Five years after her former partner left her with tax and other debts worth more than $12 million, Christine, whose name has been changed to protect her safety, is still trying to clear her name.
The physical abuse started when she entered the relationship.
But in 2021, after she had left the marriage, creditors threatened to seize Christine's home as they pursued her for $186,000 in alleged debts.
I said, 'Shit, I'm going to lose my house. This doesn't look good,
"I didn't know what I was served the bankruptcy notice for."
Christine soon realised the debts were largely because her former partner had made her a company director of a business she had no part in running. He also took out hefty loans under Christine's name without her knowledge.
By the time Christine unravelled the extent of her financial abuse, the separated mother of two realised she owed millions to banks, credit agencies and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
She is still trying to clear the debts.
"I couldn't believe it [that] someone can do something like that. Knowing it's your husband," she said, breaking down in tears.
"We had a family. Did you [he] think about the kids? What was going to happen to us?
"You know you've done nothing wrong, and you've been prosecuted for something you didn't do."
Abuse 'blind spot'
Because perpetrators know the government is tightening controls around abuse committed through company directorship structures, abuse through self-managed super funds remains a "blind spot".
That is according to Jasmine Opdam, who works with the Redfern Legal Centre's Financial Abuse Service, a free legal service which assists victim survivors of financial abuse.
The illegal access could happen with SMSFs because the money is often held in a bank account that is easy to withdraw from, unlike APRA-regulated funds, where a person cannot access their superannuation as easily.
Ms Opdam said while there was no national data on the prevalence of financial abuse specifically within the self-managed super system, "we do know from ATO data from a few years ago that up to $250 million a year is being illegally accessed early from self-managed superannuation funds".
