Coercive Control

NSW

From 1 July 2024, coercive control is a criminal offence in NSW when a person uses abusive behaviours towards a current or former intimate partner with the intention to coerce or control them.

The criminal offence captures repeated patterns of physical or non-physical abuse used to hurt, scare, intimidate, threaten or control someone. The law only applies to abusive behaviour that happens after 1 July 2024.

Find out more about the NSW Government actions on criminalising coercive control.

Read the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Coercive Control) Act 2022.

ACT

In the Australian Capital Territory many aspects of coercive control our outlawed under the territories’ more general family violence acts. But the attorney-general has agreed to now act to criminalise this behaviour, so we should see more changes in the future.