Popular media opinion polling

It would be remiss not to include the information gathered through attitudinal surveys from online opinion polling in any thorough discussion of CP in Australia. Incidents involving a parent administering CP to a child in public are regularly reported in the media. Online opinion polls conducted by news corporations in response to news incidents gauge the attitudes of their readers towards CP. In October 2009, an online poll was conducted by News Ltd across its news websites in response to a story about a mother whose nine-year-old daughter had reported to her teacher that she was hit with a wooden spoon by her parents. Mandatory reporting regulations in Australia require teachers to report potential cases of abuse and the incident was investigated by the police. An online opinion poll asked readers whether they thought that parents should be allowed to smack their children, with more than 90% of over 8000 respondents answering yes (Pilcher, Reference Pilcher2009). More recently, a South Australian man was charged with aggravated assault after smacking his 12-year-old son three times for ‘throwing a tantrum’ (Fewster, Reference Fewster2016). The father had been convicted of abuse in 2014, but the conviction was overturned when the judge ruled that the punishment was reasonable and legal under Australian laws (Noble, Reference Noble2016). Polls have also shown that respondents generally disagree with being told how children should be disciplined. For example, in one survey, nearly one-third of respondents stated that parents should be able to discipline their children as they see fit (McPhee, Reference McPhee2010); another found that 82.2% of respondents claimed to have been smacked with an open hand as part of discipline while they were growing up and 59.4% of respondents stated that they did not want Australian courts to have the power to dictate acceptable methods of discipline for children (Watson, Reference Watson2012).

A survey conducted by Relationships Australia also asked questions pertaining to parents’ rights to use CP. The second of two online monthly surveys conducted in April 2016 and April 2017 (Relationships Australia, 2016, 2017) on its website asked whether respondents would support a ban on CP if it meant that parents who occasionally smacked their child/ren would not be prosecuted. Of the almost 1450 respondents, the majority of whom identified as female (77%); it was found that 59% of women and 45% of men would support such a ban. This survey also found that 51% of parents had used CP on their child/ren and that over 80% had experienced CP in their own childhood. Only 8% of female respondents and 17% of male respondents felt it reasonable to use an instrument such as a wooden spoon to discipline children. The surveys consisted of six questions each, which restricts the extent of its investigation; however, they measured gender, age and parent status of the respondents and state that ‘the demographic profile of survey respondents remains consistent with our experience of the groups of people that would be accessing the Relationships Australia website’ (Relationships Australia, 2016, 2017, para 6).

There are many problems with using opinion polls to gauge attitudes towards, and prevalence of, CP. Online opinion polls conducted by media outlets are subject to limited method variance, and employ ambiguous colloquial terminology, such as ‘smacking’, without proper definition. When a contentious issue such as CP of children is brought to the fore in the context of an incident such as those mentioned earlier, it is likely that ‘individual views and audience-maximising media programming amplify each other through synergistic selection and reinforcement’ (Indemaur & Roberts, Reference Indemaur, Roberts, Wilson, Meagher, Gibson, Denemark and Western2005, p. 148), and the reader may be reacting impulsively and emotively when completing the subsequent survey (Aharony, Reference Aharony2012). Media outlets have their own readership and cater to certain demographics of political affiliation, age and socioeconomic status. Most surveys do not ask for any information on these variables, nor do they seek to collect a representative sample of respondents. This effect is unhelpful in uncovering comprehensive attitudinal and prevalence data on CP and is counter to the employment of valid research to inform and guide public policy. A survey conducted on the news.com.au website in September 2011, in which 85% of respondents admitted to using CP (Godfrey, Reference Godfrey2011), has been cited by academic researchers in Australia (e.g., Kish & Newcombe, Reference Kish and Newcombe2015; Porzig-Drummond, Reference Porzig-Drummond2015), despite the dubious validity of such data. Another problem with opinion polling is that it is ‘able to read the public pulse, but rarely tries to understand how social attitudes and social behaviour change over time, or tell us why different constituencies find themselves in conflict’ (Gibson, Wilson, Meagher, Denemark, & Western, Reference Gibson, Wilson, Meagher, Denemark, Western, Wilson, Meagher, Gibson, Denemark and Western2005, p. 2). They may provide a snapshot of attitudes or practices at a point in time, but do not place information contextually. Beliefs and ideologies are linked with approval of CP (Taylor et al., Reference Taylor, Al-Hiyari, Lee, Priebe, Guerrero and Bales2016), and a multidimensional, ecological approach that includes consideration of culture, religion, education and socio-economic background is therefore required, rather than a simplistic model such as that provided by online polls.

