Recognising coercive control: WA conference spotlights First Nations experiences with domestic violence

As Australia continues to grapple with alarmingly high rates of family and domestic violence, First Nations women and children remain disproportionately impacted.

The Hatchery’s Ending Coercive Control & Family Violence Conference will bring a national focus on distinct challenges faced by First Nations communities, hoping to drive meaningful progress in safeguarding those at risk.

From 28 to 29 October 2025, practitioners, advocates and experts will gather on Whadjuk Noongar Country to explore coercive control and drive systemic change. Topics include the potential criminalisation and the need for culturally safe responses across diverse communities, such as First Nations people.

According to a 2023 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) study, coercive control appears in 57% of family and domestic violence reports, underscoring its urgency in the national conversation on abuse.

The AIHW defines coercive control as a pattern of controlling behaviours used to establish and maintain control over another person. These behaviours can significantly affect someone’s mental and physical health, employment, relationships, financial security and sense of autonomy.

National Indigenous Times spoke with Kungarakan/Warramungu woman and upcoming conference speaker, Stephanie Monck, on understanding coercive control in the First Nations context.

Bringing nearly 21 years of experience as a lawyer, Ms Monck has spent the past five years working in the family and domestic violence space, including as Principal Legal Officer at both Women’s Legal Service WA and previously Aboriginal Family Legal Services.

Speaking on coercive control broadly, Ms Monck said, “What we find is often women downplay the violence they are experiencing because it’s not physical, and that’s the norm”.

However, in cultural contexts such as First Nations communities, coercive control often involves complex family and community dynamics which require culturally-safe responses:

“When we’re talking about coercive control, it’s not just a one-on-one thing always. In Indigenous families, it can be his whole family against her—so there’s more than one coercive controller in that situation,” Ms Monck said.

Proud Noongar woman, Alison Scott, also spoke with National Indigenous Times earlier this month on the unique context surrounding violence in First Nations communities.

“Lateral violence is the violence that happens in our community amongst us… that kind of violence comes from invasion and colonisation, and the purpose of it is to have communities fighting amongst themselves so that they don’t fight presence,” Ms Scott said.

“When you come home and you’re unsafe in those environments as well, and you’re challenged and you don’t get as much support from your community, that can be devastating as well, and take strength and power away from you when you need it most.”

The upcoming conference intends to address critical areas such as legal frameworks and responses to coercive control. But criminalising coercive control is challenging.

“We have some laws that address it,” Ms Monck said. “But understanding that all the nuances of control will be difficult to criminalise, because it comes down to it, how do you prove it?”

Ms Monck suggested the criminalisation of coercive control may also lead to unintended consequences for victims.

“I’m not overly fond of thinking about the criminalisation of coercive control because of the impact it will have on Aboriginal communities,” she said, commenting on a flaw in WA’s current responses to domestic and family violence.

In WA’s criminal code, a lack of distinction between violence committed by a perpetrator and their victim in domestic disputes may see the victim misidentified as an aggressor.

“You think about police are going off to a heated situation, and everybody’s heightened, right? Person committing violence is heightened, the person receiving it is heightened because they’re in fight or flight mode themselves,” Ms Monck said.

“We know that Aboriginal women often get misidentified in a family domestic violence situation because they’re also committing ‘violence’, because they’re protecting themselves or their children.”

Classified as a ‘Category B family violence offence’, multiple reports of domestic violence can have a court declare an individual as a Serial Family Violence Offender (SFVO) – resulting in court-ordered electronic monitoring.

In light of this, Ms Monck added First Nations voices must be central to designing solutions that truly address coercive control and abuse:

“The complex cultural context can be a barrier for [victims] to disclose and seek support because of the impact on their culture and identity if they have to leave,” she said.

“So that they don’t have to leave, let’s try and deal with it within their communities. Let’s try and find solutions within their communities, it has to be a culturally safe and secure.

“Because Aboriginal people, for too long, we’ve had other people making decisions for us, and where are we? We’re no better off in terms of the violence in our communities, and it’s because we’ve largely been excluded from solution-focused outcomes.”

Ms Monck stressed the importance of challenging harmful stereotypes and recognising the diverse dynamics of abuse towards First Nations women.

Looking to the future, Ms Monck believes while some changes are occurring, there is still a long road ahead.

“I can be as optimistic as I like about how I think the future is going to be in terms of no coercive control or no family violence, but that’s a pipe dream,” she said.

“Family violence has always been around. In my view, it’s never going to go away. It might just become more covert, too.”

Despite this, Ms Monck believes continued conversations and legal recognition of coercive control are critical signs of progress towards safer futures for First Nations people.

“But of course, things are going to improve because we’re talking about it and the law is addressing it, and we’re having national responses to family and domestic violence,” she said.

“Coercive control, again, is a new revelation of a form of abuse…But what we are finding, and I’m very pleased to say this, is a slow shift in the way the Judiciary will think about applying or putting their mind to coercive control as a form of abuse.”

Ms Monck emphasised the need to centre those most impacted.

“So let’s engage with the communities who are affected by it the most. Let’s draw them in. If you do that, I think it’s going to improve.”

For more information on the event, learn more here.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic or family violence, contact 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732 or 13YARN (for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people): 13 92 76.