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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-05-07 Daily Xml
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National Domestic Violence Remembrance Day

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (12:37): By leave, I move this motion in an amended form:

That this house—

(a) recognises National Domestic Violence Remembrance Day;

(b) remembers and honours those who have died and the ones left behind due to domestic and family violence; and

(c) commits to do whatever we can to prevent domestic violence.

I rise to acknowledge that today is National Domestic Violence Remembrance Day, a day for every one of us here and every Australian to stop and reflect on the harm that people experience at the hands of those they are supposed to be able to trust in an environment that should be their safest place. It is a day to reflect and remember those who have tragically lost their life as a result of domestic violence. The dire toll of violence in homes in our communities is marked today with National Domestic Violence Remembrance Day. This day is held in conjunction with Domestic Violence Prevention Month.

Our statistics on domestic violence are appalling, shocking, completely and totally unacceptable and a glaring reminder of how much work we still need to do. One in three Australian women now experiences physical violence from the age of 15; this statistic is worse if you are an Aboriginal women or if you are a woman with a disability. Twenty-five women have died this year as a result of domestic violence, and an average of 27 children are killed by a parent each year.

Deep-seated gender inequality continues and continues to contribute to some men continuing to believe that it is okay to control women they are or have been in a relationship with through violence. I have spoken in many forums about, amongst other things, these shocking statistics about violence against women and a range of strategies that are employed in relation to ending domestic violence. Clearly, we must do more.

Earlier this year, in my own southern community, we mourned the death of a beautiful young woman, Jackie Ohide, who was found dead in her car by her beautiful young children on 15 March this year. I was at a function that morning, just a few hundred metres from where she was when this terrible tragedy happened, unseen and unheard. Like so many others in our community, I did not see the tragedy that had been going on, I did not hear this tragedy unfolding and I did not know until too late.

Our southern community gathered in the week following her tragic death to honour together this beautiful young woman, Jackie, to mourn together her tragic death and to say together that as a community we are committed to ensuring that there is not one more death in our community, not one more assault, not one more misuse of power to cause psychological, emotional, financial or mental harm as a result of domestic violence, not one more.

I found out a little more about Jackie in the week following her death and have met with her beautiful family. As well as seeing her lovely smiling face shining out from the newspaper, the TV screen and online, I discovered that Jackie was someone who many around her saw as a beautiful angel with a beautiful soul, that she was 27, that she was of South Sudanese descent, that she had two beautiful boys aged two and four, that she had lived in our community amongst us for four years and that she would often be seen walking with her two boys around our streets.

I discovered that some time during 2008 she did reach out to services for help. That call for help was seven years ago. For seven years a woman in our community had been suffering, so close, yet so far away behind closed doors. We can now only imagine what she was going through. As I know all of us would feel, and I know so many in our southern community feel, I wish I had known what was going on behind her door. I wish I had seen and that I had heard and I wish that we could have helped her, but we can help her boys.

I have a glimpse of what these children may have seen and heard, but I cannot imagine the horror of losing my mother through violence. But I can imagine and will imagine how we can wrap our big community family's arms around those boys and look out for them in the days, weeks, months, years and decades that they will now walk through their lives without their mother. Together as a community we did commit to being by their side, to walking alongside them and every member of Jackie's family as they walk that difficult journey.

Together today, on this national day of remembrance, we can commit ourselves here in this place to putting our big community family's arms around any other woman who we know, or we think, is experiencing violence or is at risk of experiencing violence in their home. Our collective community arms are big and strong and so is our community spirit. It is this community spirit that will enable us to think together and to act together to ensure that not one more woman goes through what beautiful Jackie Ohide has, that not one more child witnesses what her sons did and lives what they now have to live.

I ask everyone today in this place to say to yourself, to say to one another and to say collectively together: not one more. Not one more. To say that we will do everything we can to ensure that not one more woman is affected by domestic violence and not one more woman loses her life as a result of violence. Since the tragic murder of Zahra Abrahimzadeh in 2010, our government has taken a stronger stance on domestic violence, accepting many of the Coroner's recommendations following an inquest into her death and enacting many strategies, including recent changes to the current intervention order system introduced just two days ago and our changes around tenancy laws introduced just a few weeks ago.

Zahra was repeatedly stabbed by her estranged husband at a cultural event at the Adelaide Convention Centre in March 2010. She and her children had been physically and psychologically abused for many years. This crime and this abuse was horrific and it deeply shocked our state. Her children, Arman, Atena and Anita, are extraordinary. Through their profound grief they have found a way to speak out and to reach out to other families who have also lost loved ones through domestic violence. I am in awe of their resilience and their desire to join together and reach out to say to so many, 'Not one more.'

