ACT New Zealand launched a family violence policy on 5 July 2026 that would, if enacted, make it a criminal offence to use harm or threats to a companion animal as a means of coercion or control in a family violence relationship — carrying a maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment.

Karen Chhour, ACT's Family and Sexual Violence spokesperson and the coalition government's Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, announced the policy at a Pet Refuge facility. The package has five distinct legislative and operational elements.

What the policy proposes

The centrepiece is a Crimes Act amendment creating a new offence that penalises coercive control via animal harm. Alongside it, the policy would strengthen Protection Orders — court orders that set conditions abusers must follow — to prevent offenders from withholding, selling, giving away, or otherwise disposing of a protected person's companion animal. A third element would require that when a Protection Order is made, companion animals are not left with a dangerous abuser.

On the operational side, Police would be required to record pets on family harm reports — a change that would embed animal welfare information in the evidential record from the first response. The policy also proposes giving Police explicit statutory authority and operational guidance to remove a companion animal to a place of safety, such as a Pet Refuge or the SPCA, where the animal is believed to be at risk or is being used as a tool of coercion.

The evidence base Chhour cited

Chhour cited two figures to ground the case. According to RNZ, she said abusive partners are almost 11 times more likely to intentionally harm an animal than partners in non-abusive relationships, and that more than half of victims reported delaying leaving an abusive relationship because of concern for their pets' safety.

The second figure carries significant weight for policy design. If a material share of victims are staying — or being kept — in dangerous situations because they cannot take their animals with them, then the protection order and police removal provisions are doing distinct work from the criminal offence: they are trying to reduce that barrier to exit as well as to punish abuse.

Pet Refuge's response

Pet Refuge provides temporary shelter for animals belonging to family violence victims across New Zealand. Its founder, Julie Chapman, welcomed the policy, saying it recognises that abusers use the bond people have with their pets to threaten, control and manipulate victims. The policy launch at a Pet Refuge site gave Chapman's organisation a visible role in the announcement.

Legislative context

The coercive control framework in New Zealand family violence law has been extended incrementally since the Family Violence Act 2018 came into force. Coercive control refers to a pattern of behaviour that strips a person of autonomy — isolation, economic control, monitoring, threats. A Crimes Act amendment creating a standalone offence tied to companion animals would add a named category of coercive conduct — one that sits alongside, rather than within, existing coercive control provisions.

Whether such a bill could attract cross-party support in the current Parliament is uncertain. Chhour is a minister in the National/ACT/New Zealand First coalition, but as an opposition-tier policy announcement it would need government buy-in to advance, or a member's bill pathway — a private member's bill introduced by an individual MP rather than as government business.

The Police recording requirement is the least visible element but potentially one of the more consequential for prosecutions. Consistent documentation of animal presence at family harm callouts would generate a data trail that investigators and prosecutors currently lack — and that could strengthen both the new offence and existing charges where animal harm is part of a pattern of conduct.

ACT has not indicated a timeline for introducing legislation, and the policy as announced remains a party position rather than a government commitment.