Spotlight on economic abuse - Good Shepherd Youth & Family ...

Executive Summary
This literature review has been written to support the <strong>Spotlight</strong> on Economic Abuse Project,
a joint advocacy initiative of Good Shepherd Youth & Family Service and Kildonan
UnitingCare. Both organisations provide financial counselling as well as other supports to
families on low incomes and both provide services responding to family and domestic
violence. The <strong>Spotlight</strong> on Economic Abuse Project emerged from their shared concerns
about reports of economic abuse being experienced by women accessing their services.
In Australia economic abuse has only recently been recognised in some legal jurisdictions as
a form of family and domestic violence and there is a low level of public awareness of it. The
<strong>Spotlight</strong> on Economic Abuse Project aims to identify systemic issues to facilitate initiatives
within government, corporations and community service sectors for the prevention, early
intervention and mitigation of economic abuse.
As a step towards these goals, this paper presents a review of national and international
research and other literature relating to economic abuse in Australia. It also aims to identify
key issues and sectors for intervention.
Economic abuse
Economic abuse—which is also referred to as economic violence, economic control,
economic deprivation, financial abuse and financial control—is a form of domestic and family
violence, involving behaviours that negatively affect a person financially and undermine that
person’s efforts to become economically independent (Weaver et al. 2009).
Adams et al. (2008, p. 564) describe economic abuse as involving behaviours that “control a
woman’s ability to acquire, use, and maintain economic resources, thus threatening her
economic security and potential for self-sufficiency”.
In definitions of family and domestic violence in the Australian state and territory family
violence laws that include economic abuse, it has been formulated as including:
unreasonable controlling behaviour without consent that denies a person financial autonomy;
withholding financial support reasonably necessary for the maintenance of a partner;
coercing a partner to relinquish control over assets; unreasonably preventing a person from
taking part in decisions over household expenditure or the disposition of joint property;
coercing a person to claim social security payments; and preventing a person from seeking
or keeping employment (Australian Law Reform Commission/New South Wales Law Reform
Commission [ALRC/NSWLRC] 2010, pp. 196-197). 1
There is very little information about the prevalence of economic abuse in the population in
Australia as, historically, it has not been included as a form of domestic and family violence
in the law nor has it been included in definitions of violence used in surveys. However,
research findings suggest economic abuse may be a very common form of violence affecting
women who seek assistance because of domestic and family violence.
1 These formulations are drawn from the Family Violence Protection Act 2008 (Vic) s 6; Intervention
Orders (Prevention of Abuse) Act 2009 (SA) s 8(5); Family Violence Act 2004 (Tas) ss 7, 8; and the
Domestic and Family Violence Act 2007 (NT) s 5. The full definition of economic abuse in the
Victorian legislation is given in full in Appendix B of this report.
ii