Conor Pall - Advocate

We often talk about turning 18 like it’s all about what you gain: voting, signing your own lease, your own Medicare card, making big decisions without your parents.

But for some young people in Victoria, turning 18 was about what you lost.

You lost the Family Violence Intervention Order that was keeping you safe.

I was one of those young people.

In 2021, I wrote to the then Attorney-General, Jaclyn Symes, and asked how, at the stroke of midnight, the violence I was living with could suddenly be treated as if it had vanished.

It didn’t.
But the law acted like it did.

Now, Sonya Kilkenny MP has introduced a Bill to finally close this loophole - so when a child on an Intervention Order turns 18, their protection doesn’t just expire. It stays in place until the order ends, or a court changes it.

This change is for the young people who turned 18 and watched their protection disappear, and for those who never got the chance to have their story heard.

The safety and wellbeing of children must be central to every reform, every day 🧡