A re-elected Victorian Labor government will create two new Australian-first offences aimed at closing “loopholes” it says have allowed perpetrators of family violence to escape punishment.
On Sunday, the premier, Ben Carroll, will announce an election commitment to legislate a new form of manslaughter covering cases in which a person takes their own life as a result of family violence, as well as a new offence covering perpetrators abandoning a victim in need of medical care.
The latter responds to recommendations made by the coroner after the deaths of Belinda Jones and Narelle Simmons.
Jones, 40, died on the floor of her Maryborough home in July 2023 after her partner left her there overnight and then waited two hours to call an ambulance after waking to find her cold and not breathing.
Jones had succumbed to treatable bacterial infections and sepsis, which a hospital failed to diagnose during an emergency presentation days earlier. Her partner was not charged with any offence in relation to her death.
In her findings published last month, the state coroner, Liberty Sanger, said: “In my view, the act of abandoning a victim of family violence requiring medical attention is an act of family violence, that instils fear in the victim and affirms a perpetrator’s control over the victim.”
Simmons, 42, died in October 2021 after her partner admitted to punching her twice in the face and elbowing her once in the back of the head before leaving her Cranbourne home.
Her body was found nine days later after her daughter requested a welfare check. Sanger was unable to determine whether she died immediately after the assault or hours or days later.
Her partner – whom the coroner said had 18 previous family violence victims – pleaded guilty to common assault and failing to report a reportable death. He was sentenced to five months’ imprisonment and a 12-month community corrections order.
The government’s media release said the two new offences would close “loopholes” that allow perpetrators to “slip through the cracks in the justice system and walk free”.
The government has also committed to increasing the maximum penalty for rape from 25 years to life imprisonment and upping the maximum penalty for every other serious sexual offence by five years. The maximum penalty for persistent breaches of family violence intervention orders would also double from five years’ imprisonment to 10.
It will also make the standard sentence for the murder of a current or former partner 30 years – up from 25.
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Labor will amend the Evidence Act to prevent barristers from using humiliating and invasive questioning techniques on victim-survivors in court. Courts would also be able to consider patterns of sexual abuse as evidence at trial.
The announcement follows a week of crime-focused election commitments from Carroll, including creating a new police training facility in Melbourne’s western suburbs and the introduction of Jack’s Law, which would give police and protective services officers the power to stop and search people for knives using handheld metal detectors.
“I’m a tough-on-crime premier – and that means being tough on family and sexual violence,” Carroll said in a statement ahead of Sunday’s announcement.
“We must act on the violence that is killing a Victorian woman every two weeks.”
The Coalition last year committed to Jack’s Law and also have plans to expand adult sentencing for youth offenders, increase police numbers and split the existing court of appeal into two separate entities, if elected in November.