I do understand the effect that witnessing violence has on children and I cannot find words strong enough to honour their sheer courage and compassion. Thank you, Arman, Atena and Anita, you inspire us all to do better.

Arman, Atena and Anita Abrahimzadeh have worked closely with the amazingly dedicated workers of our DV services who have dedicated decades and decades to supporting women and children who are fleeing their homes to escape domestic violence. They have worked with the Central Domestic Violence Service and the extraordinary Maria Hagias, Sandra Dunn and Kylie O'Callaghan there; Gillian Cordell and all at the Domestic Violence Crisis Service; Milenka Vasekova and all at the Migrant Women's Support Service; Julie Felus and all at the Northern Domestic Violence Service; Megan Hughes, Sue Underhill and all at the Southern Domestic Violence Service; Sharon Potts and others at Yarredi Services in Port Lincoln; Rosney Snell and others at Nunga Mi:Minar; and the DV coalition, along with many others, to develop the Zahra Foundation, which aims to support women to live a life free of violence and to attain economic independence.

The Zahra Foundation will officially launch on 5 September at a dinner at the Convention Centre, in the place where Zahra was tragically killed five years ago. Their vision is to engender hope for women who have been subject to domestic violence and to economically empower them through a range of educational and financial opportunities. I urge everyone in this place to support the foundation however they can and to encourage organisations and businesses in their communities to support the foundation also.

Ending domestic violence and ensuring that there is not one more is every community member's responsibility, and as leaders in our communities we have a unique opportunity to connect everyone that we can to this issue and to this foundation. I do not want to mourn another woman. I do not want any other child to go through what so many do. Women, men and children flourish in a world free of violence. On this national day of remembrance, let us commit together to ensuring there is not one more. And let us all commit to gathering tonight at 5.30 at Elder Park to remember and honour those for whom our efforts are too late.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (12:46): I rise to very genuinely and enthusiastically support the member for Reynell in her motion that this house (a) recognises National Domestic Violence Remembrance Day; (b) remembers those who have died and the ones left behind due to domestic and family violence; and (c), added today, commits to do whatever we can to prevent domestic violence.

This motion is extremely similar to a motion that I moved here a year ago, and I think that is very positive. As members would know, I have spoken on this topic many, many times in my five years in this house and it is a pleasure to be joined by the member for Reynell. I know everybody in this house is united in their view on this topic, but I think I have found a kindred spirit in the member for Reynell on this particular topic and wanting to take some leadership. Although our personal experiences are different, I do not doubt at all that our desire to show some leadership and contribute where we can to this topic is wholehearted on both our parts. I will be at Elder Park this afternoon as well.

Thank you, member for Reynell, also for advising the house about the Zahra Foundation dinner on 5 September. I think that is very important information for all members of this house to have. I would also like to comment that while it is of course terribly sad, it is also very pleasing that the issue of domestic violence is getting greater and greater recognition at all levels of government: federal, state and local.

There have certainly been people who have been working on this issue for many, many years, for decades, but probably not enough. However, the understanding of the importance of this issue is growing, and more important than the understanding of the issue is putting resources and effort to addressing it. I think that is a very important development, which is, unfortunately, necessary, but fortunately it is being addressed more than it was in previous years. I think that is terrific.

Unfortunately it is an undeniable fact that overwhelmingly it is men who commit violence against women when it comes to domestic violence, and that is absolutely shameful, but it is also just a fact, so we have to deal with it. We have to address it and we have to get on with it.

I am a very proud ambassador for the White Ribbon Foundation which is based on that knowledge—the knowledge that it is men who need to solve this problem. Because domestic violence is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women, it does not mean that all men are bad and all men do it. It is a small fraction of the male population who participate, and there is a strength in that, because then it is the overwhelming majority of men who do not participate who can actually use their influence on the small proportion of men who do participate.

A lot of other things have to be done, numerous other things, by both men and women as individuals, families, organisations, governments, etc., but it is men who have to take responsibility for the fact that on average one woman dies per week in Australia and, as the member for Reynell said, 25 women have died so far this year and 27 children on average die from domestic violence every year. They are unacceptable figures.

It is not like the road toll. People have to drive, people should take fewer risks, people should take more responsibility, but it is very hard for the mainstream public not to participate in the business that ends up in creating unfortunately a high road toll. It is completely different with domestic violence. No-one has to participate in the business of violence; it is just not necessary. We have, I think, a far greater opportunity for success in this area. We have a far greater opportunity to significantly reduce the number of victims of domestic violence across our nation and across our state. As the member for Reynell said, the ambition, the target, the goal, the outcome that we must all strive for is not one more.

