Twenty years ago, there were few legal remedies for victims of family violence in Victoria and, despite its prevalence, family violence remained a largely hidden problem. Our institutions often failed to protect or properly support victims of family violence. The legal response to family violence was inadequate because its particular dynamics and effects were not well understood. Primarily, family violence was identified as physical assault. Other forms of violence, such as property damage, sexual assault, social abuse (restriction of social interaction), psychological or emotional abuse, verbal abuse and economic abuse were infrequently identified as grounds for a legal remedy.¹

Traditionally, the law was reluctant to intervene in the area of family violence because it occurred in private and was considered to be beyond its realm. During the 1970s and 1980s, there were calls for family violence to be recognised and treated as a crime and this influenced policy and justice system reforms in many Western countries, including Australia.

The focus generated by the women's movement during the 1970s led to the setting up of women's refuges, and this increased the many pressures for reform placed on the Victorian government leading up to the introduction of the Crimes (Family Violence) Act 1987 (Vic.). The Act introduced a civil remedy for family violence - the intervention order - but its title also reflected one of the principal debates of that time (and which continues to this day) as to whether legal remedies for family violence should be located in criminal or civil jurisdictions.²

The intervention order system was seen as pioneering legislation that would provide an accessible and free civil option for the protection of victims of violence. It could be accessed by an individual victim or by the police and, in theory, protection could be obtained 24 hours a day. However, problems of interpretation, widely varying attitudes of police officers and magistrates, failure to enforce breaches, inadequate training of court staff, and lack of legal advice - to name a few barriers - soon led many victims to believe that an intervention order was "not worth the paper it was written on". In short, the legislation was itself a "victim" of mainstream prevailing attitudes and inconsistent approaches.

Independent and government reviews to monitor the Crimes (Family Violence) Act 1987 clearly identified serious difficulties and barriers inherent in obtaining an intervention order (Hunter, 2005; Wearing, 1992, 1996). In 2002, as part of its overall approach to system improvement, the Victorian Government asked the Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) to review the Act (Department of Justice, 2004).

The task for the commission was to make recommendations for changes to the law that would result in appropriate new legislation for a complex and diverse society and was no longer in denial as to the extent of family violence and the damage it causes. This review of the legislation also ran parallel to unprecedented changes in Victoria in family violence policy development, service provision and police responses as recognition grew that a whole-of-system approach was required to impact on the complexity of family violence (Statewide Steering Committee to Reduce Family Violence, 2005).

From 2001, resources were allocated to developing the fundamentals, principles and practices of a new responsive family violence system. These developments included:

• the Victorian Government's Women's Safety Strategy (Office of Women's Policy, 2002);
• the Victoria Police (2004) Code of Practice for the Investigation of Family Violence;
• the Magistrates' Court's Family Violence Division, which developed and implemented specialist family violence courts (Magistrates' Court of Victoria, 2009);
• the Statewide Steering Committee to Reduce Family Violence (2005), which developed a model for a multi-agency integrated response;
• the Victorian Government's strategy: "Changing Lives: A New Approach to Family Violence in Victoria", which detailed a $35.1 million spending plan (Department for Victorian Communities, 2005);
• model programs targeting men who are subject to intervention orders, developed by the Department of Justice (2006); and

the Victorian Indigenous Family Violence Task Force (2003) final report, released in December 2003. The Government's response to this report in October 2004 (Department of Human Services, 2004) included the establishment of the Indigenous Family Violence Partnership Forum, support for the establishment of Holistic Family Healing Centres, an Indigenous Men's Resource Advisory Service and eight Indigenous Family Support Innovation Projects.

In this context, the VLRC made recommendations for changes that drew upon these initiatives. The new Family Violence Protection Act 2008 (Vic.) (FVPA) separates remedies for family violence from stalking and neighbourhood disputes, and includes a clear statement of its aims and principles. The preamble includes four principles, including that non-violence is a fundamental social value, family violence is a fundamental violation of human rights, and that the justice system should treat the views of victims of family violence with respect. It also acknowledges the gendered nature of family violence, the impact on children, its effect on the entire community, and that family violence extends beyond physical and sexual violence to emotional, psychological and economic abuse, and may involve overt or subtle exploitation of power imbalances.

For the first time, "family violence" has been defined and the Act incorporates examples referencing new definitions to ensure clarity in interpretation (FVPA s 5). Examples of economic abuse include behaviour that involves withholding or threatening to withhold the financial support necessary to meet the reasonable living expenses of the person or their child if they are entirely or predominantly dependent on the first person to meet those living expenses (FVPA s 6, Examples). Examples of emotional or psychological abuse include behaviour such as repeated derogatory taunts (including racial taunts), threatening to withhold medication and preventing connections with family or culture (FVPA s 7, Examples).

The terms and conditions of orders may now be tailored to suit the victim's situation and includes a presumption in favour of an order to exclude the perpetrator from the home (FVPA s 82).

Additional protections for children are included in the definition of family violence and include behaviour by a person that causes a child to hear or witness or otherwise be exposed to family violence (FVPA s 5(1)(b)). The examples in the Act include overhearing threats of physical abuse, seeing or hearing an assault, comforting or providing assistance to a family member who has been physically abused, cleaning up a site after property has been intentionally damaged, or being present when police members attend an incident involving physical abuse (FVPA s 5(1)(b), Examples).

Giving evidence in court was identified by some victims as a reason why legal protection was not pursued (VLRC, 2006, p. 386). The new Act provides for alternative methods for giving evidence, such a closed circuit television, and gives the court expanded powers. For example, despite any rules of evidence to the contrary, the court may refuse to admit or may limit the use to be made of evidence if satisfied that it is just and equitable to do so (FVPA s 243). An important addition prevents respondents from cross-examining victims (FVPA s 244).

Police powers are significantly increased, such as the ability to hold and detain a perpetrator and to enable police officers to obtain temporary after-hours protection for a victim without needing a court order (see FVPA, Part 3).

These and other initiatives in the new Family Violence Protection Act provide an important element in our understanding of family violence and development of effective responses to it.