Empirical academic research

The Australian Childhood Foundation, in collaboration with the former National Research Centre for the Prevention of Child Abuse at Monash University, commissioned a market research company to collect attitudinal data from 301 parents on CP of children in 2002 (Tucci, Saunders, & Goddard, Reference Tucci, Saunders and Goddard2002) and from 720 adults in 2006 (Tucci et al., Reference Tucci, Mitchell and Goddard2006). The 2006 study found that 10% of parents agreed with using implements such as belts and canes to punish a naughty child, while 82% disagreed and 8% were uncertain; compared with the 2002 study in which 4% agreed, 95% disagreed and 1% were uncertain about using implements to punish children. While the possibility of using an instrument to corporally punish a child is not precluded from the law, the relatively high number of parents who feel that this is not a reasonable means of punishing a child suggests that current allowances in legislation for CP is at odds with some community expectations. In 2002, 55% agreed that it was reasonable to leave a mark on a child as a result of punishment, and 45% agreed with this in 2006. This figure also highlights a discrepancy between what is legally permissible and what is deemed reasonable by a large proportion of parents as parents in New South Wales (NSW), for example, who leave a mark after punishment would be in breach of the current legislation in that state (see AIFS, 2017a). State and territory legislation may vary and is underpinned by the Common Law defence of ‘reasonable chastisement’. However, in NSW, an amendment to state legislation was introduced in 2001 stipulating that children may be hit from the neck down only and that punishment must not harm the child for more than a ‘short period’, however this term is not clearly defined. It is indicated that approval of CP is declining (Tucci et al., Reference Tucci, Mitchell and Goddard2006) and that a proportion of parents are either not aware of legislation governing CP, confused about it, or their own opinions are at odds with it.

An international study (Douglas & Straus, Reference Douglas and Straus2006) found that, among 219 university students in Australia, 52.8% did not strongly disagree that they were spanked or hit a lot before age 12. The authors assumed that students who did not experience CP would most likely strongly disagree with the statement that they were ‘spanked or hit a lot’ (p. 297). Cuskelly, Morris, Gilmore, and Besley (Reference Cuskelly, Morris, Gilmore and Besley2015) conducted two studies: the first, comprising 149 parents with at least one child under six years of age, found that 28% of parents used CP to manage their child’s behaviour; and of the 127 parents in the second study, between 12.2% and 37.2% used CP, and this was associated with their education level. Moreover, in their assessment of a parenting program, Sanders, Bor, and Morawska (Reference Sanders, Bor and Morawska2007) found that, in a sample of 305 parents with a three-year-old child, over half of the parents had employed CP with their children. A study of 4010 caregivers of children younger than 12 in Queensland found that 43.4% used a single smack on the hand as a discipline strategy, while 7.7% used multiple smacks, or used an object to smack (Sanders, Markie-Dadds, Rinaldis, Firman, & Baig, Reference Sanders, Markie-Dadds, Rinaldis, Firman and Baig2006). The MUSP surveyed 4076 mothers and found that, when their children were aged five years, 71.6% used CP sometimes, 9.2% always used CP and 19% never used it to discipline their children (Alati et al., Reference Alati, Maloney, Hutchinson, Najman, Mattick, Bor and Williams2010). A study of 4,502 respondents from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne found that approximately 40% use a single smack, around 10% smack multiple times, and around 8% use an object to smack their children to discipline them (Dittman, et al., Reference Dittman, Keown, Rose, Farruggia, Sanders and Sofronoff2011).

