Got Your Back Sista founder Mel Histon has welcomed the release of draft legislation outlawing coercive control.
The NSW government has invited public submissions on the bill, which follows a parliamentary joint select committee report on coercive control in June last year.
The government defines coercive control as a form of abuse which involves patterns of behaviour which have the cumulative effect of denying an intimate partner their autonomy and independence.
The behaviour can involve physical, sexual, psychological or financial abuse and can include preventing a partner from seeing family and friends or limiting their access to money.
Tasmania outlawed emotional and economic abuse in 2004. Queensland has announced plans to criminalise coercive control, but NSW is the first mainland state to draft legislation to that effect.
The draft bill sets out five elements which must be met for a coercive control charge, including that an adult must engage in an abusive "course of conduct ... repeatedly or continuously" against a current or former intimate partner. Offenders face up to seven years in jail.
A government review team found that coercive control was a factor in all but one of the 112 intimate partner homicides in NSW between March 2008 and June 2016.
Ms Histon, whose Newcastle charity helps domestic abuse survivors, said the new legislation could help prevent the worst outcomes of toxic relationships.
"It's such a big problem. It's a complex and insidious issue that leads to abuse in the home," she said.
"We absolutely welcome that they're introducing the legislation.
"Traditionally it's been behaviour that perpetrators seem to get away with, and the police go, well, there's nothing we can really do.
"With the legislation in place, the police can do something about that behaviour that leads on to even more serious forms of abuse."
The charity saw many women whose partners had gained access to their emails, texts and passwords.
"That's all part of that controlling behaviour, which instils worthlessness and fear in their victims," Ms Histon said.
"We don't always hear the full story of every woman who comes, but I would say that among the women who share their stories there is a strong element of coercive control."
