Coercive control became a stand-alone offence in New South Wales in July 2024 and Queensland in May 2025, each on its own timetable, and in NSW 682 reports led to 42 proceedings, of which 10 were finalised and four ended in a finding of guilt by 2026-06-30

What is happening?

Coercive control is a pattern of controlling, threatening and isolating behaviour inside a relationship that need not involve physical violence. Australia has eight states and territories, each with its own criminal law, and each is deciding on its own whether and when to make that pattern a stand-alone criminal offence.

New South Wales was first. Its offence commenced on 2024-07-01. Queensland followed with section 334C of its Criminal Code, in force from 2025-05-26, carrying a maximum of 14 years and covering current and former intimate partners, family members and unpaid carers.

Everywhere else the offence is either enacted but not yet in force, still a bill, or not proposed as a stand-alone crime at all. South Australia passed its Act on 2025-09-04, with assent on 2025-09-11 and commencement reported as expected in 2027. Victoria received assent for its Act on 2026-09-22, and its official bill page carries no commencement date. The Australian Capital Territory tabled a bill on 2026-05-28. Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania have widened civil family violence definitions or are amending existing laws, without a stand-alone offence in force.

The first state to measure its own offence shows how slowly the new law moves through courts. In the two years to 2026-06-30, NSW police recorded 682 coercive control reports, 42 proceedings were commenced, and 10 had been finalised by the courts — six withdrawn and four ended in a finding of guilt. The other 32 proceedings were still open on that date.

Whose problem is this?

Whether a person can report this pattern as a crime of its own depends on which side of a state or territory border they live on, and on which month they ask.

Where does this problem end?

Excluded by name — the value question next to this one. Whether a stand-alone offence helps or harms is contested. Concerns about wrongful prosecution of victims and about uneven effects on minority communities are part of the record, and this document reports them as positions taken by specific bodies without deciding between them.

What this dossier examines is narrower than that debate and does not depend on how it ends: whether the same conduct is a crime in one state and not in the next.

What is the state now, and what should it be?

Now

Two of eight jurisdictions have the offence in force, and they differ on whom it covers. Where enacted laws state a maximum penalty, the figures run from 7 to 14 years.

Needs a new measurementthe target state: no opened source sets a national target for whether, when or in what common form the offence should exist across Australia. Secondary summaries report that the national principles issued by the Commonwealth Attorney-General in 2023 left criminalisation to each jurisdiction, but that document could not be opened, so its wording is not used here as a target.

How big is it?

Between about 3.9 million and 13.4 million residents lived, as of 2025-09-30, in a state or territory where no stand-alone coercive control offence was in force on 2026-10-04.

The low end counts Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania, where no stand-alone offence has been enacted or proposed as such: 3,903,900 people. The high end adds Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory, where the offence is enacted or proposed but not in force: a further 9,498,700. New South Wales and Queensland together held 14,317,100 of the 27,724,744 national total, about 51.6 percent by the arithmetic of this document.

These are residents, not victims. The figure says how many people live outside the reach of an in-force offence, not how many of them experience coercive control. No opened source measures how common coercive control is across Australia, so the number of people harmed by the gap cannot be derived.

Under what conditions does it arise?

1. Criminal law belongs to each state and territory. Each parliament writes its own offence, chooses its own scope and penalty, and sets its own start date, so a single pattern of conduct is treated eight different ways at once.

2. Enactment and commencement are separate steps. South Australia and Victoria have passed laws that are not yet operating, because commencement waits on preparation with police, courts and prosecutors. The ACT government said at tabling that its own timeline would run two years or more.

3. Jurisdictions chose different instruments on purpose. The Northern Territory placed coercive control in its civil domestic violence law and left out a criminal offence, a design that advisory bodies supported. Western Australia described a staged approach starting with civil definitions. Tasmania is extending offences it already has. These are stated choices, not omissions.

4. The conversion record is short and comes from two states only. A finalised case takes time to reach court, so the first two years of data mostly show proceedings still underway rather than outcomes.

What has been tried?

Victoria is the clearest case of a position changing over time: secondary summaries report a recommendation against a stand-alone offence in 2016, and an Act creating one received assent ten years later.

What was found?

Why is it still unsolved?

Coordination failure — every jurisdiction can act, none has to act on the same terms or at the same time, and no opened source names a body that sets a common standard.

