FIXING domestic violence has become a priority for every confirmed and aspiring community leader in Australia during the past 12 months.
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Almost daily, we are confronted by a harrowing new story of family terror where women and children are victims of atrocities so often previously hidden from the public’s eye.
It’s tragic that only now are authorities taking a deeper look into why women and children are dying at the hands of people they should be able to trust.
Yet domestic violence cannot be simply ‘fixed’. Those who believe legislation designed to claw back alcohol or drug abuse, increase criminal penalties for perpetrators of violence or change court processing systems will provide a cure must know such efforts simply fiddle at the edges.
It is our attitudes to each other, and how we must recognise and change our behaviour, that is core to making our homes safe.
It says much about the progression of the conversation about gender equality in Australia that last week’s announcement of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s new cabinet was dominated by the juxtaposition of female members pre and post the leadership spill.
For so long, Australian political leadership has been dominated by men; ingraining the attitudes of power and roles and responsibilities of our family structures.
For those of us who have grown up in this Australia, it’s difficult to reconcile a different approach. But change we must.
Family violence is not caused by angry men and not by alcohol and not by drugs like ice. Family violence is underpinned by power; by disrespect and by accepting behaviour which is unacceptable.
Today, Australian Community Media (ACM) launches its End the Cycle campaign. ACM, a division of Fairfax Media, is Australia’s largest regional news provider.
We’ve teamed with Our Watch, a national body committed to ending violence against women and children, to emphasise the importance of working across borders to create awareness of this complex problem.
We are committed to pressuring government to act; to getting the message into schools and communities and to ensuring those who aid and abet violence are held to account. We want to end the cycle of violence - and it starts here.
