Leaders must step up to end the 'carnage' of domestic violence - Women's Agenda

Leaders must step up to end the ‘carnage’ of domestic violence

Domestic violence is everyone’s problem, and a significant challenge for those leading large organisations. Below, Senator Marise Payne describes the day she was informed one of her own staff members had been murdered by her husband.

 


 

For some time now, family and domestic violence has certainly been considered a serious issue, but in the last 18 months it has progressed to a topic of national conversation, which is long overdue. Because frankly, the level of family and domestic violence in Australia in 2015 is alarmingly high and completely unacceptable.

But the national conversation needs to continue and in my view to expand.

We have seen an increase in family and domestic violence reporting in the media, we have seen politicians voice their support for change.

We’ve seen companies such as Telstra and the National Australia Bank create workplace domestic violence policies. But for those actually experiencing violence the change probably feels slow and the response from both government and community needs to go further.

I think most of us can do more, including me.

Let me start with some of my direct experience of the last 18 months.

From the beginning of my role as Minister, I received escalation notices about incidents of violence in our service centres. This was certainly not something that was in the incoming government brief.

However, as the face of the Australian government, staff in my service centres experience aggressive and violent behaviour at the hands of our customers, which of course happens in other public facing work environments.

Last year, I received yet another email escalation notice. I read it several times. I know exactly where I was when it arrived. I sat in a car, uncomprehending. It said one of our Human Services staff had been murdered, by her husband.

I truly don’t believe anybody in charge of a large organisation expects, during the course of their work day, to be advised of their staff dying as a result of family and domestic violence. I don’t. My Secretary doesn’t. You don’t expect it, but it happens. I dread it.

I can’t describe here the full impact that tragic event had on me as a Minister, but I do know it was one of the significant drivers bringing me to make these remarks tonight.

But why was I so surprised? Family and domestic violence can and does affect anyone, anywhere.

As is typical in many family and domestic violence situations, fellow workers are often unaware of the violent lives colleagues suffer outside work, and are of course also left devastated when they become aware.

Less than a month ago, an intoxicated customer stabbed his wife, not fatally, outside one of our service centres. I read that escalation notice with dread.

It is impossible in such circumstances not to turn your mind to what we can do, what more can be done, and that is what brings me here tonight.

As a person in public life with a voice, as a woman passionate about supporting women in Australian society, as a Minister with a profile and position that gives me something of a role in the broad leadership of this nation, I am determined to do what I can to progress the national conversation on family and domestic violence.

I want to do more. I want to give a voice to those Australians who do not have one.

Family and domestic violence in Australia

I have been reminding myself of the size of the challenge Australia is facing.

According to the 2012 ABS personal safety survey, over 132,000 Australian women have experienced violence at the hands of a current or former partner in the past 12 months. That is staggering. That’s enough women to fill Sydney’s Allianz Stadium almost 3 times over.

That’s just the number of reported instances.

According to the Australian Human Rights Commission, every week in Australia a woman is murdered by her partner or ex-partner. Domestic violence accounts for one fifth of our total number of homicides.

According to one online women’s group, there have already been 52 family and domestic violence related deaths in Australia this year. You know, I have even had to adjust that number up several times in the last few days as I have been working on these remarks, I think it was 47 at the end of last week.

Let me say though, this figure is not an official account, but one tallied by an online group, which gives an indication of how ad-hoc some of the data reporting around this issue is.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about women here. While there are men who suffer abuse and violence within the family, and the recent tragic and senseless murder of Adelaide Crows coach Phil Walsh is a timely reminder of this; it is, statistically and literally, overwhelmingly women who are on the receiving end of family and domestic violence.

According to the ABS, almost one in six women have experienced violence from a partner compared to almost one in nineteen men.

One in twenty women have experienced sexual violence compared to one in two hundred and fifty men.

These are invidious comparisons but I think it is important to restate them.

So let’s be clear: violence is a society wide issue, but it predominately affects women and children.

Family and domestic violence isn’t limited to physical or verbal abuse. It comes in the form of bullying, harassing, stalking, isolation or financial abuse.

Now, in the technological age, we are seeing another worrying trend. Perpetrators are using technology to inflict abuse, to control, track and intimidate.

