Partner violence

Information regarding partner violence experienced since the age of 15 was obtained from men and women aged 18 years and over in the 2021-22 PSS.

The term 'partner' in the PSS is used to describe a person the respondent lives with, or lived with at some point, in a married or de facto relationship.

Current partner refers to a person the respondent currently lives with in a married or de facto relationship, at the time of the survey.

Previous partner refers to a person the respondent lived with at some point in a married or de facto relationship, from whom they are now separated (but may or may not still be living with them). This includes a partner the respondent was:

• living with at the time of experiencing violence
• no longer living with at the time of experiencing violence.

Partner violence refers to any incident of sexual assault, sexual threat, physical assault or physical threat by a current and/or previous partner.

Partner violence does not include violence by a current or former boyfriend/girlfriend or date, which refers to a person that the respondent dated, or was intimately involved with, but had never lived with.

Where a person had experienced violence by more than one previous partner, they were asked to focus on the most recently violent previous partner when answering the more detailed questions. If the respondent had also experienced previous partner emotional and/or economic abuse, this may or may not have been the same violent previous partner.

Respondents who identified that they had experienced an incident of violence by their current partner and/or a previous partner they had lived with in the Violence topic were sequenced into the Partner Violence topic to answer further questions about their experiences of partner violence since the age of 15. If the respondent had experienced both current partner and previous partner violence, the set of questions is asked separately for each type of partner.

Whilst some questions are very similar to those in the Violence topic that ask about the most recent incident (see Violence – Most Recent Incident (MRI) chapter of this publication), the Partner Violence topic is centred on incidents (and any resulting behaviours or actions taken) that occurred throughout the duration of the entire relationship and after the relationship ended (for previous partner violence), rather than just the most recent incident. For example, while the Violence MRI topic asked the respondent if they contacted the police about the most recent incident, the Partner Violence topic asked the respondent if they had ever contacted the police about any incident during the relationship or after the relationship ended.

Not all the same questions were asked for experiences of violence by both partner types. For example, some questions were only applicable when the perpetrator was a current partner while other questions were only applicable when the perpetrator was a previous partner.

Further information regarding the collection of the following data items:

• Length of relationship – The concept of the length of relationship is left to the respondent’s interpretation. They may, for example, base this on their first date, marriage, or when they moved in together.
• How often partner’s assaults or threats occurred during relationship – If the occurrence of assaults and threats varied over time, respondents are asked to determine how often the assaults or threats occurred on average.
• Sources of advice or support – Includes formal and informal sources of advice or support. Excludes anyone who was told or found out about the violence, but from whom the respondent did not actively seek advice or support (e.g. treatment sought for injuries which did not involve the respondent seeking advice or support).
• First person or service told – Includes telling anyone, from a friend to a formal service provider. The respondent did not necessarily have to seek advice or support from the person (e.g. the person may tell the police about the violence without perceiving this as seeking advice or support from them).
• Violence/restraining order ever issued against partner – Interviewers were trained to accept terminology used across different jurisdictions of Australia to label violence orders, including apprehended violence orders, domestic violence orders, intervention orders etc.
• Violence seen or heard by children in their care – Children in the respondent’s care can include the respondent’s or partner’s children, stepchildren, adopted or foster children.
• Whether violence increased while temporarily separated – ‘Increase’ was left to the respondent’s interpretation and may include an increase in severity and/or frequency. Respondents who experienced multiple temporary separations were asked if the violence increased on average across all the temporary separations.
• Experience of anxiety or fear – If anxiety or fear varied over time, respondents were asked to determine how often they experienced anxiety or fear on average.

The data items and related output categories for this topic are contained within the Partner Violence tab in the data item list available under Downloads. In addition, aggregate data items relating to this topic are contained within the SPS Level – PV & EMAB Aggregates tab.

Partner violence data can be used to examine:

• the characteristics of the violence experienced over the course of the relationship, such as how often violence was experienced
• support-seeking behaviours, such as whether advice or support was ever sought and from whom
• police involvement, such as whether the police were ever contacted, and other legal actions taken, including whether the partner was charged, whether they went to court, and whether a restraining order was issued
• the impact of the partner violence on the respondent, including whether they experienced anxiety or fear because of the violence, changes to their usual routine, and whether they took time off work
• separations from a violent partner because of the violence, including whether they ever temporarily separated, reasons for separation, places stayed during temporary separations, whether left property or assets behind, and reasons for returning to the violent partner.

Partner violence data cannot be used to examine:

• the characteristics of all previous partner violence, as information is only collected for the most recently violent previous partner.
• the types of violence perpetrated by the violent partner. This information is not collected in the Partner Violence topic. Information about the types of violence experienced is collected in the Violence Prevalence topic.
• the characteristics of intimate partner violence where the respondent never lived with the perpetrator. These are classified as boyfriend/girlfriend/date and ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend relationships, and detailed information about violence experienced within these relationships is not collected in the Partner Violence topic.
• characteristics of the most recent incident of partner violence. Information about characteristics of the most recent incident of violence is collected in the Violence MRI topic, and will only include information about partner violence if the perpetrator of the most recent incident of any of the types of violence was a partner.

Points to be considered when using and interpreting data for this topic include the following:

• Partner Violence data cannot be broken down by the type of violence experienced (sexual/physical, assault/threat), only by the type of perpetrator (current or previous).
• Where a person has experienced violence by both a current and previous partner, information about the violence is collected separately for each partner type (and for previous partner, in relation to the most recent previous partner who was violent). Consequently, partner violence data can only be output and analysed through each partner type individually, and not as a combined total partner category.
• The level of detail available for partner violence data will vary depending on the type of partner violence (current or previous) and the sex of the respondent. Generally, more detailed information will be available for previous partner violence than for current partner violence, and where the sex of the respondent is female.
• Previous partner violence data relates to the most recently violent previous partner and is therefore not necessarily representative of all previous partner violence. Care should be taken in the way this data is interpreted and reported. Users should refrain from generalising the findings to all previous partner violence.

Information about experiences of Partner Violence was collected in all editions of the PSS, as well as the 1996 Women’s Safety Survey, and the content collected is consistent. However, the following should be noted:

• Analysis of changes over time are not recommended for this topic.
• The Women’s Safety Survey only collected detailed information from women about the characteristics of violence by a male current and/or previous partner, whereas PSS collects detailed information from men and women about the characteristics of violence by a male or female current and/or previous partner.
• The data items within the ‘Separations from Partner’ topic underwent several revisions to the data item categories from PSS 2012 onwards. This resulted in either a reduction of categories in some items or an increase of categories in other items.
• The data items that involve restraining orders changed from 2016 onwards.