William and Mary Journal of Race, Gender and Social Justice, 2024, 30(3): 447-487

Family violence (FV) takes many forms. [1] The New Zealand Family Violence Act 2018 (FVA) defines FV to include physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. [2] Psychological abuse includes threats, intimidation, harassment, property damage, ill treatment of pets, and financial abuse. [3] Psychological abuse of a child includes a perpetrator allowing a child to see FV inflicted on a member of their family or putting the child at risk of seeing that abuse. [4] Under the
FVA, acts that form part of a pattern of behavior may amount to abuse even if, when viewed in isolation, they appear to be minor or trivial. [5] One of the crucial determinations that the Family Court, therefore, has to make in implementing the FVA is the distinction between conduct that is truly benign, minor, or trivial and conduct that may appear in isolation to be minor or trivial but in fact poses a risk of harm to its victim(s).

Despite this clear legislative framework, it has been well
documented for decades that the New Zealand Family Court fails to identify FV even when presented with evidence that FV has occurred, particularly when FV involves conduct other than physical abuse. [6] It is also well documented that court psychologists fail to appreciate the harm caused to victims of non-physical violence and the relationship between psychological abuse and the risk of physical or
even lethal violence. [7] In Living at the Cutting Edge, [8] a report commissioned by the New Zealand Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Neville Robertson et al. (2007) documented the Court’s “minimisation of the impact of psychological abuse on victims of domestic violence.” [9] They concluded that the Court’s “trivialisation of psychological violence and the minimisation of the risks abusers present to both their
partners and their children” reflected “a significant lack of understanding of domestic violence.” [10] (From the Introduction). Record #8941