If preventing homicides and protecting 132,000 women from experiencing violence each year isn’t reason enough to put an end to this sinister problem, then also consider the economic cost of family and domestic violence.

In economic terms, and I don’t think it gets any dryer than calculating the cost of abuse and violence, family and domestic violence is costing Australia billions of dollars each year.

According to KPMG, the cost of family and domestic violence in Australia is $19.9 billion each year, and rising. To break that figure down: domestic violence is costing Australia $8,800 for every man, woman and child.

The hurt and suffering of victims makes up about half of the total cost, while the cost to business in lost productivity is about $1.6 billion. So not only is there a strong moral imperative to prevent violence against women, but there is a strong economic reason too.

At the Commonwealth level, the Prime Minister and Minister Michaelia Cash, Minister assisting the Prime Minister for Women, have established a COAG Advisory Panel on reducing violence against women and their children, chaired by former Victorian Police Commissioner Ken Lay, with Rosie Batty and Heather Nancarrow as deputy chairs.

The panel members have expert knowledge across domestic and family violence, sexual assault, online safety, violence within Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and people with disabilities.

The panel is advising COAG on practical ways to address violence against women and their children.

ANROWS has been given a leading role in increasing our knowledge about family and domestic violence and sexual assault to help us drive informed and strategic policy change to address the levels of violence against women and their children.

ANROWS and Our Watch have jointly commissioned a study into the media portrayal and representation of violence against women and their children. The media is such a dominant force in shaping and contributing to the discussion about family violence.

The study will provide baseline data on the media portrayal of violence against women, which will give us a starting point to measure any changes in attitude resulting from the work being done to address this issue.

These initiatives, with others led by Minister Morrison and Minister Cash, are part of the broad Commonwealth response and campaigns addressing a reduction in family and domestic violence.

DHS’s role in supporting victims of family and domestic violence

My department comes into contact with victims and survivors of family and domestic violence each and every day, not to mention perpetrators.

We have a unique opportunity, and in my view an obligation, to take a lead in addressing family and domestic violence, both in terms of our customers, but also for our staff.

It is a fallacy to believe that family and domestic violence only affects people who have fallen on hard times. These issues are correlated, but they are not necessarily the cause of family and domestic violence.

Centrelink alone has more than 7 million customers, while Child Support helps 1.4 million separated parents transfer money to support more than 1.2 million children.

Each weekday the department handles more than 220,000 calls while an average of 100,000 people visit one of our 400 service centres around Australia.

Our customers contact us at times when they may be vulnerable and going through personal turmoil. They may have lost their job, are ill or injured, have had a relationship breakdown, or they have lost a loved one, and/or they are experiencing family and domestic violence.

Customers experiencing family and domestic violence may be eligible for a range of payments and services and our staff work with customers to identify the best support available for them.

My department also has a network of social workers who offer counselling and support. As well as helping victims to obtain appropriate payments, our social workers play an important role linking victims with state and community support services.

In the last financial year, 48,468 contacts were made with departmental social workers about family and domestic violence, over 1,000 more than the previous year. This is not a small issue.

In conjunction with the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, my department has developed a Family and Domestic Violence Strategy.

As part of this strategy, Human Services is implementing its Family and Domestic Violence Risk Identification and Referral model, initially in the Child Support programme.

This process requires child support staff to ask customers if they are concerned about their safety or their family’s safety during certain telephone conversations.

If the customer identifies a concern, the staff member will offer appropriate support, potentially engaging the customer with one of our departmental social workers, or by providing contact numbers for relevant community organisations, or a direct transfer to 1800RESPECT, Australia’s National Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence Counselling Service.

Separation can often commence or increase family and domestic violence.

Customer feedback from the early trials suggest that people appreciate being asked if they have concerns for their safety.

The model ensures staff have a systematic and consistent referral process to connect customers with the support services they need, when they need it.

While child support staff are experienced in working with customers who have complex matters, they are given comprehensive training in responding to people who are identified as experiencing family and domestic violence concerns.

The department is expanding the model to other areas of the business and adapting it for face-to-face and online service delivery channels.

Human Services is often described as the face of government to the Australian people.

Nowhere is this more the case than in remote and regional Indigenous communities. We know that family and domestic violence occurs far too often in these communities, and is a very complex issue for those victims and our staff to deal with.

I am acutely aware that implementing the Risk Identification and Referral model in these communities will not be a simple task. I also know that it is one further initiative among many that the Government is implementing to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians.

I believe the model will help to ensure victims of violence receive the support they need and I look forward to working with the Minister for Indigenous Affairs to make this happen.

Both I and my personal staff, with senior members of the department, attended a Risk Identification and Referral training session last week, delivered by a senior Human Services social worker. I think it is important for me to know and understand how the department is approaching this.

I have mentioned the size of the task. Recent statistics from state and territory police suggest that police across Australia deal with an estimated 657 domestic violence matters on average every day of the year.

That’s one incident every two minutes. In basically every community – wealthy, poor, urban, rural. Your town, my suburb.

So frankly, family and domestic violence isn’t a socio-economic issue, it’s everybody’s issue. The simple fact is that there are people who on some level feel it is justifiable to terrorise their partner, their family in the confines of their own home.

Addressing family and domestic violence

Because family and domestic violence so often happens behind closed doors collecting data on incidents is difficult. There is still much we don’t know about victims and also importantly, about identifying which strategies are most effective at addressing the issue.

Please bear with me for a moment while I draw some comparisons to the way we address and report on what has long been regarded as another critical national issue, our road toll.

I call our appalling road toll of the 1970s a national ‘crisis of behaviour’, either bad or stupid, similar to our wilful destruction of our skin in the Australian summers before the anti-skin cancer campaigns and our high levels of smoking, before the Quit campaigns.

Australia has made impressive headway reducing our road toll from almost 3,800 deaths in 1970 to 1,193 in 2013. On a per-head of population basis our road toll is about one-fifth of that in 1970, a considerable achievement.

I can’t do the same to confidently identify the first victim of family and domestic violence in 2015. We don’t have an official, equivalent data capture.

In comparing domestic violence and road trauma, I know they are vastly different problems of both scale and complexity, but I have come to the view that we need to look at what has worked before to change bad behaviours and use good experience where we can.

I believe the way this country has steadily chipped away at the road toll, a problem for which many in the past thought there was no answer, may provide the basis of a plan for reducing family and domestic violence.

Like domestic violence, the road toll is a multi-faceted issue with no single underlying factor – and no borders. As such, we’ve taken a multi-faceted and a highly nuanced approach to reducing the road toll.

Mandatory seatbelts, random breath testing, speed cameras, airbags, driver education, vehicle restrictions and improved road design have all made significant impacts in reducing the road toll. These are evidence based changes and they have worked.

Coupled with sustained media campaigns they have fundamentally changed our driving culture for the better.

We haven’t avoided picking on particular demographics either. We deliberately targeted young men in the ‘pinky-wagging’ television commercials, because we know there is an issue with young men driving recklessly. We needed to find a way to speak to this demographic.

I bet we can all list at least one road toll campaign phrase, ‘fatigue kills’, ‘slow down’, the bloody idiot campaign, plan B, and the very special, ‘drink, drive, and ‘score a date with a blonde’, the ‘blonde’ being a judge on the bench wearing a blonde judges wig.

Without being overly simplistic, but using these campaigns as an example, we can drill down into the demographic profiles, socio-economic position and other indicators used in these successful campaigns and perhaps identify and use similar tools as a coordinated option for addressing and reducing family and domestic violence.

Each of these incremental changes, big and small, have saved lives and prevented many more drivers from being maimed.

Professor Rod McClure, director of the Monash Injury Research Institute, has said that critical to the success of the long-term strategic approach to make our roads safer was the continual engagement of the public in the debate, ensuring the community was a stakeholder in the cause.

He also highlighted the importance of community leaders standing up and calling for an end to the carnage. And this is what I am doing tonight.

We shouldn’t shy away from looking at this approach to reducing domestic violence. Just because domestic violence is a big, complicated problem it doesn’t mean we should overlook the small steps each of us can take to prevent it.

 


 

This is an edited extract of a speech Senator Marise Payne gave on Tuesday night at the Sydney Institute. Full text of the speech is available here.

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