a comment on the Domestic and Family Violence in Australia Summit, Canberra, March 2016.
http://www.taracostiganfoundation.com/our_summit_report_released
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/school-life/brighton-grammars-bizarre-message-for-bullied-kids/news-story/72e2219c3eb94dc498e2f29718fd46b6
https://www.amf.org.au/gun-violence-petition/
I am still undecided about the way the country is trying to tackle Domestic and Family Violence. In short my opinion is that the press has put a large net over all domestic news, but only reports those that end in homicide. I feel that our society already has a great law system around homicide. The press labelling these crimes as DFV is a fundamental error. It draws resources allocated in the DV space sideways away from other tasking and bogs them down in the homicide cases. I feel that the homicide should be left as just that and leave the DFV resources as just that to work in the prevention and associated remediation of non-homicidal domestic cases. I am not trying to say that Family Homicides are not DV, but they need to not draw down on the scarce and valuable resources trying to work in prevention.
I will give you the bottom line up front, I don’t like “resilience”, and I see it as a slow and slippery slope to ruin. I think it is a failing to take a stand by those around, I see it enables bullies and shames victims. I have no interest in blaming victims. Never. I also have no interest in language that empowers the bully or their target. I also have no time for those who are not exploring solutions.
I also note that there seems to be a bias in the media for reporting of homicidal DFV cases where the male is the alleged perpetrator and the female (and new partner) is the victim. I would really like to see both a lot less reporting of these homicides but at least a fairer balance of the gender issues (including LGBTI) issues at play.
I had a good read of recent reporting around the National Domestic Violence Summit. I feel that the room was terribly biased towards people and groups who have an income stream based primarily on Government funding (with associated community support). These people need stats to support the work and hard data on homicides etc does well to support the group appeals for funding. However, the much more difficult to document and therefore more difficult to document work in the suite of other DFV actions are not discussed.
There is also much work being done around the insanity clause in DFV criminal cases; many are arguing for verdicts to avoid “not guilty due to mental health” but to “guilty but unable to understand actions due to mental health” This is a very robust argument worthy of further progress in our legal system. (see article 23 May 2016 www.theprojecttv.com.au)
We need to lower the use of gender issues in the debate is we really want to move forward, we also need to move away from the media focus on familiar homicides and put the broader DFV spectrum on the National Agenda…
DFV ideas posted by family for website about gender and that cash only helps foundations and victims, we need a front loaded solution we need Trust and Respect. When there is true trust and respect then Love lives forever. Love does not lead to DFV, lack of love implies lake of trust and respect, and only hurt can fill this game space.
Respect + Trust = Love
“He loves me….” @ Love
“I love him…” @ Love
“I Love you” =? Love
We are looking for love in the all the wrong places without Respect and/or Trust then a compromise will need to be made to replace them; This will only lead to a poor compensation and thus Love will rarely prevail.
“We are in love, we love each other, We trust and Respect Each other” = Love.
Those in need of support may choose to view;
https://www.1800respect.org.au/ or https://www.beyondblue.org.au/