Spending weeks, months, years sitting in regional Australian criminal courts, you learn a thing or two about human behaviour, trends in offending and this important fact: family violence is most definitely gendered.
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A report released last year based on police and coroners court data found there were 152 intimate partner homicides in Australia between 2010 and 2014. Of those, 121 had a male killer.
And when women killed their partner, just two of those women were the primary abuser, while 17 were the victim of family violence themselves and killed out of self-defence.
This doesn't take into account the regular non-lethal instances of violence against women. It takes these personal stories to shine a light on what occurs in the home.
Here is a small sample of what I reported in a regional court in one location:
- May, 2016: Man chokes woman with jeans, threatens to kill her children
- April, 2017: Man chokes his child for 10 seconds, verbally abuses mother in public
- August, 2017: Man threatens to kill woman and their unborn baby
- October, 2017: Man strangles ex-partner while shouting "say you love me"
- June, 2018: Man stabs a woman in the leg, pressures her to lie to police
- March, 2018: Man stabs woman 10 times in her home
- September, 2018: Man gives child, 14, the drug ice to spray paint intimidating words on ex's house
- September, 2018: Man punches girlfriend to the head 16 times, threatens to kill her eight times
- November, 2018: Male school teacher ambushes ex-wife in her home and ties her up with cable ties
Physical violence is just one way men abuse women. Emotional and financial abuse rarely make it to the courts.
So when senator Pauline Hanson uses her own anecdotes to allege widespread lying by women in the Family Court, you can respond with countless anecdotes of your own - or simply point to the evidence.
I once heard a magistrate urge all men to read Victoria's Royal Commission into Family Violence to truly grasp the epidemic of male violence in the home.
Senator Hanson needs to read it as well.