John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in the House to talk about the importance of 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the white ribbon campaign. Please indulge me as I share a personal story. I have come to know a domestic violence sufferer through my role as Member for Bennelong. On the outside, she presents like many other women—intelligent, warm smile, and very personable. And yet, as I have learnt, she lives a double life. Hidden behind closed doors is the abuse she suffers at the hands of her husband. She is constantly put down in front of her children; she is told she is stupid and useless. He has fits of rage when anything can happen from locking her in a cupboard for a day to physical violence. She wants to work but he calls her offensive names and says she only wants to work in order to meet other men. She offers to work in his business but is told she is too stupid. So, she stays home looking after their children, and he accuses her of being lazy and good for nothing. He often refers to his position as bread winner and asks, 'Do you like the bed you sleep in? What have you ever contributed?' She has suffered 17 year of this emotional abuse and, in her words, 'It's been a long slow journey to hell'. She says his manipulation and abuse have slowly got worse and worse, and the episodes of rage have got closer together, which is mainly because, in her own words, she has 'given him all the power' and she has 'become more and more subservient and obliging to the abuse'. It is to save herself from the explosion that will come should she actually stand up for herself.

These kinds of actions can never be justified. Men such as this are called covert aggressors; they have an impaired conscience; they lack internal brakes to know right from wrong and see life as a game of winning. Reality for these women seems impossible; they are on edge all the time, knowing the slightest thing could set the man off. When you read the brave testimonials on the white ribbon website from women who have lived this nightmare, you can see the same pattern repeating: women hanging in there as long as possible for the sake of their children. Often they have tried to leave but the men have forced them to stay, blaming them for everything, telling them what terrible mothers they are, especially if they were to break up the family. Often these women have been at home raising children for many years, and the men play on that, telling them they will never get a job and they have no skills. They remind the women that they have earned all the money and it is all theirs. Women in this situation feel hopeless. They will never get a lease on a rental property, as they have no income and their prospects for work are challenging because they have been out of work for many years, raising children. So they stay put and put up with the abuse, and their self-esteem gets lower and lower.

In most of the stories I read, the women have hung on for way longer than they should have, for fear of the men's behaviour afterwards and for the children's sake. But you have to wonder what is worse for children: a home where there is violence and the role modelling that says it is okay to treat women badly or a divorced home that is violence free? I personally think if we are to try to break the cycle of abuse, we need to teach the next generation that violence against women is not okay, and young girls need to know that they do not have to put up with it—not at all. I would hate to think young, impressionable girls are watching their mothers getting abused and thinking that this is normal. We are left to ask: what more could be done on a national level? What responsibility do we take for this? How can government help? We cannot be in every home; we do not want to be a nanny state, but why do so many women feel they have nowhere to turn?

White Ribbon Day helps these women to raise awareness of the agencies out there to support them.

I believe that there is work to be done through the high schools and sporting clubs in promoting the 'no violence' message. One in four young people have witnessed violence against their mother or step-mother. Exposure to domestic violence is a form of child abuse that cannot be ignored, with high personality, behavioural and psychological problems amongst these children.

I am proud to be a White Ribbon ambassador and am pleased that I am in good company in my electorate of Bennelong. The member for Epping and NSW Attorney General, Greg Smith, member for Ryde and NSW state Minister for Citizenship, Communities and Aboriginal Affairs, Victor Dominello, and I have worked with Marist Brothers College in Eastwood promoting a no-violence message and have sold White Ribbon merchandise at the train station with the help of their year 12 students.

I join Ryde Council each year for a White Ribbon breakfast and walk on 25 November to raise awareness for this important cause. The White Ribbon campaign is one of the world's largest movements to raise awareness and funds for the prevention of violence perpetrated against women. As a male-led movement it engages and empowers men and boys to be leaders in a change of attitudes and behaviours. This work aims to raise funds to resource and support White Ribbon ambassadors in their activities. I am proud to be a White Ribbon ambassador, and have taken the White Ribbon oath—and urge all men to do likewise.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, one in three women in Australia report having experienced violence since the age of 15. That is over 2.5 million women. Of this, nearly 1.5 million—or one in five—women have experienced a form of sexual violence. A woman is killed almost every week in Australia by a male partner or ex-partner, often post-separation. Intimate partner violence, including physical, emotional and sexual violence, is the leading contributor to death, disability and ill-health in women aged 15-44. One in four young people have witnessed violence against their mother or step-mother. Exposure to domestic violence is a form of child abuse that cannot be ignored, with high personality, behavioural and psychological problems among these children.

