In November I had the pleasure on my first outing as a partner of Page Provan, family and fertility lawyers, of presenting to the Australian Human Resources Institute Diversity and Inclusion Network, just before the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
Here is my paper prepared for the presentation.
Here is my paper prepared for the presentation.
AUSTRALIAN HUMAN RESOURCES INSTITUTE
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION NETWORK
How workplaces respond to domestic violence
by Stephen Page[1]
What is Domestic violence?
There are many definitions of domestic violence, but the current definition in the Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act 2012 (Qld) is a useful one as it seems to capture the range of behaviour that constitutes domestic violence. Section 8 of that Act defines domestic violence as follows:
“(1) "Domestic violence" means behaviour by a person (the "first person") towards another person (the "second person") with whom the first person is in a relevant relationship that —
(a) is physically or sexually abusive; or
(b) is emotionally or psychologically abusive; or
(c) is economically abusive; or
(d) is threatening; or
(e) is coercive; or
(f) in any other way controls or dominates the second person and causes the second person to fear for the second person’s safety or wellbeing or that of someone else.
(2) Without limiting subsection (1), domestic violence includes the following behaviour —
(a) causing personal injury to a person or threatening to do so;
(b) coercing a person to engage in sexual activity or attempting to do so;
(c) damaging a person’s property or threatening to do so;
(d) depriving a person of the person’s liberty or threatening to do so;
(e) threatening a person with the death or injury of the person, a child of the person, or someone else;
(f) threatening to commit suicide or self-harm so as to torment, intimidate or frighten the person to whom the behaviour is directed;
(g) causing or threatening to cause the death of, or injury to, an animal, whether or not the animal belongs to the person to whom the behaviour is directed, so as to control, dominate or coercethe person;
(h) unauthorised surveillance of a person;
(i) unlawfully stalking a person.
(3) A person who counsels or procures someone else to engage in behaviour that, if engaged in by the person, would be domestic violence is taken to have committed domestic violence.
(4) To remove any doubt, it is declared that, for behaviour mentioned in subsection (2) that may constitute a criminal offence, a courtmay make an order under this Act on the basis that the behaviour is domestic violence even if the behaviour is not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
(5) In this section —
"coerce", a person, means compel or force a person to do, or refrain from doing, something.
"unauthorised surveillance", of a person, means the unreasonable monitoring or tracking of the person’s movements, activities or interpersonal associations without the person’s consent, including, for example, by using technology.
Example:
• reading a person’s SMS messages
• monitoring a person’s email account or internet browser history
• monitoring a person’s account with a social networking internet site
• using a GPS device to track a person’s movements
• checking the recorded history in a person’s GPS device
"unlawful stalking" see the Criminal Code , section 359B.”
That Act also talks about exposing a child to domestic violence. This is contained in section 10:
