'I wanted to kill him for hurting my child': Tanya Plibersek reveals daughter's fight for survivors
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It's not about him anymore. Not about the man who turned Anna Coutts-Trotter's first teenage relationship into an ugly thing of control, abuse and dependency. It's not about revenge, although Anna's mother, federal Labor minister Tanya Plibersek, candidly admits that when she first learned of his abuse: "Honestly, I wanted to kill him for hurting my child." It's about survival and supporting others. This is what Anna is focused on, now that she's beyond the secretiveness, the sadness, the final break-up, the gradual disclosure, the police report, and the excruciating court case. "I don't hold anger because I think that holds me back," Anna, now 23, tells Australian Story. "What it's about is the healing process and my ability and my opportunity to connect with other survivors." She's doing that through The Survivor Hub, a volunteer organisation she co-founded that holds survivor-led meet-ups and provides support to those who have been affected by sexual violence. The seed for The Survivor Hub was planted years ago when Anna went to court in the days before the trial of her ex-boyfriend. She wanted to know what the courtroom looked like, where she would give evidence, and where he would sit. As Anna sat anxiously outside a courtroom, a young woman named Bek, whose drawn-out case against her abuser was underway, introduced herself. Anna had done a lot of talking by then. She'd finally confided in her parents and friends; spoken with police and counsellors. But this conversation was different. "Even though Bek was a complete stranger to me, I felt like she … understood me better than anybody else," Anna says. Says Bek: "Our conversations and our solidarity gave her the courage to be able to walk through what she was about to walk through." It was "horrific" but Anna made it through the court case, in large part, she says, because of Bek's insights and the love of her parents who were there every day she gave evidence. For three days, Anna's decisions, her dress, her demeanour, and her truthfulness were questioned. "I felt like I was being deliberately misrepresented as somebody that I was not." In the end, the ex-boyfriend was convicted of one charge of physical assault and given a non-custodial sentence. He was found not guilty in relation to other charges. Specific details of the abuse have been withheld for legal and personal reasons. On hearing the verdict, Anna crawled into bed. Her parents joined her and held her. "And I just cried for a really long time." Anna says her parents, Tanya Plibersek and Michael Coutts-Trotter, have been immensely supportive.(Australian Story: Tom Hancock) There are many things Anna, who is studying social work at university, would like to see change in the legal system to support those who have suffered violence. But that meeting with Bek at such a vulnerable period in Anna's life convinced her that peer-led support, a space to sit and talk with people who have gone through similar pain, was desperately needed. She'd like this model backed by governments to answer growing demand. Her mother has a few things she'd like changed, too. Few families have been steeped in issues of social justice, women's rights and law as Anna's. Before entering federal parliament, Tanya Plibersek worked in domestic violence. At the time Anna gave evidence, Michael Coutts-Trotter, now one of NSW's highest-ranking public servants, was the head of the NSW Department of Communities and Justice. Throughout her childhood, Anna attended protests about social issues. She had grown up in a feminist household. But abusers don't discriminate. This, says Michael Coutts-Trotter, is the awful truth. "It's no surprise that it could happen to our daughter," he tells Australian Story. "If a person is willing to use coercion and violence, to get what they want and has the skills of manipulation, it can happen to anyone." Anna, he says, is a kind, forgiving young woman who wants to see the good in people. "They're all qualities that a manipulative, coercive young man used to hurt her." Says Plibersek: "I think it's really important to hear all of these stories, including Anna's because it humanises the statistics … I really hope it helps us to ask the question, 'Why do so many men use violence?'" Anna knows that because of her family background, she's in a uniquely privileged position to share her story and hopes it can promote change. Anna was leading an active social life before the abuse began. (Supplied: Anna Coutts-Trotter) Anna began seeing the boy from another school when she was 15, towards the end of year 10. "I felt loved, I felt as though he cared about me," she says. She spent most of her time with him, so much so that Plibersek urged her not to forget her friends. The control crept in. "I had to be constantly available to him," Anna says. He could track her on her mobile. "It became normal for me that I needed to ask him for permission to do things … the way that I dressed, the way I behaved and acted in public." She lost weight to please him. Her history teacher, Karen Parramore, remembers Anna becoming more withdrawn in class. When Parramore inquired why Anna was upset one day, she brushed it off as "boy problems". Anna was often unhappy, says Plibersek, but the teenager wouldn't go into detail. "She'd gone from being very close with us to more distant, more secretive … She cried a lot." But confided little. "When I think about why I didn't talk to my parents," Anna says, "it was because at that age, people don't talk about experiences of violence. And I didn't want to worry my parents." Plus, Anna says, she didn't want them intervening. She wanted to make her own decisions. If her parents had told her not to see him, she would have spent more time with him "because that's what teenagers do". James, a friend of Anna's who witnessed some of the ex-boyfriend's behaviour, says Anna's experience is not uncommon - other teenage friends had similarly toxic relationships. "You definitely notice a culture around some young men feeling like they have a right to treat women that way. And, on the other side, there's a [feeling of] shame, of not wanting to tell your parents or friends these embarrassing things." Minister for Environment Tanya Plibersek and her family arrive for the swearing-in ceremony at Government House in Canberra, 2022.(AAP: Mick Tsikas) Anna broke off the relationship a few times but kept going back, accepting his excuses. She thought he could change. "I believed in his good." Says Plibersek: "It's really typical of abusive relationships that the person who's being abused makes excuses for the abuser. Anna was making excuses for the behaviour. She was making excuses for the bruising I saw on her." Anna says she experienced "every kind of abuse imaginable". "I experienced emotional and physical abuse," she says. Anna receives a volunteering award from governor-general David Hurley in 2018.