to debts they do create;
– looking at preventing perpetrators from receiving their victim’s superannuation after death;
– Strengthening focus on prevention programs and holding perpetrators to account.
The Coalition
– Perpetrator intervention programs;
– Implementing a National Domestic Violence Register;
– Establishing new domestic violence offenses;
– Reform to taxation, welfare and superannuation systems where practicable to eradicate financial abuse and unfair outcomes.