A prominent Australian empirical CP study has focused on qualitative research. Saunders and Goddard’s (Reference Saunders and Goddard2010) report on the impact of CP on children documented children’s trauma, sadness, confusion and anger associated with being corporally punished by a parent. Their research is comparative to other such research published internationally (see, e.g., Breen, Daniels, & Tomlinson, Reference Breen, Daniels and Tomlinson2015; Trocme et al., Reference Trocme, Maclaurin, Fallon, Daciuk, Billingsley, Tourigny and McKenzie2001; Willow & Hyder, Reference Willow and Hyder1998). Qualitative data from parents’ perspectives may also be useful in understanding the motivations and propensity for the use of CP, and this type of research has also been previously conducted overseas (see, e.g., Taylor, Hamvas, & Paris, Reference Taylor, Hamvas and Paris2011), but not in Australia. This qualitative research forms a basis upon which our knowledge of children’s experiences with CP may be built and reinforced by comprehensive and robust quantitative research.

Empirical academic research conducted over the past 20 years in Australia has been primarily incidental and limited in scope and depth. Further investigation into prevalence of CP practices among parents and experiences among children, as well as data on chronicity, severity and the nature of the CP is needed to further build upon the current knowledge within the field. Academic research must provide an important foundation for evidence-based policy development in any progressive society.

Australian government studies

Several Australian government institutions collect data on the health and welfare of children and youth. The Australian Temperament Project (ATP) by AIFS, a longitudinal study that began in 1983, is one of two studies that has collected data on the practice of CP and have been published in incidental contexts (see AIFS, 2017b; Smart et al., Reference Smart, Richardson, Sanson, Dussuyer, Marshall, Toumbourou and Oberklaid2005, for examples of such reports). With a sub-sample of 467 respondents, one study showed that 38.5% had experienced CP as a child and 5.8% had experienced severe CP (Rozenblat et al., Reference Rozenblat, Ryan, Wertheim, King, Olsson and Krug2017). Another AIFS study, ‘Growing up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children’ (AIFS, 2017c) did not collect any data on CP specifically, but measured variables of ‘hostile and inconsistent parenting’, ‘lower parental warmth’ and ‘low use of reasoning’ and found them to be risk factors for social or emotional problems, peer problems and low prosocial skills, respectively. These factors may be linked with the use of CP in some scenarios (for a review of this theory, see Rohner & Lansford, Reference Rohner and Lansford2017). Notably, wave 7 of this study asked questions to the cohort pertaining to their experiences with CP in childhood, but only to determine whether respondents felt that their parents had used CP excessively, and these data have not yet been analysed at the time of writing this manuscript.

Research conducted between 1995 and 1998 as part of the Australian component of the Parenting-21 study on parenting in cultural contexts in Australia, collected qualitative data on the practice of CP and quantitative data on attitudes toward it (Kolar & Soriano, Reference Kolar and Soriano2000). The data were used to compare the approaches of Anglo, Torres Strait Islander and Vietnamese parents, and it was found most parents disagreed or strongly disagreed (60% of Anglo parents and 68% of Vietnamese parents) with the introduction of a law to ban CP. It should be noted that the data were limited only to attitudinal data and did not measure CP prevalence in its sample.

