☕️ Queensland criminalises coercive control

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Some headlines from this morning:

• Australia’s economy grew 0.2% from October to December in 2023, according to new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). This is the growth of the gross domestic product or GDP — the total value of all goods and services produced within a country. The head of national accounts at the ABS said government spending and private business investments were the main causes of growth during this period.

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Foreign Minister Penny Wong has broken an Australian Parliamentary record

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has become Australia's longest-serving female Cabinet Minister.

Senator Wong overtakes former Liberal politician Amanda Vanstone.

Wong was elected to the Senate in 2001. She was in the Cabinet from 2007-2013, and became Foreign Minister in 2022. Her combined days in Cabinet now total 2,770 days.

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Queensland has criminalised coercive control and stealthing

Queensland has become the second jurisdiction in Australia to criminalise coercive control. It will carry a penalty of up to 14 years imprisonment.

NSW was the first state to make coercive control a standalone crime in 2022.

The new legislation in Queensland will also criminalise stealthing — the non-consensual removal of a condom during sex.

Coercive control

Coercive control is a form of domestic violence where a person denies a victim-survivor autonomy and independence over time.

Controlling behaviour in any type of relationship is considered coercive control, however, laws currently criminalise it for intimate relationships.

Findings from a national review of domestic and family violence found that over 80% of men who killed a current or previous female partner had exhibited non-violent behaviours against the partners they killed.

Hannah Clarke

Queensland committed to criminalising coercive control after the murder of Hannah Clarke and her three children, by her estranged partner in 2020.

The Clarke family started a campaign to raise awareness about coercive control, and “H.A.L.T” domestic violence in the wake of the murder. H.A.L.T stands for Hannah, Aaliyah, Laianah, and Trey, her three children.

After the law passed, Hannah’s mother Sue Clarke said they will "continue to speak out until coercive control is criminalised throughout Australia."

Other states

NSW criminalised coercive control in November 2022, becoming the first state or territory to make it a standalone offence. It carries a sentence of up to seven years imprisonment.

Tasmania introduced laws criminalising family violence, including coercive behaviour, in 2004. It does not have a standalone law covering coercive control.

South Australia is in the early stages of drafting laws to criminalise coercive control. In Western Australia, a recent review recommended strengthening legislation to target coercive behaviour.

Stealthing

Stealthing will become a criminal act in Queensland as part of the new laws passed. It means the act of stealthing will be recognised as rape.

It comes as the state moves towards an affirmative consent model. This is where each person engaging in a sexual act must actively seek consent from the other person.

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Global health donors have announced new funding of $US600 million ($AU920 million) to eliminate cervical cancer.

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women. Over 90% of cervical cancer deaths are recorded in low and middle-income countries.

The new funding aims to meet several targets by 2030, such as vaccinating 90% of girls against HPV, a precursor to cervical cancer, by the age of 15, and ensuring that women with cervical disease receive the correct treatment.

Funding donors include the World Bank, UNICEF, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

TDA tidbit

How many COVID jabs have you had? Three? Four? 217? 

That’s how many shots a man in Germany was given over two and a half years, according to a new article published in academic journal The Lancet. 

His motives? Unknown. All we know is it was for "private reasons".

Astonishingly, researchers found that the excessive number of vaccinations didn’t have any negative effects on the 62-year-old’s body. 

Despite this, researchers said they didn’t endorse “hypervaccination” — i.e., getting jabbed 200+ times. They did confirm that the man doesn’t appear to have had COVID so far. You’d hope so!

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