Research has shown that young men who have experienced violence are more likely to become perpetrators of violence in their own relationships. As a male-led movement, the White Ribbon organisation was formed to encourage men to speak out about violence against women. Silence when we know violence is occurring makes us an accessory to that violence. Challenging attitudes will help other men to take the steps necessary to break this cycle of violence. This is essential to promote a cultural change, to show that masculinity and machismo directly linked with respect for women, is not associated with violence and domination.

And so I repeat the White ribbon pledge: I swear never to commit, excuse or remain silent about violence against women. This is my oath.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Scott, I take this opportunity to congratulate you on your election. I also congratulate the member for Fowler for putting this very important issue on the Notice Paper. It is an issue that I raised in my first contribution in this place and I am pleased to have this opportunity to say a little bit more about family violence. In doing so, I swear never to commit, excuse or remain silent about violence against women.

Family violence is a gender crime and the business of all of us, but it is especially men's business. I am mindful that in the last year, 2012-2013, of the 2,110 family violence incidents reported to police in the city of Whittlesea, within the electorate of Scullin, 100% of the alleged offenders were men. Ninety-five per cent of the victims were women—that is an important statistic and one that I am mindful of—but 100 per cent of the alleged offenders were men.

White Ribbon recognises this pattern of offending in family violence but also that most men are not violent. It enables, through awareness-raising, male leadership in preventing family violence—men taking responsibility for changing attitudes and behaviours. I am struck by the fact that violence is the leading cause of preventable illness and premature death in Victorian women aged 15 to 45. We have heard many statistics in this debate and there will be more, but this is about more than statistics. The costs to society are huge.

I ask myself: what does this mean for victims of family violence, their experiences? I think about the circumstances of the victims and how their experiences shape their lives and deny them agency and most certainly it denies them equality. Within the communities that I represent in this place, the rates of family violence are unacceptably high. They are the highest in Victoria Police's Division 5. They are also increasing rapidly. In the last recorded year, there was a 35 per cent increase. I am particularly troubled by this, because it goes against the 20 per cent increase across the rest of Victoria. I ask myself: what is happening in the communities I represent and, more particularly, what is to be done?

I said before that there were 2,110 family-violence incidents reported to police, including a homicide. Of these events, 743 children were present. I am struck by the fact that recidivism appears to be very high. We have heard much about breaking the cycle. That is an important part of White Ribbon's cause. The police reports are consistent with data that are held by regional specialist family violence services, including the Berry Street Northern Family and Domestic Violence Service. I am struck by the fact that, again, there are significantly more referrals from Whittlesea than from the other local government areas across the northern region. There has been a strong council and community response to this, I am pleased to say. There is recognition that this family-violence epidemic is an urgent public-health issue. The strategy that the Whittlesea council has endorsed, building a respectful community, preventing violence against women, a strategy for the northern metropolitan region of Melbourne, is an important step forward and an important enabler of further attitudinal and cultural change.

Working groups have been established also to address the underlying causes, including gender inequity, and to develop advocacy actions, as well as to improve the quality of service provision. Great work has been done in recognising the particular challenges facing our culturally and linguistically diverse communities needing to recognise and deal with both the personal and systemic barriers in supporting communities and breaking the cycle.

I am struck also that growth areas appear to face particular challenges in relation to family violence. I wonder what can be done about the impact of geographical isolation and I note that there has been increasing recognition of economic abuse, which appears to be a big factor in more remote areas of my electorate and other outer suburban electorates.

I know that this is a difficult and challenging issue for all members, and it is something that touches upon all of our communities. I am very pleased to make some brief contributions to this debate as an opportunity to show bipartisan leadership across this chamber in recognising a critical concern. I look forward to supporting the White Ribbon breakfast tomorrow morning, I look forward to supporting White Ribbon Day on 25 November and, indeed, to the cause of reducing family violence every day. I commend the motion to the House.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In commending the previous speakers I also acknowledge the mover of this motion, the member for Fowler, who has been an outstanding advocate for the cause of preventing violence against women, and the seconder, my neighbour and friend, the member for McMillan, Russell Broadbent.

This is an important motion. I note that we debated a very similar motion last year, and I would be quite happy to debate this motion every year for as long as it takes until through action here in this place we can do something to reduce the scourge of violence against women. We must keep working together across the party divide to achieve change and to achieve a community response of zero tolerance when it comes to family violence and violence against women.

The member for McMillan talked about the need for a cultural shift in community attitudes, and particularly men's attitudes to family violence. As is often the case, I found myself in furious agreement with my good friend, the member for McMillan. We do need to achieve a cultural shift. We need to recognise that this is not a women's problem, it is not a problem for the police and it is not a problem for community health workers; it is a problem for our nation. In taking the White Ribbon Day oath never to commit, to excuse or to remain silent about violence against women we are making a stand for our wives, for our girlfriends, for our daughters, for our mothers, for our aunties and for our female work colleagues.

