New South Wales will be the first Australian jurisdiction to criminalise coercive control despite opposition from domestic violence groups about the way the offence is defined.
The state government's legislation passed parliament on Wednesday, which means coercive control will become a criminal offence with a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment.
Coercive control is commonly a precursor to intimate partner homicide and involves patterns of behaviour that have the cumulative effect of denying victim-survivors autonomy and independence.
Attorney-General Mark Speakman said lives would be saved because of the bill's passing.
"Women will be able to escape from domestic terrorism," he said.
"Domestic abuse victim-survivors tell us commonly that what is worse than bruises or broken bones is the pattern of psychological, sexual, spiritual, financial and other abuse that has them trapped in their own homes."
Last year NSW's domestic violence review team found that 99 per cent — 111 out of 112 — intimate partner homicides between 2008 and 2016 in NSW were preceded by coercive control.
Despite its prevalence, it is considered a complex area of law and is not criminalised in many countries around the world.
England and Wales were the first to do so in 2015.
The NSW government created a "bespoke" version of the offence which seeks not to "over-criminalise" and exacerbate the problem of over-representation of Indigenous people in jails.
The legislation will only cover intimate partner relationships, meaning family relationships are not included, and it must be proved the perpetrator had an intention to control.
These limits have been criticised by many domestic violence groups who warned the bill could actually be dangerous.
Domestic Violence NSW CEO Renata Field said the threshold would be too high to meet in many cases and give women a false sense of confidence their perpetrator could be prosecuted.
"You have to show that someone intended to cause that harm but in intimate relationships, there can be misguided beliefs ... someone may feel they have a right to control finances for example ... but they don't believe that intentionally causes harm," Ms Field told the ABC last month.
Other community groups, including Women's Legal Service NSW, demanded more consultation to get the offence right but Mr Speakman said there had been significant stakeholder engagement, with eight rounds of consultation over two-and-a-half years and 30 round tables.
"We could have kept consulting for years and years and years chasing the perfect but let's start today with something that is a massive change already in NSW and build on that years in to come," he said.
Some groups like Relationships Australia and Women's Community Shelters are in strong support of the legislation and buoyed by the government's promise to review the laws in the coming years.
The offence won't come into effect until 2024, to allow time for frontline services to be trained in how to identify coercive control and raise community awareness of the behaviour.
