Greens MP Tabatha Badger wants permanent joint parliamentary committee to tackle family violence

ABS data on the incidence of family violence has revealed alarming findings for Tasmania. The Greens’ plan to tackle it.

istock generic: woman, abuse, DV, domestic violence, harassment, sexual harassment. Parent is holding her little girls arm and is about to use violence. Representing child abuse and domestic violence. . Picture: istock

The Greens say they will move in the new parliament for a powerful parliamentary committee to address the “horrifying’ rates of family, domestic, and sexual violence in Tasmania.

Greens Lyons MP Tabatha Badger said a permanent joint standing committee for the prevention of family, domestic and sexual violence, with members from both Houses of Parliament, would be an Australian first.

It has been described as an “excellent idea” by Alina Thomas, the CEO of Engender Equality.

Ms Badger said while there had been a tri-partisan approach in the past and positive steps to tackle gendered violence “much more needs to be done and fast”.

“Tasmania can truly be a national leader in eliminating family, domestic, and sexual violence,” she said.

“To achieve both the immediate reforms and the long-term changes that are required, we need an approach that goes beyond politics.

“The Tasmanian parliament proactively establishing a Joint Standing Committee will send a strong message to the community that we are serious about eliminating all forms of gendered violence.

“This approach can set us up for success by allowing us as a state to take an inclusive, evidence-based, and trauma-informed approach way forward.”

Green member for Lyons Tabatha Badger at the budget estimates in Parliament on Monday 23rd September 2024. Picture: Linda Higginson

Ms Badger said the committee would allow MPs to measure the successes and failures of policies and investments.

“There are many extraordinary organisations and brave advocates who have spent years tirelessly working to end family, domestic, and sexual violence.

“But despite their best efforts, governments of all types and at all levels have been too slow to respond, or only respond when the worst occurs.

“That’s why we need to do things differently.”

Ms Thomas welcomed the joint standing committee.

“I do think that Tasmania will really benefit from having a high level governance view over the incidence, the prevalence, the causes, the responses, both the informal and formal responses to family violence, so that we can be better co-ordinating that across the various stakeholders and sectors that are involved,” she said.

“We really want to make sure that the community-based response, which is very relevant, very trusted, is as equally as valued in the whole landscape of responses to family and sexual violence.”

Greens MP Tabatha Badger speaks to the media on Parliament Lawns in Hobart on Tuesday, July 1, 2025.

Ms Badger said parliamentary privilege and the ability to undertake closed ‘in camera’ sessions were “significant advantages” of the committee structure.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that Tasmania had the highest rate of intimate partner violence, cohabiting partner violence, stalking and emotional abuse from a cohabiting partner in Australia.

In 2021-22, data showed 32 per cent or more than 70,000 women in Tasmania had experienced violence, emotional abuse or economic abuse by a cohabiting partner since the age of 15.

Young Tasmanian women between the ages of 18 and 19 years old were nearly three times more likely to experience physical violence in a relationship compared to other teens nationally.