How does NZ law define family violence, and is the definition adequate?

Domestic violence and family violence mean the same thing. (‘Family harm’ is a term used by NZ Police that does not have a legal basis.)

‘Family violence’ is defined under the Family Violence Act, but the term ‘domestic violence’ is also used in NZ law with the Domestic Violence Victims’ Protection Act which provides workplace entitlements for employees experiencing domestic violence.

The Family Violence Act 2018 defines ‘family violence’ as violence against a person by any other person with whom that person is, or has been, in a family relationship.

Under the Act, a ‘family relationship’ includes:

·       A partner or spouse or ex-partner or ex-spouse

·       Any family member, e.g. grandparent/grandchild, nephew/aunt, siblings, etc.

·       Someone who ordinarily shares a household, e.g. flatmates

·       Any close, personal relationship

It does not include landlord-tenant nor employer-employee relationships, nor people who live in the same ‘dwellinghouse’ but do not share a household.

The Act defines ‘violence against a person’ as physical, sexual and/or psychological abuse that includes a pattern of behaviour that is coercive (uses force or threats) and controlling, and which causes cumulative harm. This can either be with the intention OR with the effect of coercing or controlling the person. It also includes dowry-related violence that relates to gifts, money/property given or received for a (proposed) marriage.

Violence may be a single act that is clearly abuse, such as a physical assault, or a number of acts that form a pattern of behaviour which amount to abuse, even though acts viewed in isolation may appear minor or trivial. 

Under the Act, ‘psychological abuse’ includes:

·       Threats to harm or kill

·       Intimidation, harassment, monitoring (basically this is stalking, but the term ‘stalking’ is not used in the Act)

·       Damage to property

·       Ill-treatment of pets

·       Economic abuse

·       Hindering or removing access to any aid, device, medication or other support that is likely to affect the person’s quality of life

Under the Act, a person psychologically abuses a child if that person causes or allows the child to see or hear the physical, sexual or psychological abuse of a person with whom the child has a family relationship. However, the adult suffering abuse is not to be regarded as having caused or allowed the child to see or hear that abuse, or be put at risk of seeing or hearing the abuse.

Read the Family Violence Act 2018 definition of family violence (Sections 9-14).

Is this definition adequate?

This definition is inclusive of relationships, since the Act was updated so that ‘family relationships’ cover any close, personal relationship. However, this definition is an example of “dominant, main/white-stream definitions” of family violence in that it fails “to consider the impacts of historical and colonial trauma that are experienced as both events and ongoing structures/systems.”[1]

Further, the Act is not inclusive of “Tikanga-based definitions of violence” that “encompass all relationships as ‘an absolute assault on the entirety of the individual, whānau, whakapapa.’ Māori approaches to defining violence include the ways in which violence is a violation of tapu; the transgression and violation of all that is held sacred,” nor that “Violence and abuse of whenua and taiao are considered to be violence upon our people,” i.e. Māori.

The legal definition of ‘family violence’ will likely never be inclusive of all possible specific examples of violence. For example, female genital mutilation - particularly relevant for some migrant communities - is not included in the definition, however it was made illegal in New Zealand in 1996 with an amendment to the Crimes Act.

While the definition considers physical, sexual and/or psychological, it does not consider spiritual abuse. We also believe that economic abuse should be listed alongside these forms of abuse, rather than as an example of ‘psychological abuse,’ since economic abuse is quite distinct from psychological abuse in terms of dynamics and impacts. 

The definition helpfully explains that violence can be a pattern of coercive controlling behaviours that cause cumulative harm. It helpfully includes causing or allowing to hear or see violence against someone with whom they have a family relationship and makes the very important point that the adult being targeted by abuse is not responsible for the child seeing or hearing the abuse. However, this point is not made where it needs to be in other legislation, policy and processes, as it is frequently contradicted by Oranga Tamariki and the Family Court in processes and decisions that hold adult victim-survivors, usually mothers, responsible for protecting their children against a partner or ex-partner’s violence, and punishes them when they fail to protect their children against that violence.

It could be helpful for the Act to clarify that physical abuse includes strangulation, choking or suffocation, i.e. any form of stopping someone from breathing, as while these behaviours are closely linked with homicide and are crimes under the Crimes Act, they are still often minimized and poorly understood by the public and by people themselves who experience these as a form of family violence.

It would also help for the definition to include the concept of stalking, and define that as a pattern of unwelcome intrusions in someone’s life, both in person and online, as this is another poorly understood and very high risk behaviour that is strongly linked to homicide.

It could also be helpful to consider including in the legal definition:

·       ‘systems abuse’ as weaponising of systems, such as legal, justice, child protection, health etc., to abuse someone, which is frequently part of a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour

·       distinguishing between violence that is coercive and controlling within a family relationship and violence used to resist being coercively controlled, in terms of harm, risk and culpability

For more about a tangata whenua perspectives on violence within whānau, see:

He Waka Eke Noa: Māori Cultural Frameworks for Violence Prevention and Intervention (2023)

Violence with Whānau and Mahi Tūkino - A Litany of Sound Revisited (2023)

[1] Pihama, L., Smith, L.T., Simmonds, S., Raumati, N., Smith, C.W., Cassidy, B., Te Nana, R. Sio, B (2023) He Waka Eke Noa: Māori Cultural Frameworks for Violence Prevention and Intervention: Taranaki: Tū Tama Wahine o Taranaki Citation: Pihama, L., Smith, L.T., Simmonds, S., Raumati, N., Smith, C.W., Cassidy, B., Te Nana, R. Sio, B (2023) He Waka Eke Noa: Māori Cultural Frameworks for Violence Prevention and Intervention: Taranaki: Tū Tama Wahine o Taranaki