A third study by AIFS, entitled ‘Children Affected by Domestic and Family Violence’ (Campo, Kaspiew, Moore, & Tayton, Reference Campo, Kaspiew, Moore and Tayton2014), recognises the detrimental and far-reaching effects of family violence, but omits entirely the collection of data on the practice of CP in Australia. The majority of CP occurs between the ages of 3 and 5 years and gradually decreases as children get older (Wauchope & Straus, Reference Wauchope, Straus, Straus and Gelles1990). This study focuses on the role of primary prevention, specifically targeting 0–8-year-old children ‘before behaviours and attitudes become fixed’ (Campo et al., Reference Campo, Kaspiew, Moore and Tayton2014, p. 20), but it does not discuss the documented connection between CP in this age group and later aggression and maladjustment. The report by AIHW, entitled A Picture of Australia’s Children 2009: How Safe and Secure are Australia’s Children (AIHW, 2009), does not mention CP, although there is an analysis of the impact of violence on the lives of young children. The State of Australia’s Fathers 2015 report by Save the Children Australia (Wells, Mitra, & Flanagan, Reference Wells, Mitra and Flanagan2015), while not collecting data on violence committed by fathers against their children, noted that this may be a topic for later research. ‘The Child Wellbeing Project’ (see Redmond et al., Reference Redmond, Skattebol, Saunders, Lietz, Zizzo, O’Grady and Roberts2016) collected important information related to family, health and the marginalisation of young people between the ages of 8 and 14 years, but did not collect any data on CP, despite its documented link with many of the variables explored in this research. While it is not expressly the purpose of any of these reports to document the use of CP, its absence in the broader context of the health and wellbeing of children is notable.

Commitment under the UNCRC

The banning of CP in 54 countries around the world has largely been motivated by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 2006; Lansford, Reference Lansford and Selin2014, p. 446), to which Australia is also a signatory. The UN has highlighted the link between CP and other types of violence and proposed that ending CP is a ‘key strategy for reducing and preventing all forms of violence in societies’ (UNCRC, 2006, para 3). As part of the UN’s overarching Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 (UN, 2019), child physical discipline was singled out as an indicator of child wellbeing, putting a sharper focus on this aspect of childhood. The National Children’s Commissioner, endowed with representing the interests and rights of children in Australia, has urged the Australian Government to accede to the ‘Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure’ and ratify the ‘Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment’ (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2016), in line with UN recommendations. If Australia is to meet its obligations under the CRC, it is important to lead with a national dialogue on CP, informed by a thorough understanding of the phenomenon and all its facets.

Completeness of data

Additionally, data on CP may help to consolidate the current set of data on child abuse and add to an understanding of other parts of child protection. Research has shown that CP has the potential to develop into child abuse (Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor, Reference Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor2016; Trocme & Durrant, Reference Trocme and Durrant2003; Zolotor, Theodore, Chang, Berkoff, & Runyan, Reference Zolotor, Theodore, Chang, Berkoff and Runyan2008). Children’s experiences of CP are linked to their sex and age (Dietz, Reference Dietz2000; Giles-Sims, Straus, & Sugarman, Reference Giles-Sims, Straus and Sugarman1995; Grogan-Kaylor & Otis, Reference Grogan-Kaylor and Otis2007), and whether their parent was corporally punished as a child (Deater-Deckard, Lansford, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, Reference Deater-Deckard, Lansford, Dodge, Pettit and Bates2003). Additionally, the socioeconomic status (Ryan, Kalil, Ziol-Guest, & Padilla, Reference Ryan, Kalil, Ziol-Guest and Padilla2016) and education level of the parents (Ateah & Durrant, Reference Ateah and Durrant2005) are also linked with the use of CP. Australian Indigenous children are overrepresented in cases of abuse and neglect (AIFS, 2016c), and international research indicates that race and ethnicity may affect levels of CP (Dietz, Reference Dietz2000; Grogan-Kaylor & Otis, Reference Grogan-Kaylor and Otis2007). However, it is not currently known whether higher rates of CP in Indigenous families correlate with levels of abuse, or whether CP is linked to or has an impact on other types of violence among Indigenous children and within Indigenous families. With the lack of data on these variables in relation to CP in Australia, it is not known what role CP plays in potentially placing certain Australian children at higher risk of violence, maltreatment and death.

