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South Australia imposes stronger stalking laws
The South Australian government has introduced comprehensive reforms to the state’s stalking laws to enhance community protection against cyber stalking, harassment, and stalking.
Grace Robbie
In the past month, the South Australian government presented the Criminal Law Consolidation (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Bill 2024 to the state’s Parliament. This bill aims to amend the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 and several other existing laws related to stalking and harassment in South Australia.
A component of the reforms introduced to the South Australian Parliament involves clarifying the behaviours constituting “cyber stalking” as an offence, including the “impersonation of others online in a way designed to cause apprehension of fear”.
Due to this addition, the legislation now encompasses comprehensive provisions that expand the definition of stalking and harassment. This includes behaviour engaged through the “internet, social media, other forms of electronic communication or in person and to cover the use of tracking devices to monitor someone’s location”.
The reformed law also reduces the standard for defining criminal stalking. Previously, a prosecutor was required to demonstrate that a stalker intended to cause “serious” physical or mental harm. Under the reformed law, the necessity for a “serious” element in the offence has been removed, and any intention to cause psychological or physical harm is now considered sufficient to establish an offence.
The proposed bill also aims to ensure that stalking offences persist even if the stalker “did not specially intend to cause harm or fear”, provided that “they should reasonably have known that the conduct would be likely to cause harm or fear”.
Kyam Maher, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Attorney-General for South Australia, expressed how “stalking and harassment has no place in our society” and that “it’s an evil act that is designed to threaten and intimate others and needs to be tackled head-on”.
Maher stressed that the changes in the proposed bill “will make it easier for authorities to act and hold perpetrators to account.”
“The expansions also help to better, more comprehensively cover existing forms of technology and those that may be developed in future,” Maher said.
“It’s a practical form of action to better protect South Australians, including those who experience situations of family or domestic abuse.”
In a conversation with Lawyers Weekly, Alex Lazarevich, the president of the Law Society of South Australia, discussed the organisation’s position regarding the recently proposed stalking bill.
Lazervish explained that one of the primary purposes of the law is to better address domestic violence, something that the Law Society of South Australia supports.
“One of the key intentions of the legislation is to more effectively respond to domestic violence. Of course, stalking can also occur in other contexts as well, and the experience of it is traumatic for the victims who may be [in] constant fear or stress,” Lazarevich said.
“The Law Society supports genuine attempts to eliminate the scourge of domestic violence but has urged caution around expanding laws to the extent that they risk capturing conduct that would not ordinarily be considered harmful or controlling.”
Instead, the president expressed how the legal body best believes that a more effective way to combat domestic violence is to “expand the use of intervention orders to prevent or minimise domestic violence before it escalates”.
He further said: “In the Law Society’s view, current practices and policies around intervention orders should be reviewed with a view to how they can most effectively be utilised to protect vulnerable people against stalking and domestic violence.”
Andrew Carpenter, a senior associate for South Australian law firm Websters Lawyers, emphasised that “stalking is an offence that can easily be deterred with stricter laws” and “victim-survivors should be protected from anyone who crosses the proverbial line”.
He said: “Stalking can occur in many ways; therefore, it is vital for the law to protect vulnerable people. With the development in technology, stalking is no longer an in-person crime. People can be tracked and harassed even when they are not in the same state as an offender. Unless and until laws are tightened, a person will never truly feel safe and protected.”