The offence exists where a parliament has written it and a commencement date has arrived. Each of those two steps is taken separately in eight places, so the national picture changes one jurisdiction at a time and in no fixed order. Between the first commencement in NSW and any date when all eight have the offence in force, the legal status of the same conduct depends on location.

The differences are not only in timing. Queensland covers family members and unpaid carers as well as partners, South Australia covers current and former partners, and Victoria covers intimate partners. Maximum penalties among the enacted laws range from 7 to 14 years. Even when every jurisdiction has an offence, people who move or whose relationships cross a border may meet different definitions.

Some of the variation is deliberate. The Northern Territory and Western Australia chose civil routes on stated grounds, and secondary summaries report that a Victorian Royal Commission advised against a criminal offence in 2016 on grounds of wrongful prosecution risk. A coordination failure here does not mean that one answer has been ignored; it means that no shared process exists to reach one answer or to decide that different answers are acceptable.

What observation would mean it is solved?

Candidates — (a) a stand-alone offence in force in all eight jurisdictions, or a stated national decision that civil routes are an accepted alternative (b) common or explicitly reconciled definitions of whom the offence covers (c) published reported-to-finalised data from every jurisdiction where the offence is in force.

(a) alone is incomplete. Eight offences with different scope and penalties can all be in force while the same conduct is still treated differently across a border.

(b) alone is paper. Matching definitions say nothing about whether reports become proceedings. NSW shows that an offence can be in force for two years with 10 of 42 proceedings finalised.

(c) alone measures volume, not reach. Conversion data exists only where the offence exists, so it cannot show what happens to people in jurisdictions without one. The three have to be read together.

What is it connected to?

What these sources do not say

• The wording of the 2023 national principles. The Commonwealth page and its known copy returned HTTP 403 to automated fetching. The description that the principles left criminalisation to each jurisdiction comes from secondary summaries, and no opened source quotes the document itself.
• A federal statement on why no common standard was set. No opened source carries a Commonwealth explanation for leaving the form and timing of the offence to each jurisdiction. Stated positions were found for the Northern Territory, Western Australia and the ACT and are reported above.
• Commencement proclamations for Victoria, South Australia and the ACT. The 2027 date for South Australia is a reported expectation, not a proclamation. The official Victorian bill page carries no commencement date, and no opened source gives one.
• Whether the ACT bill has passed. The committee report was due before 2026-10-04, but no opened source reports a vote.
• Why so few NSW proceedings had been finalised. No opened source evaluates whether the record reflects the difficulty of proving the offence, police training, victim participation, or ordinary court time.
• How the Queensland figures fit together. The opened report gives 149 reports and 53 charges, and splits outcomes as 40 resolved, 70 unresolved and 39 withdrawn, with a further 17 found unsubstantiated. It does not explain how the 17 relate to the 149.
• Whether the absence of a stand-alone offence leaves people less protected. No opened source compares outcomes under existing laws in WA, the NT or Tasmania with outcomes under a stand-alone offence.
• How common coercive control is. No opened source gives a national prevalence figure. Secondary summaries report that the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare lists it as a key information gap, but that page could not be opened.
• The NSW maximum penalty and scope. The opened NSW pages used here give the commencement date and the monitoring counts, not the penalty or the relationships covered.

See the evidence

What was opened and what was not. The three government pages for NSW, Queensland and Victoria, the NSW monitoring report and the ABS release were opened directly and carry the commencement dates, the assent date, the enforcement counts and the population figures. The positions of the other jurisdictions come from a WA government announcement, public broadcaster reports and a support service summary. The national principles, the 2016 Royal Commission report, the NT commencement page, the ACT committee page and two national data pages could not be opened; those rows keep their place with the URL left blank. This is a Path A output (research-based definition), so observation_refs is empty and provenance_mode: press-derived.

People affected

Estimated range 3,903,900–13,402,600 As of population 2025-09-30; legal status 2026-10-04

Sensitivity The figure counts residents living where no stand-alone offence is in force, not people experiencing coercive control; no opened source gives national prevalence, so the number harmed by the gap is not derivable. The width of the range reflects two definitions of the gap, no offence enacted versus no offence in force, not measurement error. The range will narrow as South Australia, Victoria and the ACT commence their laws, on dates not confirmed in opened sources. New South Wales and Queensland held 14,317,100 residents; together with the high end this is 27,719,700, and the remaining 5,044 of the national total of 27,724,744 are residents of other territories not assigned to either side.

Regional breakdown The chain terms are already sums of measured state and territory populations; no further sub-state breakdown is meaningful because criminal law applies at state and territory level.