Under the proposed amendments, a perpetrator may be charged with the new offence if there were three or more unlawful acts committed against a victim.

The victim would also not need to establish dates, places or circumstances as evidence in court.

Vice president Evan Hughes said under the offence, a person could be prosecuted for acts retrospectively without limitation once amendments to the Criminal Code commenced.

“The breadth of the definition of unlawful family violence makes the proposed amendments generally and the new crime specifically, bad law,” he said.

Mr Hughes said amendments allow acts that have occurred interstate or internationally to form part of a charge which could lead to religious or cultural complications.

“This has the potential to cause injustice given that the standards by which unlawful acts are judged in other jurisdictions do not always meet the same rigorous standards applied within this jurisdiction,” he said.

“There are already sufficient protections, offences and penalties in place to deal with family violence offending.” 

The Australian Lawyers Alliance supported the law society’s view and labelled the new offence “unnecessary” and believed it could overburden the court system.

But Laurel House service manager Fiona Girkin said persistent family violence was a systemic issue.

She said the sexual assault support service supported changes which would prevent a perpetrator to cross-examination a victim in court.

She said this should extend to defence lawyers if substantial evidence was presented.

Tasmania Law Reform Institute director Terese Henning said the amendments only applied to spouses and did not acknowledge other family members could be perpetrators of family violence.

“The main problem with the current bill is that it does not go far enough in extending protection to victims of family violence,” Associate Professor Henning said.