Media releases

Super Consumers Australia, the Economic Abuse Reference Group (EARG), Redfern Legal Centre, Domestic Violence NSW, the Australian Multicultural Women’s Alliance, Safe and Equal and the organisation Each have welcomed the Government’s consultation to prevent perpetrators of domestic and family violence (DFV) from accessing victims-survivors’ superannuation death benefits.

A pioneering national study has shed light on the hidden toll of coerced business debt, revealing how business structures are weaponised to perpetrate financial abuse, resulting in long-term economic hardship.

Today the NSW Supreme Court published its reasons in a test case about COVID-19 fines. The decision clarifies the requirements necessary for a fine to be valid, and calls into disrepute all the remaining 29,017 COVID-19 fines that have not been withdrawn.

The NSW Government has committed to funding Redfern Legal Centre’s Financial Abuse Service to continue and expand the service as a best practice, holistic model, as recommended in a report published in 2022 by Commbank NextChapter.

Today, the second COVID Fine case brought by Redfern Legal Centre was back in the Supreme Court. 

Redfern Legal Centre has filed another NSW Supreme Court application seeking the withdrawal of a COVID fine on the grounds of invalidity. 33,000 COVID fines were withdrawn following the first Supreme Court case in late 2022, and 29,000 remain.

Redfern Legal Centre (RLC) and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) have lodged a complaint against former NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller and NSW Police over their heavy-handed approach to handing out more than 60,000 COVID-19 fines during the pandemic.

The NSW Government’s ‘law and order’ response to the pandemic created significant fines debt and damaged community-police relations in some of the most disadvantaged parts of the state, according to a new UNSW Law School report. 

NSW Supreme Court the State of New South Wales conceded that the COVID-19 fines issued to the three plaintiffs are invalid and fail to meet the legal requirements under the Fines Act (NSW).

Leading domestic and violence advocates say they cannot support the Coercive Control Bill in its current form.