Andrew Mole
15 May 2022
This article was written by Andrew Mole and published by the Sunraysia Daily HERE.
SCOTLAND has set the gold standard of relevant family violence laws, leading the world by introducing severe penalties for coercive control.
And the ink had not long dried on the legislation when senior justice staff in Scotland were hooked up in conversation with an 18-year-old Australian.
Canberra has been engaged with the Scottish authorities about how they researched, drafted, and progressed the restructuring of their laws, but that didn't stop them ringing Mildura's Conor Pall.
Conor is a teenager who also happens to be the pin-up boy for the failure of the family violence system. For the failure of virtually everything that is meant to be in place to protect all family violence victims – from the home to the police station, from the courts to the Parliament.
And to that toughest judge of all – the public.
Conor has a theory about those failures.
"Unless you are the perfect victim – a white, upper middle-class female – if you don't fit that profile you can end up just as victimised by the system and the services that are meant to support it," Conor explained.
He might still be a teenager, but life has aged Conor Pall well beyond his years.
His voice has retained its youthful timbre, but the words that spill so easily into his conversations are tired, at times frustrated, occasionally almost defeatist.
Through it all, there is never any doubt Conor knows exactly what he's talking about – he has lived through every painful moment of it.
That he can be so erudite, combining a determination to make fundamental and permanent changes for the victims of domestic violence with a fire to simply make life better by "just allowing people to be who they are", is the outcome of his journey – which has a long way to go.
Starting with the fact he dislikes, intensely, the word journey.
"I hate that word," Conor said. "A victim's journey to survival is not some routine passage, not one person's story, and recovery – if they make it – is the same.
"In my case, I used to feel dirty feral, and that was not who I wanted to feel like or be. I have used what happened to me to fuel my future, not to be a feral."
A conversation with Conor is not what you would expect, not a confused young man still trying to rationalise the cards life dealt him way too early.
You are – and you aren't – hearing an 18 year-old.
His embrace of a better world is wide. The fire fuelling him includes a passion and drive to minimise and prevent violence against women, men, members of the LGBTQIA+ community. And children, with personal lived experience.
With support and advocacy, strategy and organisational development and stakeholder involvement are all examples of his "forced" experience.
"I am committed to social justice, equality and human rights, as well as ensuring survivors of abuse are heard and brought to the decision-making table," he said.
For the past two years he has also been a member of the Victorian Youth Parliament, where he had a significant role in the 2021 "bill" proposed by the young members to seek introduction of "coercive control" as a crime equal with physical assault charges in domestic violence situations (like Scotland) and again, in the 2022 proposal – returning passenger rail services to Mildura.
But when he stood up recently to accept the Victorian Young Achiever of the Year award, whether anyone in the Melbourne Sofitel audience truly understood what brought this remarkable young man to the podium was doubtful at best.
Now studying social work at La Trobe University, Conor said he hoped to go on and complete a master's degree in law and use both degrees, and his own life, as the foundation for a role in public policy.
He believes the political arena is the forum where he can help institute improvement in what he sees as a flawed system coping with the soaring rate of domestic violence.
Conor often speaks of coercive violence and its insidious impact on families across the region and the country.
He said coercive control was when patterns of abusive behaviours were used by one person to dominate and control another, or others, in a relationship.
He said the insidious part of the tactic was that it happened slowly, initially imperceptibly, but clearly planned, before graduating to more dramatic, and potentially deadly, stages such as threats, surveillance, insults and withholding money.
"Coercive violence is described as the kind of invisible, systemic abuse that over time robs victims of their autonomy, their ability to think rationally, and their independence," Conor said.
"It is almost always a factor in cases of intimate-partner homicide."
And Scottish Women's Aid chief executive Marsha Scott agrees. Her organisation was pivotal in the crafting of Scotland's 21st century Domestic Abuse Act.
She previously told an Australian parliamentary inquiry the old laws, the ones under which Australia still functions, were ineffective at responding to coercive control.
"The status quo was not acceptable in Scotland, and I would suggest it's not acceptable in Australia either," she said.
"I have seen so few domestic abuse cases in which there wasn't some element of coercion. It's important not to think of coercive control as this totally separate phenomenon that happens and then physical assault happens in a different relationship – they're all embedded together."
The Scottish Bill was developed slowly and thoroughly, produced in partnerships with frontline organisations and with the victims-survivors themselves.
"What women have told us is what they were seeing being prosecuted by the crime office and being pursued by police was the tiny tip of the iceberg," she said.
"In fact, often their experiences were trivialised by saying, 'Well you don't have a broken bone, we don't see any blood'."
And that's something Conor really gets, something that helps explain his determination to get Australian lawmakers to grasp the need for this level of protection.
In Victoria people accused, charged, even convicted of domestic violence have full – and free – access to legal aid if they are on low or no income, but Conor said victims learned very quickly they would be the ones paying the price.
Such as going through an annual hearing to renew an intervention order (IVO). While you are classified as a child or dependent, your court representation is covered.
"The minute you turn 18, you are on your own," Conor said.
"As if everything that had gone before was simply washed away and you were set to get on with a happy, healthy life.
"What a joke. Because I am 18, I have to fund any court appearances I want to make on any subject, at any time.
And because, in towns such as ours, there is no dedicated legal aid service, local law firms are all on the roster.
"That means perpetrators can shop around, and in a fairly short time have retained the services of every firm in their town, which is why some have had to pay as much as $15,000 to get a barrister to represent them at an IVO hearing, every other law firm would have had a conflict of interest with them as a client."
Conor is almost dispassionate as he ticks off the setbacks he, and so many others, face, not least because they are male.
Figures here show one in six women have experienced physical or sexual violence by a current or former partner, while for men it is one in 16.
Three-quarters of victims of domestic violence report the perpetrator as male, while 25 per cent say it is a female.
"One thing I suspect many survivors feel, like me, is the lack of control. That is a powerful fear to overcome.
"But I have learnt to control and filter my emotions. There is no point looking backwards, there's nothing positive to be gained there."
Once armed with his social work and law degrees, Conor will go hunting for a politician to be his iron fist in a velvet glove.
Party alignment is the least of his concerns; if he can find one who will take up the fight, Conor will be their man.
"How do any politicians, with no lived experience, make any kind of worthwhile policy if they don't know exactly what they are dealing with?" he said.
That challenge is still to come. And that's why Conor values platforms such as the Young Achiever Awards so people will stop and listen.
"I said these are the platforms where people do listen," he said. "It's bigger than me, but for that one night it was an opportunity more than it was an honour and I wasn't going to waste it.
"I am a son, brother, mate, colleague – all that and more – before I am a survivor but there is still such a stigma attached not everyone talks about it."
For those who can't, or won't, it is people such as Conor who will.
People who need support because of domestic or family violence can find it through The Orange Door, 1800 290 943, or Mallee Sexual Assault Unit and Domestic Violence Service, 5025 5400.
Support is available any time at Kids Helpline, 1800 551 800.