(Supplied: Anna Coutts-Trotter) It escalated until, towards the end of high school, Anna made the final break. It took longer for Anna to tell her parents. Coutts-Trotter recalls her "breadcrumbing" details over time. That's typical, too, says Plibersek, "testing whether that person is safe to disclose to. She was worried about my reaction. She was worried about her father's reaction." When Anna did tell her parents, it was "a relief". "They were so supportive. They didn't ask too many questions. I never felt as though they didn't understand." Anna is using the experience to help others, and has her mother's support.(Supplied: Rupanty Akid, RAD BlackStar Photography) Her parents tried to keep the extent of their devastation from Anna. As they comforted her, they questioned what signs they'd missed, and what more they could have done. Says Coutts-Trotter: "The feeling of a parent to hear from their child that they've been terribly hurt by somebody else, you just have an immense feeling of anger, of regret and inevitably, a feeling of failure as a parent, that there is something that is a profound responsibility of a parent to a child, which is to give them a safe home in which to grow up, and it proved not to be a safe home. You know, [sometimes] he hurt her here." Tanya and her mother Rose say they 'marvel' at Anna's determination to make change and support others.(Australian Story: Tom Hancock) Tom Barnes, a NSW detective with extensive experience in child abuse cases, says abusive teenage relationships are under-reported, with many victims reluctant to talk with authorities. But he says police are guided by a victim's wishes. "Our role is really to provide them information and support, to allow them to make an informed decision and the best decision for them." Anna decided she wanted to take the matter to court. "I know her whole motivation," Plibersek says, "was to stop him hurting other people." She thought it courageous but, "if I had known how incredibly difficult the process would have been, I would have begged her not to do it. It's excoriating". In the long lead-up to the trial, one of the toughest experiences for the family was the restriction on complainants and witnesses discussing the case. "[You're] living in the one house but not able to discuss this enormous thing that's happening for our child," says Plibersek, "and knowing that somewhere, someone is coaching the defendant. It's an isolating and unequal relationship." Once it got to court, Anna says she felt she was on trial. "Everything I'd done, all the ways that I'd responded, that were natural to me and natural to many other survivors, were being used against me." Court was an extremely difficult process for Anna as she relived the trauma and felt like she was on trial.(Australian Story: Tom Hancock) Coutts-Trotter says as the then-head of the NSW justice system, he understood the rules, the reasons for them, and the fact that the "defence can and does use any and every tactic". But, he says, "the insights you get from travelling through the justice system with someone you love is different … It feels like it's not a fair fight". From Plibersek's perspective: "I honestly couldn't believe that in this day and age, there were still questions about what she was wearing and how she was behaving, what she'd had to drink." Plibersek is glad federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has established an inquiry into improving the legal system for sexual assault complainants. Recent NSW laws that require a communication of consent to sex are also a step forward. But she is disturbed by reports of widespread violence within teenage relationships, with recent figures showing that nearly a third of 18- to 19-year-olds experience intimate partner abuse. Plibersek believes improved, more-explicit sex and relationship education is needed. If not, she says, the internet, pornography and "masculinity" influencers such as psychologist Jordan Peterson will fill the void. And serious effort must be put into helping young people understand what healthy relationships look like. "We keep talking about, how are we going to change the legal system … how are we going to support victims better," Plibersek says. "Why aren't we asking: Why is there such a high incidence of sexual assault and domestic violence and how is it that teenagers are behaving this way? How is it acceptable in these young relationships to be using violence and control?" Meeting Bek planted the seed for The Survivor Hub in Anna's mind but it was meeting her criminology tutor, Brenda Lin, in the period after the trial that saw it spring to life. Lin is also a survivor. "For many years before meeting Anna," Lin says, "I didn't have anyone that understood what I had gone through. I had great supportive friends and family … but they didn't get it in the way that another survivor got it." Their meeting was so cathartic, the pair felt compelled to give others the chance of a similar bond and, with the help of two other young women, The Survivor Hub began. Anna is studying to be a social worker.(Australian Story: Tom Hancock) The pent-up demand was clear: in the past 12 months, 800 people of all genders over the age of 16 have registered for meet-ups in NSW, Victoria and online. One of the participants, Harrison James, who now facilitates meet-ups, says discovering The Survivor Hub was "like striking gold" after years of counselling that he found cold and clinical. "Some people would be surprised … to know how joyful it is," Anna says. "It's a really beautiful feeling to connect with other survivors and to know that you're sitting in a space where everybody in that room understands you to an extent." From shame to sharing: Anna speaking on stage about domestic violence, with her mother by her side, for International Women's Day.(AAP: Belad Al-karkhey) It takes a lot of organising to run The Survivor Hub, which Anna fits in with full-time study, including a current social work placement in Broken Hill, and some paid work. She also needs to squeeze in some fun. Chanel Contos, Grace Tame and Anna together at the Marie Claire International Women's Day luncheon in Sydney, March 8.(AAP: Bianca De Marchi) It worries Plibersek sometimes that Anna is not living as carefree a life as a 23-year-old should. But she and Coutts-Trotter also understand that The Survivor Hub is therapeutic for Anna and marvel at the way their daughter has taken an experience so terrible and turned it into something so positive. "However much I worry as a mother," Plibersek says, "as a woman, I admire what she's doing." Watch Australian Story's Out of the Chaos on ABC iview. Loading...'I didn't want to worry my parents'
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