Joanne Debono, 53 of Gowanbrae, and Shannon Debono​, 19, have both been charged with attempted murder and intentionally causing injury over an alleged attack on Stephen Debono on March 12, 2016, at their family home.

They will contest the charges.

Mr Debono told a witness he planned to kill the pair for their roles in the alleged murder plot, according to documents tendered at an earlier court hearing.

Covert recordings made by police of a conversation between Shannon Debono and her uncle will form part of the evidence against her, the Melbourne Magistrates' Court was told during a brief hearing on Thursday.

Joanne Debono is accused of crushing up 75 temazepam tablets and sprinkling them in Mr Debono's meatball dinner, before serving it to him.

Ms Debono had been in a relationship with her husband for about 25 years.

According to a remand summary tendered to court when Ms Debono applied for bail, she alleges she was the victim of "continued physical, emotional, sexual abuse and controlling and threatening behaviour" by him.

Due to this alleged abuse, her daughter has had to seek mental health treatment, Ms Debono says in the summary.

Detective Senior Constable James Marsden said in an earlier court appearance that Ms Debono wanted the alleged abuse to end "so that [she and her daughter] could live like normal people".

Ms Debono's solution, Detective Senior Constable Marsden said, was to wait for her husband to fall asleep and then hit him as hard as she could with a shovel – to protect her daughter and herself,

But, Detective Senior Constable Marsden said, she "couldn't bring herself to" do it.

Instead, police say, Ms Debono moved on to plan B.

On March 12, the remand summary states, she went into the family's shed and selected three bottles: brake fluid, motor lubricant, and weedkiller.

She poured them into a small white bowl, and mixed them together. She then drew up a long syringe filled with the poisonous cocktail, police allege.

In the bedroom, Mr Debono was lying on his back. Ms Debono slid the needle into his arm and pushed down the plunger.

But as she jabbed him, he woke up – and asked his wife what she was doing, and why a needle was sticking out of his arm, the summary says.

And she, frightened out of her wits, couldn't finish the job.

Together with her daughter, Ms Debono fled the house to a relative's address and from there she, her daughter and relatives attended a police station where, police say, she confessed.

Ambulances dispatched to the home found Mr Debono groggy but alive.

He was taken to hospital and survived, and Ms Debono and her daughter now stand charged with his attempted murder.

When police searched the home, they found the poisons Ms Debono had allegedly mixed – along with an imitation handgun, nunchakus and a sword, all believed by police to belong to Mr Debono, the remand summary states.

Police say they also found Shannon Debono's mobile phone, on which she had recorded several threats Mr Debono had made to her mother.

Mr Debono was later served with a Family Violence Safety Notice prohibiting him from committing acts of violence on Shannon Debono.

Mr Debono did not suffer any lasting damage from the alleged attempt on his life.

His doctor told police that Mr Debono "was angry at [his wife] and that when he gets out of hospital he will kill everyone who did this to him", according to the remand summary.

The doctor said he took the threats seriously.

Magistrate Gerard Lethbridge set a date in April next year for the start of a three-day contested committal hearing for Joanne Debono and Shannon Debono, with nine witnesses expected to be called.

Both mother and daughter are on bail.