Prevention of child homicide

Extreme cases of child abuse may result in the fatality of the child. Between July 1997 and June 2010, 338 child homicides were committed in Australia (Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission, 2013), accounting for approximately 9% of all homicides in that period (Chan & Payne, Reference Chan and Payne2013). An average of 25 children were killed each year by a parent between 1989 and 2002, and 46% were killed with assaultive force (Mouzos & Rushforth, Reference Mouzos and Rushforth2003). In 2015, the NSW Ombudsman found that 51 of the 83 children who had died from family violence in the preceding decade died as the result of inflicted injuries (Ralston, Reference Ralston2015). Currently, there is no information available to ascertain whether such injuries occurred as a result of CP. The AIFS (2016b) states that no national report exists on the causes of death of all Australian children under the age of 18, and it is possible that misclassification results in an underestimation of child maltreatment fatalities. A report analysing child protection statistics in Australia has highlighted the need for a national framework to properly and consistently record and assess child abuse (Broadley, Goddard, & Tucci, Reference Broadley, Goddard and Tucci2014), and this would also provide further information on the incidence of child homicide. The majority of child homicides are filicides – committed by a biological or step-parent (Dearden & Jones, Reference Dearden and Jones2008). Cavanagh, Dobash, and Dobash (Reference Cavanagh, Dobash and Dobash2007) found that the majority of fathers who commit filicide intend to hurt, but not to kill, the child, and see such actions as punishment for disobedience. Nielssen, Large, Westmore, and Lackersteen (Reference Nielssen, Large, Westmore and Lackersteen2009) found that cases where a parent had been accused of a child’s homicide drew on the defence of ‘reasonable chastisement’ that had gotten out of hand and asserted that banning CP and educating parents on how to use alternative disciplinary methods may have the potential to save the lives of children. Despite a lack of national data on child fatalities, Australia employs a legal model that affords parents a defence of violence that has the potential to cause real harm and even death. Proper understanding of the implications of such legislation can be gained by further research on the nature, prevalence, severity and chronicity of CP, and resultant action may lead to child homicide prevention.

Adverse effects of corporal punishment

The most recent and comprehensive meta-analysis on the topic (Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor, Reference Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor2016) cannot establish causality; however, it found that CP was associated with more aggression, more antisocial behaviour, internalising and externalising problems, more mental health problems, more negative relationships with parents, lower moral internalisation, lower cognitive ability and lower self-esteem in childhood. In adulthood, CP was associated with antisocial behaviour, mental health problems and support for CP. The analysis also found that the more CP a child experiences, the more likely they are to be physically abused. Research also indicates that youth violence trajectories may begin with CP (Grogan-Kaylor, Reference Grogan-Kaylor2005; Herrenkohl, Kosterman, Mason, & Hawkins, Reference Herrenkohl, Kosterman, Mason and Hawkins2007). CP may result in toxic stress for children that can affect their brain development (Gershoff, Reference Gershoff2016). Violence during childhood has been found to affect the neurological development of the child’s brain and in some cases, leads to aggression and impulsivity (Perry, Reference Perry, Schetky and Benedek2001). Experiences of CP in childhood may lay foundations for attitudes and behaviours in adulthood, and research showing the adverse short and long-term effects of CP should be considered during policy development.

Among the indicators for children’s wellbeing, according to COAG 2009-10 (Protecting Children is Everyone’s Business), are attendance rate of primary school children and achievement of national minimum literacy and numeracy standards, hospital admission at emergency departments, substantiated child protection cases, and mental health problems. Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor’s (Reference Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor2016) comprehensive meta-analysis of over 160,000 children has linked CP with mental health problems and lower cognitive ability, and the evidence suggests that the more CP the children receive, the more likely they are to be physically abused. By adapting policy informed by international research, Australia has the opportunity to forge pathways for better outcomes for families. If social norms pertaining to the use of CP are to change, the disconnect between the empirical evidence that demonstrates the harms of CP and the highly prevalent attitudes and ideologies that support its use must first be understood (Taylor et al., Reference Taylor, Al-Hiyari, Lee, Priebe, Guerrero and Bales2016).