I am very proud to represent the seat of Gippsland but I am not proud of our figures in relation to family violence—and the member for McMillan touched on this. Latrobe City is the highest ranked local government area in terms of call-outs for family violence per 100,000 people in Victoria. East Gippsland, also in my electorate, is seventh in Victoria in terms of call-outs per 100,000 people. Overwhelmingly these family violence instances that police are being called to feature women and children as the victims, and overwhelmingly the offenders are someone they know.

The most common location for physical assaults and sexual assaults for women is in their own homes. Women have more to fear in their own kitchen, in their own lounge room or in their own bedroom than they do in the roughest pub or the worst nightclub in Melbourne, Sydney or our regional cities. We should be ashamed of these figures. Domestic violence, as the member for McMillan correctly referred to—and I think the member for Fowler described it as well—is a cancer on our community. But I am pleased to say that we have so many members in this place and so many members in our own communities—the right-minded people in our communities—who are actually trying to do something about it.

Two weeks ago I attended a White Ribbon Day event in my electorate, headed by the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, Ken Lay, where Ken, who has been an outstanding advocate on behalf of women in our community, made the point that he had decided to have domestic violence as one of the key issues he would address as the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police—a real leader in our community.

This Friday I am attending another breakfast in my electorate, which is going to have the former member for Wills, Phil Cleary, as a guest speaker. Phil Cleary was a member here more than 20 years ago, and has been a champion of the cause of prevention of violence against women not only in this place but also in his community life. Some people may think it strange that a member of the National Party will be sharing a stage with an Independent. We probably have nothing in common politically, but I am happy to share a stage with anyone who is passionate about this cause and I hope Mr Cleary feels the same way.

We share a passion about this issue and we are determined to achieve change—change to our culture, change in our communities—because we can do better. We can do better; in fact, we must do better. The challenge is there for all of us not only in this place but in the broader community.

The figures I referred to earlier are extraordinary in the sense that we do not seem to have made a great deal of progress over the past 10, 20 or 30 years. I will acknowledge that the extra reporting of domestic violence perhaps inflates some of the figures, but as the member for Fowler correctly referred to, there is still under-reporting of family violence and sexual assault. But when we know that one in three Australian women over the age of 15 will experience physical violence and that one in five will experience sexual violence at some point in their lives, with 64 per cent of those incidents occurring in their homes, we know we have an issue that we must do more to address.

I do commend the member for Fowler for bringing this motion to the attention of the House again this year. I look forward to working with him and working with my colleagues on this side of the House as well, not only to support programs that government has put in place but also to drive that cultural change and drive that shift in attitudes which are so desperately required. I commend the member, and I commend the motion to the House.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I commend you on your elevation to high office.

White Ribbon Day is 25 November 2013, and as a White Ribbon Ambassador I believe that first and foremost I must be a man who embodies the values, ethics and morals expressed in this campaign in my everyday life at home, at work and in my community.

I am a husband, and a father of two daughters. It is my fervent wish that my daughters live in a world without domestic violence. But when the current statistics show that one in three Australian women over the age of 15 will experience physical violence and one in five will experience sexual violence at some stage in their life, I know my wish is far from being realised.

Violence affects women in every group in our society and for those in disadvantaged circumstances it is even more prevalent. In the last parliament I was Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and we heard disturbing evidence that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 35 times more likely to be hospitalised by partner abuse than non-Indigenous women. I commend the work and the strong campaign commenced in Central Australia by Indigenous men who wish to address this problem.

I commend the work locally in my electorate of the Ipswich Women's Centre Against Domestic Violence, led ably by Gabrielle Borggaard. I know how committed these women are to addressing the scourge of domestic violence from a feminist perspective. They do marvellous work in Ipswich and the Somerset region. One of the programs they run is the Love Bites program, run by Philippa Cook. The Love Bites program, funded by the former federal Labor government, operates in high schools in Ipswich and the Somerset and Lockyer Valley regions. It is designed to raise awareness of how people can fall into potential domestic violence situations. The program is very successful because it is targeted to young men and young women and designed to prevent them from forming damaging relationships as adults.

Every year the Ipswich Women's Centre Against Domestic Violence runs a march through the Ipswich CBD. During that time, 'Ipswich says no to violence' T-shirts are many. Last year I marched with about 250 people, along with Ipswich city councillors Andrew Antoniolli and Charlie Pisasale and members of the Ipswich community, including members of the Ipswich Jets rugby league team. Last week I held my 20th mobile office since the last federal election and my second at the Ipswich Handmade Expo. The goods on display and for sale at the expo are created by women for women. I commend the organisers for providing a stall for me in my capacity as a White Ribbon ambassador to help raise awareness of this issue.

