Understanding Queensland’s coercive control offence

What commenced, and when

Chapter 29A was inserted into the Criminal Code (Qld) by the Criminal Law (Coercive Control and Affirmative Consent) and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 (Qld).

The offence in section 334C commenced on 26 May 2025, following a lead-in period used for police training and public education. Conduct before that date cannot found a charge under this section, although it may be relevant background and may support other charges.

The chapter also carries the definitions the offence relies on, and a restraining order power we deal with separately in our article on restraining orders after a coercive control charge.

The four elements

All four have to be present.

1. An adult is in a domestic relationship with another person.
2. The adult engages in a course of conduct against that person consisting of two or more occasions of domestic violence.
3. The adult intends the course of conduct to coerce or control the other person.
4. The course of conduct would, in all the circumstances, be reasonably likely to cause harm to that person.

Each of those carries a definition, and each definition is worth reading closely.

An adult in a domestic relationship

The Criminal Code defines an adult as a person aged 18 or over. Only an adult can commit the offence. The other person does not need to be an adult.

Domestic relationship points to the definition of a relevant relationship in section 13 of the Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act 2012 (Qld), which contains further definitions inside it. A relevant relationship is:

• an intimate personal relationship, which covers a spousal relationship including marriage and de facto relationships, a former spouse, a parent or former parent of a person’s child, an engagement relationship, or a couple relationship;
• a family relationship, meaning relatives by blood or marriage in the ordinary sense;
• an informal care relationship, where one person depends on another for help with daily living activities, other than a parent and child relationship or a commercial care arrangement.

For the Criminal Code provisions only, an intimate personal relationship expressly includes a former one. That gloss does not apply for other purposes.

Worked example. Alex, 19, lived with Susie, 17, in a de facto relationship for 12 months. They have a child and have separated. Alex is in a domestic relationship with Susie, including after separation, and can be charged. Susie cannot be charged under this section until she turns 18.

Domestic violence, as defined for this offence

Domestic violence here means behaviour towards a person in a domestic relationship that is physically or sexually abusive, emotionally or psychologically abusive, economically abusive, threatening, coercive, or that in any other way controls or dominates the person and causes them to fear for their safety or wellbeing, or that of someone else.

Chapter 29A then adds a list of specific behaviours that count as domestic violence for this offence only. Several of them are broad enough to be worth flagging.

• Unauthorised surveillance. The scope depends entirely on what surveillance means, which is not tightly defined.
• Monitoring day-to-day activities. Related to surveillance, and equally capable of covering ordinary behaviour depending on how it is applied.
• Restricting a person’s freedom of action. Clearly aimed at controlling conduct, but broad enough on its face to reach disciplining a teenager.
• Punishing a person. Punishing is not defined.
• Frightening a person. No threshold is set for the degree of fright required.

These are only elements of the offence, not the offence itself. The intention requirement is what is supposed to filter them.

We deal with the economic limb separately in economic abuse under the coercive control laws, and with the definition generally in domestic violence defined for coercive control.

Intending to coerce or control

The conduct must be intended to coerce or control the other person. This is the element that is meant to keep ordinary domestic friction out of the criminal law.

Coerce is defined as to compel or force a person to do, or refrain from doing, something.

Control is not defined. Ordinary usage runs from having influence or authority over a person through to regulating their conduct. It is a wide term.

The two are alternatives. Because control is so much broader than coerce, and appears to cover everything coerce covers, it is difficult to see what work the word coerce is doing in the section at all.

In practice, intention will be proved by inference from the pattern of conduct. That makes the assembly of the course of conduct, and the context around each occasion, the real battleground.

Reasonably likely to cause harm

Two things about this element are routinely misunderstood.

First, the conduct does not have to have caused harm. It only has to be reasonably likely to.

Second, the test applies to the course of conduct as a whole. It is not necessary that each individual occasion of domestic violence could reasonably cause harm.

Harm is defined as any detrimental effect on the person’s physical, emotional, financial, psychological or mental wellbeing, whether temporary or permanent.

None of the key terms in that definition are themselves defined. The load-bearing word is detrimental, because it is the gateway to everything else. What is a detrimental effect on someone’s emotions? Is being made unhappy detrimental? Is being worried detrimental to mental wellbeing?

For an offence carrying 14 years, that is a lot of weight on an undefined adjective. Our view when this was drafted was that it would need clarification. Nothing since commencement has changed that view. Expect the boundaries to be worked out in contested hearings over the next several years.

What to do about it

Two practical points.

If you are the subject of a complaint, the course of conduct is assembled from messages, call logs, financial records and third party accounts. Do not delete anything. Deleting material is both bad evidence and a fresh problem.

If you are being investigated, get advice before any record of interview. The offence turns on inferences drawn from patterns, and an explanation given without advice frequently supplies the pattern.

See our page for coercive control charges.