Family violence context

In recent years, family violence has been a topical issue in Australia. High profile family violence cases such as Rosie Batty (see Batty, Reference Batty2018) and the release of economic estimates on the cost of family violence have prompted the federal and state governments to create a national response to combat family violence. Family violence encompasses partner, child, parent and sibling abuse, and includes the witnessing of intimate partner violence (IPV) by children (Family Court of Australia, 2016). The National Council to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children has estimated that family violence costs the Australian economy more than $13 billion each year (Department of Social Services, 2009) and the Australian government has committed an unprecedented $100 million over five years to address family violence in Australia’s states and territories. A review of available literature found a consistent association between being corporally punished in childhood and becoming involved, both as perpetrator and victim, in IPV in adulthood (Poulsen, Reference Poulsen2018). Another recent study (Afifi, Fortier, Sareen, & Taillieu, Reference Afifi, Fortier, Sareen and Taillieu2019), found that harsh CP (defined as a push, grab, shove, slap or hit) has been linked with antisocial behaviours (including spousal abuse) in adulthood in a similar way to child maltreatment (distinctive from CP on the basis of causing physical injury). The burden of child maltreatment in Australia is high (Moore et al., Reference Moore, Scott, Ferrari, Mills, Dunne, Erskine and Norman2015) and presents similar long-term effects to CP, such as mental health problems (Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor, Reference Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor2016). CP of children is a form of family violence posing similar problems to child maltreatment (Gershoff, Reference Gershoff2016) and, internationally, it is widely acknowledged as a type of abuse, but Australian governments have hitherto been reluctant to interfere with these violent familial interactions. Research that considers the role played by CP in the establishment of a violence trajectory that may result in IPV, and that takes CP as seriously as child maltreatment is needed to advance knowledge in this field.

Evidence-based policy development

In the context of violence prevention, an evidence-based approach is integral to its effectiveness (Homel, Reference Homel2005). Evidence in the form of public feedback, social analysis, legal opinion, expert judgement and overseas experience play an increasingly important role in policy making (Edwards, Reference Edwards2004) and forms an evidence-based policy development approach. Homel (Reference Homel2005) asserts that, in the past, crime prevention has not been successful in Australia for myriad reasons and states that ‘the absence of a commitment to a research and evaluation process designed to build up an evidence base for determining policy and program priorities’ (p. 365) forms a part of the problem. Homel (Reference Homel2005) suggests the necessity for ‘a movement towards a more systematic and evidence-based set of crime prevention programs and policies’ (p. 365) to form a foundation on which to build coherency and determine outcomes in Australia’s strategic crime prevention overall. Fuller and Tomison (Reference Fuller, Tomison, Day and Fernandez2015) assert that ‘there is a need to collect and refine data to better capture the nature of violence … there will still be a need to supplement [crime] data with non-crime datasets on violent behaviour … as a sizeable proportion of violent behaviour is not reported or not captured in criminal justice records’ (p. 232), and CP, although legal in Australia, falls under this banner. It is particularly important that data sets are inclusive of all experiences with violence in childhood, including those that are considered benign, legal and occur in the home at the hands of parents, to allow a complete and holistic picture of all potential variables to emerge. Such a picture must consider all current knowledge about CP and its potential effects to underpin informed and effective policy development and implementation.

Education

While Australians have a growing awareness of the social unacceptability of CP (Briggs & Watson, Reference Briggs and Watson2011), most still approve of this method to discipline children (Tucci, Saunders, & Goddard, Reference Tucci, Saunders and Goddard2002; Tucci et al., Reference Tucci, Mitchell and Goddard2006). Whether a parent deems CP as an appropriate punishment, and to what extent they deem it mild, moderate or severe, may be determined by their own experiences of being corporally punished as a child. Kish and Newcombe (Reference Kish and Newcombe2015) found that ‘lay theories’ or ‘myths’ about CP were prevalent in a sample of university students in Australia, and these findings are suggestive of their applicability to the wider Australian population. The perpetuation of these myths, and indeed mentalities, is likely intergenerational; however, research by Holden, Brown Baldwin, and Caderao (Reference Holden, Brown, Baldwin and Caderao2014) shows that it is possible to change the minds of parents who are proponents of CP by presenting them with data on the potential detrimental effects. Furthermore, in their research on attitudes toward spanking, Taylor, McKasson, Hoy, and DeJong (Reference Taylor, McKasson, Hoy and DeJong2016) found that perceived approval of CP by professionals, family and friends played a large role in whether parents chose to use this method of discipline. The abovementioned research has shown that parents are often confused about, and have varying perceptions of whether CP is acceptable, and to what extent. The potential power of professionals, such as doctors and health professionals, in educating parents about the use of CP is therefore an important factor in its prevention. Accordingly, many Australian organisations advocating for children’s wellbeing have position statements against the effects of CP, including the Royal Australian College of Physicians (RACP, 2013). Educating parents about the changing community expectations around the use of CP has been shown to be effective in countries where CP has been legislated against. However, legislation against CP must either precede or act simultaneously with such education.