Domestic violence can take many courses. The former federal Labor government understood this and in our 2013-14 budget we reaffirmed our commitment to equality, with a focus on increasing women's workforce participation and their economic security and addressing violence against women and their children. We provided $5.2 million over five years to fund the Foundation to Prevent Violence against Women and their Children. The National Centre of Excellence to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children was designed to serve as a research hub to support the development of policy, professional practice and programs to reduce violence. We also created the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. The $86 million plan included the 1800RESPECT hotline, the website for domestic violence victims and the award-winning The Line social media campaign concerning respectful relationships. We also introduced AVERT Family Violence, a multidisciplinary training package for professionals working in the Family Law Act area. We introduced changes to incorporate for the first time the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and we made contemporary the Family Law Act and contemporised the definition of 'family violence'.

What many people do not understand is that violence takes many forms: financial domination, stalking, friendship denial, spiritual abuse, damage to property, reproductive control, and familial isolation. Many of these things happen and people do not recognise they are violence. But, more than anything, violence in the home is a blokes' issue. We have to make sure that blokes do not turn a blind eye. It is a blokes' issue because men have the power to make changes, as leaders and decision makers in their homes and in their workplaces. As men, we need to speak out on this issue and send a message. We need to lead our lives in such a way that we make it clear that violence against women is unacceptable, and that message needs to go to young boys as well. I commend the member for Fowler for his motion. I am proud to stand with him to do everything I can, both locally and nationally, on this issue to protect women and children in our community.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a White Ribbon ambassador from Tasmania I am pleased to speak on the member for Fowler's motion ahead of White Ribbon Day and I commend him for moving the motion. I hope that the bipartisan nature of the debate we have heard this morning translates into that broader cultural change in our society that is required to address this problem. As former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has observed:

Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation. And, it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace.

There are many labels, as we have heard this morning, attached to violence against women, but, irrespective of the label, it is simply unacceptable. We have heard the quite horrifying statistics this morning. We have seen in the aftermath of Jill Meagher's senseless death a community outcry to stop this and to reclaim the safety of our streets.

I know all members of this House would agree that even one act of violence against a woman is one too many. Yet domestic violence in Australia is, sadly, common and widespread. Many of these cases go unreported due to the private nature of the relationships within which the violence occurs. This makes it impossible to measure the true extent of the problem. But we do know, for example, that a woman is more likely to be killed in her home by her male partner than anywhere else or by anyone else. While most men do not commit violence against women and know that physical or sexual violence is wrong, it is a fact that when violence occurs, as the member for Scullin pointed out, it is mostly current or previous male partners that are the perpetrators. Sadly, this violence does not discriminate in terms of the age of the woman. The male dominated nature of the problem imposes, I believe, a special obligation on men to do more in response, and wearing the white ribbon is one of those things. It is a symbol of the wearer's pledge that they will not excuse violence against women and will share in a collective commitment to stop violence by men against women.

I am pleased to say that we are making inroads into raising awareness about this important issue. On 27 September I visited Launceston Church Grammar School at their Mowbray campus and spoke to a large group of senior students about the White Ribbon movement, about its particular importance for groups of young men. There was some fundraising associated with this event, and the boys chose to donate these funds to the Launceston women's shelter. I congratulate them on their thoughtfulness and initiative. I was impressed by the large number of students who chose to make a mass pledge, which, as we have heard this morning, has three important dimensions: never to commit violence against women; never to excuse violence against women; and never to remain silent about violence against women. I congratulate the headmaster, Stephen Norris, for addressing this issue with a group of young people who will help to lead further progress on this issue into the future. They will help to accentuate the role men should play in loving, fair, consensual and respectful relationships with women. They will affirm our readiness to speak out against violent acts that diminish equality and justice in our society. In doing so, they will help promote greater closeness and connection as well as ensuring that the girls and women they love will live safer, freer lives.

We often talk about responses to policy problems and we try to frame them into whether it should be a top-down or a bottom-up response. On this occasion it requires both. It requires that bottom level, grassroots cultural change and it also requires influences in our society to step up and to speak out and ahead of White Ribbon Day there is a lot we can do and I encourage people to visit the White Ribbon website at www.whiteribbon.org.au/ to generate some ideas. The resources on this site contains some wonderful and useful material for those who need help particularly contact numbers. It also contains advice and strategies for how we can help someone experiencing violence.

In the electorate of Bass there will also be community events. The fireman will be back in the Launceston Mall bringing the White Ribbon message to every male that walks past. We will have a White Ribbon display at my office in St John Street and I encourage other shopfronts to do the same. Again, I commend the member for Fowler and the other speakers for giving this issue some well-deserved attention and I encourage our communities around the country, particularly men, to add their voice to this important cause. (Time expired)

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allocated for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will made an order of the day for the next sitting.