Spotlight on Economic Abuse: a Literature and Policy Review

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purpose is to “build the capacity and resilience of disadvantaged and financially excluded individuals by attracting investment and injecting funds into community finance organisations that offer them financial services and products that they would otherwise not be able to access from mainstream sources” (Treasury 2012, p. 20). 8 The pilot is promoted by the government as filling a gap between welfare and mainstream financial institutions and as targeting individual who could afford financial products but cannot gain access to them including because of discrimination in the lending market (Treasury 2012). The pilot is due to be evaluated in 2012. Financial counselling The Australian Government funds community service organisations and local government bodies to provide financial counselling services to assist people experiencing financial difficulty through the Commonwealth Financial Counselling services program administered by FaHCSIA. Funded services include casework, individual advocacy, referral and community education. While the range of organisations funded to provide financial counselling services is diverse some organisations are providers of services to groups likely to include people affected by family violence, including some domestic and family violence services and family mediation services. 9 The Commonwealth Rural Financial Counselling Service funds state and regional bodies to provide free financial counselling to “primary producers, fishers and small rural businesses … who are suffering financial hardship and who have no alternative sources of impartial support” (Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry 2012, accessed 21 July 2012 at http://www.daff.gov.au/agriculture-food/drought/rfcs/). Providers of these services may be well placed to support women in rural communities experiencing economic abuse although no research or data on the Australian experience was identified in literature and web searches. Legal assistance and legal costs One final key public policy issue concerns the support available to women for representation and advice in dealing with the myriad of legal issues that can result from domestic and family violence and which can entail very significant costs. Nationally, legal aid services are funded under a partnership agreement between the Commonwealth Attorney General and legal aid commissions in each of the states and territories. Family violence is among the priorities set out in the national agreement. In Victoria this means duty lawyers are provided for family violence case lists in magistrates’ courts and Victoria Legal Aid also funds private lawyers to represent people in intervention order cases. Funding is also provided for lawyers to represent respondents in these cases to prevent women’s cross-examination by alleged perpetrators. Client means tests are also reduced or absent in family violence cases. Family violence lawyers in community legal centres are funded by the Victorian Government. So, while women generally have access to representation in family violence matters they may have to pay for legal assistance in dealing with property and other matters. 8 See . 9 A complete list of financial counselling services funded under the CFC is at (accessed 21 July 2012). 36
Conclusion: public policies and economic abuse At the societal level the issue of economic abuse is directly tackled by policies that focus on equality for women and economic equality has been a strong theme in recent public policy in Australia. While prevention has been a key focus of recent policies to address violence against women there is little evidence of any specific attention to raising community awareness of economic abuse as an aspect of domestic and family violence. At the other end of the spectrum public policies framing responses to domestic and family violence through tertiary interventions targeted at the individual level have a strong safety focus which is largely a focus on physical safety at the point of crisis and on stopping further violence. There is a stated objective to look to more holistic responses to violence and to involve mainstream services in addressing women’s needs following violence. This is a trend which may see a greater focus on women’s longer-term wellbeing including their financial wellbeing. At present such a focus is evident in some areas including in homelessness policies although in this area shortages of both crisis accommodation and affordable housing continue to be chronic problems. While there are a range of concerns with income support policies as they meet the needs of women generally—especially women with children—the evidence suggests that there are also shortcomings in the ways in which the system is able to respond to the immediate needs of women exiting domestic violence. There are two separate aspects to this: the first concerns the administration of the current system whereby women experience problems accessing the supports that are available, and the second is that the system is not designed to meet the needs of this group of women–rather a series of exceptions and add-on arrangements have been made. The first issue is one which received considerable attention in the recent review of legal frameworks relating to family violence conducted by the ALRC (2011c) and one outcome of that review was a large number of recommendations to improve responses for people experiencing violence. Addressing the second issue is probably more difficult, including because there is a very poor evidence-base relating to the nature of the problems women face and how they fare over time, including how immediate hardship on escaping violence might impact on women’s ability to gain financial security in the longer term. In relation to the income management scheme it is difficult to see how this will assist people experiencing domestic and family violence while it may lead to stigmatisation. As with income support the interaction of the child support and family assistance arrangements with economic abuse are issues that have been taken up in the recent ALRC review and are the subject of recommendations for change. If the recommendations are acted on they may go some way to addressing present problems associated with these arrangements that include the continuation of economic abuse after women have left relationships. However, problems which may require additional responses concern the adequacy of payments, and avoidance of child support payments including through manipulation of care arrangements. Key issues relating to the ways in which public policies impact on women’s access to affordable legal assistance following economic abuse are difficult to identify due to the diversity of legal matters women may be dealing with. Other complicating factors are differences in laws and systems of legal assistance across states and territories. In addition, there is limited research about the pathways through legal systems that women might take to regain economic security following domestic violence and any problems they may face. This is an area which requires further research. The need to build women’s financial capability has been identified in public policies directed to equality for women, in policies to address violence against women and in the national 37
Page 1 and 2: Spotlight on econo
Page 3 and 4: This literature review is written a
Page 5 and 6: List of Abbreviations Australian Bu
Page 7 and 8: Influences, impacts and points of i
Page 9 and 10: Currently, there are a number of ga
Page 11 and 12: Introduction This literature review
Page 13 and 14: Economic Abuse This section is conc
Page 15 and 16: elationships; sibling relationships
Page 17 and 18: A.2 Preventing acquisition of econo
Page 19 and 20: Diagram 1: Power and Control Wheel
Page 21 and 22: Economic abuse and elder abuse Econ
Page 23 and 24: studies, which concern different gr
Page 25 and 26: Figure 1: An ecological model of ec
Page 27 and 28: also parents and children and paid
Page 29 and 30: A recent qualitative study by the A
Page 31 and 32: 3) suggests the impacts of economic
Page 33 and 34: The connections between policies, f
Page 35 and 36: The establishment of a National Cou
Page 37 and 38: the Victorian Government commenced
Page 39 and 40: insufficient to meet costs for wome
Page 41 and 42: welfare payment and to encourage so
Page 43 and 44: The ALRC recommended a host of chan
Page 45: exclusion. In addition to increasin
Page 49 and 50: Legal and Regulatory Frameworks Aus
Page 51 and 52: a. DEEWR and Job Services Australia
Page 53 and 54: provide guidance materials for supe
Page 55 and 56: laws and a variety of other ‘soft
Page 57 and 58: for hardship, although as with the
Page 59 and 60: Employment Frameworks, Policies and
Page 61 and 62: Other initiatives that rely on enga
Page 63 and 64: Australian context where a strong f
Page 65 and 66: Financial education and asset build
Page 67 and 68: List of References Aboriginal Affai
Page 69 and 70: Banks, M 2011, Caught short: explor
Page 71 and 72: Dimopoulos, M 2010, Implementing le
Page 73 and 74: McCrystal, S & Smith, B 2011, 'Indu
Page 75 and 76: Sanders, CK & Schnabel, M 2007, 'Or
Page 77 and 78: Appendices APPENDIX A: Key policy d
Page 79: APPENDIX B: Economic abuse in the V

Spotlight on Economic Abuse: a Literature and Policy Review

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