Mr DULUK (Davenport) (12:51): I also rise to support the motion by the member for Reynell, and a very worthy motion it is. This remembrance day is a time when we reflect on the women, children and families who have been killed in the context of domestic violence. The statistics on domestic violence are sobering and, to be honest, they are a blight on our state and our nation. It was not an understatement when our Prime Minister recently referred to domestic violence as a national emergency.

The vast majority of dangerous, abusive and violent behaviour that occurs in the privacy of people's homes and their everyday activities is committed by men against women. One woman is killed in Australia every week from domestic violence, as has already been put on the record today.

Some of the other statistics are equally confronting. Just under half a million Australian women have reported that they have experienced physical or sexual violence or sexual assault in the past 12 months. More than a million women have experienced physical or sexual assault by their male partner or ex-partner since the age of 15. Many women experience multiple abuse at the hands of their partners; 37.8 per cent of women who experienced physical assault in the past 12 months indicate that the perpetrator was a previous male partner or was a male family member or friend. The vast majority of these incidents have been committed in the home.

It is a great sadness that the perpetrators of domestic violence are known to their victims and it really strikes at me that as men we have a great responsibility to do our bit to ensure domestic violence is stamped out of our society because it is a completely unacceptable statistic. Going on, 33 per cent of women have experienced physical violence since the age of 15 and 19.1 per cent of women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.

Domestic violence is a crime and society should not tolerate this behaviour. I know we have come a long way in recent years, and this issue has been in the spotlight of late which is wonderful to highlight this, but too often there are too many cases where we know about it and too often people turn a blind eye to it and do not support their friends or partners when they know they have experienced it, which is a real shame.

The 2015 Australian of the Year, Ms Rosie Batty, received her honour for her advocacy against domestic violence. I would like to quote Rosie Batty's story as it was provided as part of the nomination for Australian of the Year because it is compelling and her campaign against domestic violence makes her a worthy holder of the title of Australian of the Year. I quote:

When a grieving mother spoke out calmly just hours after her son's murder, she gave voice to many thousands of victims of domestic violence who had until then remained unheard. Rosie Batty has risen above her personal tragedy and the great loss of her 11 year old son, Luke, who was the victim of domestic violence at the hands of his father in a very public assault. Rosie's story jolted Australia into recognising that family violence can happen to anyone.

Victorian Police Chief Commissioner, Ken Lay, praising Rosie as the most 'remarkable victim' he has ever met, says Rosie has put domestic violence on the national agenda. Rosie now champions efforts to fight domestic violence, making many media and public speaking appearances to shine a spotlight on the issue and call for systemic changes. Rosie's incredible strength and selfless efforts are an inspiration to many other victims of domestic violence and her courage and willingness to speak out will make Australia a far better place.

As I touched on before, it is imperative that men and young men alike ensure that they do not become perpetrators in domestic violence, whether by omission, act or consent. That is why organisations such as White Ribbon play such an important role in the campaign against domestic violence. For those who do not know, White Ribbon is a global movement of men and boys working to end male violence against women and girls.

I fully commend this motion of the member for Reynell and highlight that tonight there will be a candle vigil beginning at 5.30 in Elder Park which is being sponsored by the Coalition of Women's Domestic Violence Services, and I urge all members of the house to attend this evening.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:57): I rise to make a few brief comments in support of this motion that recognises National Domestic Violence Remembrance Day and honours those who have died as well as the ones left behind due to domestic and family violence; and doing all we can to stop this blight on society.

There is no excuse for domestic violence—no excuse at all. The memo out to everyone is: walk away. I am on the Social Development Committee and I know the member for Reynell brought up this reference and we are currently looking at a reference on domestic violence. Sadly, too many cases of domestic violence are being brought before us from around the state. We have made some regional trips as well as having hearings here in Parliament House and there are far too many tragic stories. As a society, we must all work to end this blight and get rid of it once and for all. With those few words, I commend the motion of the member for Reynell.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland) (12:58): I rise quickly to support this motion. The issue of domestic violence is one of the tragedies, often hidden, in our society. It does none of us any good and I congratulate the member for Reynell for bringing this motion before the house. I remind members that, thanks to the cooperation of the Opposition Whip, the house will be rising at 5.30 tonight so that those who wish to attend that vigil can do so.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (12:58): In closing very briefly, I wanted to thank all of the other members who have contributed to this debate and supported the motion. I am heartened by our desire to work collectively to end violence against women and I look forward to seeing everybody tonight at 5.30 at the vigil.

Motion carried.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.

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