Legislation

It can be difficult to lead with attitudinal change in the population rather than legislative change, and legislation must be underpinned by sound ethics and science. However, defining crime and what constitutes violence may be difficult and subjective, and ‘Notions of what is acceptable and unacceptable in terms of behaviour, and what constitutes harm, are culturally influenced and constantly under review as values and social norms evolve’ (Fuller & Tomison, Reference Fuller, Tomison, Day and Fernandez2015, p. 216), thus ‘Australians hold divergent views about what behaviour is acceptable, and defining behaviour as criminal is often fiercely contested’ (Indemaur & Roberts, Reference Indemaur, Roberts, Wilson, Meagher, Gibson, Denemark and Western2005, p. 149). This makes legislative intervention potentially necessary to reflect evolving ethics and science, and an attitudinal change may follow. Research has shown that approval for CP has diminished over time in countries that have led with legislative change (see, e.g., Durrant, Reference Durrant2000).

Legislative change has the potential to take a violence prevention approach. Australian policymakers have come some way in acknowledging the importance of prevention and early intervention to tackle violence, but policies and legislation have yet to fully reflect a preventative approach. For example, the Victorian Department of Education and Training employed the ‘Respectful Relationships’ program in 2017 (Victorian Department of Education and Training, 2019). This program focuses on educating students from the primary school level and up about violence, with the aim of creating generational change in attitudes toward family violence. However, by not acknowledging the presence of CP in many homes as a type of violence, it contradicts the message at its core. ‘The Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence’ (2016) – the first of its kind in Australia – resulted in 140 recommendations designed to address the problem of family violence in Australia and provide tangible solutions to eliminate it; however CP was not addressed in the report. The National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2009–2020: Protecting Children is Everyone’s Business (COAG, 2009) states that ‘Australia needs to move from seeing “protecting children” merely as a response to abuse and neglect to one of promoting the safety and wellbeing of children’. Australia’s commitment to addressing family violence is clear, but a lack of data and knowledge about CP may be preventing the ecological objectivity required to effectively achieve progress.

While responding to violence (and its consequences) after it occurs has typically been the primary focus for governments and many services, a strong focus on the prevention of harm needs to be exercised by governments and the relevant infrastructure (Fuller & Tomison, Reference Fuller, Tomison, Day and Fernandez2015). Employing an ecological approach to violence prevention in legislation may assist in the prevention of severe and widespread violence. Indeed, the vision to prevent violence is a prominent feature in each of the states and territories’ plans to eliminate family violence. According to the Standing Committee on Social Issues Legislative Council of NSW (2012), ‘addressing the causes of violence against women must form the basis for any prevention strategy’ (p. xxii). Toumbourou et al. (Reference Toumbourou, Leung, Homel, Freiberg, Satyen, Hemphill, Day and Fernandez2015) identified that ‘Early family risk factors are considered to be particularly important in early-onset violent pathways and in this way predict increased violent and non-violent offending’ (p. 51), and research has indicated that CP is one such risk factor. Hemphill et al. (Reference Hemphill, Smith, Toumbourou, Herrenkohl, Catalano, McMorris and Romaniuk2009), in their longitudinal study on youth violence in Australia and the United States, recommend that prioritising prevention and early intervention across different aspects of a young person’s life is needed to prevent youth violence from occurring. Indeed, legislative measures that seek to prevent violence of all types, including CP—in childhood, effectively aligns with other violence prevention legislation.