DV experts call for action after second Aboriginal woman allegedly killed in Alice Springs
The Territory’s Domestic Violence minister failed to respond to questions as Alice Springs mourns the loss of the second woman allegedly killed since the start of the year.
Northern Territory
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The deaths of mothers, sisters, aunties and children in the Red Centre have failed to spark the urgency the Territory’s domestic violence “crisis” deserves, experts say.
On Sunday morning a 41-year-old mother-of-four was allegedly bashed to death by her partner in the Ilperle Tyathe (Warlpiri) town camp, north of Alice Springs.
Her 39-year-old partner was arrested, and on Wednesday morning was charged with murder.
The alleged domestic violence homicide comes 28 days after a 51-year-old woman’s body was found on the banks of the Todd River.
Her husband Patrick Jungala Nolan was charged with her murder.
It is understood both women were living in the town camps around Alice Springs at the time of their deaths.
On Monday Tangentyere Women’s Family Safety Group said its leaders were “devastated, frustrated, angry and grieving”, and called for governments to listen to community-led solutions.
“We all feel the loss and the trauma, it impacts our entire community,” the statement said.
“The deaths of these women should not be used as a political football. But their loss should be the cause of outrage and action.
“One woman dying at the hands of a man is too many.”
One of the nation’s leading domestic, family and sexual violence researchers, Chay Brown said to lose two women in a town of 33,000 people in 28 days should appal all Australians.
Dr Brown said 11 women were allegedly killed by their loved ones in the eight months since June, with the Territory’s rates of domestic abuse similar to those in Papua New Guinea.
Yet the Mparntwe-Alice Springs based expert said the reaction from the Australian public was to “sit idly by as women and children are killed at an alarming rate”.
“It is too easy to ignore us. We’re too remote, we’re too far away, our population is too small, we have too little power. We’re irrelevant,” she said.
“And simply the Australian public does not mourn the lives of Aboriginal women the way they do others — and that should give us pause for reflection.”
The two Alice Springs women’s deaths come just 80 days since the NT Coroner Elisabeth Armitage released her 35 findings from her landmark inquest.
Ms Armitage has already set a second inquest for August, Dr Brown said she feared “nothing will change” over the next six months.
Instead Dr Brown said the families of slaughtered women and children will be left only with “condolences and … more promises that nobody has any intention of keeping”.
“There is no greater community safety issue in the Northern Territory than domestic, family and sexual violence,” Dr Brown said.
“How many women need to die — exactly — before they take this seriously?”
On Monday the Domestic Violence Minister Robyn Cahill was asked to respond to specific questions including the government’s response to the coronial findings, the rollout of a promised $180m, the ‘audit’ of funding and the impact weakening alcohol laws on victim-survivors.
However a spokesman for her officer said Ms Cahill was not available due to “parliamentary process meetings”.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro reaffirmed that her government would spend $36m in domestic violence measures over the next 12 months, as part of the promised $180m in additional funding over five years.
Ms Finocchiaro said strengthening bail laws for repeat or violent offenders would provide security for victim-survivors, despite both the Corrections and Police commissioners telling the inquest that the NT could “not arrest our way out of this crisis”.
“Our police need the right powers. Our prisons need to have the opportunity to rehabilitate people and deliver behavioural change programs, and we need to make sure we’re putting the rights of people to be safe above everything else,” Ms Finocchiaro said on Monday.
Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory chief executive John Paterson also said not enough was being done to meet the scale of violence, with frontline services “stretched beyond capacity”.
“This is a crisis — one that has already claimed far too many lives, particularly the lives of Aboriginal women,” Dr Paterson said.
Federal Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy said the government was “making record investments” to support First Nations women and children experiencing violence.
“The levels of violence against First Nations women and children are a national shame,” Ms McCarthy told the senate.
“Not numbers and statistics – they are daughters, sisters, mothers, aunties, grandmothers. They are matriarchs of our communities.”
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