Target domestic violence offenders like terrorists: commissioner

Domestic violence perpetrators should be tracked with the same forensic attention as suspected terrorists, says Australia’s domestic, family and sexual violence commissioner.

Molly Ticehurst’s accused killer, for example, demonstrated severe red flags before he was alleged to have murdered her. “If we took the tools that we have, to the risk assessment about [how] her puppy was killed; all the things that led up to [her alleged murder]. If we were watching that the way we watch people who are labelled as terrorists in our communities then she might still be alive today,” Commissioner Micaela Cronin said on Wednesday.

Micaela Cronin, Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner, at the National Press Club on Wednesday.Credit: James Brickwood

Ticehurst’s former partner Daniel Billings, 29, was charged in April with murdering the 28-year-old. His case returns to court in August.

Cronin’s comments weigh into an ongoing debate about how to deal with misogyny in a context where one in four Australian teenage boys say they look up to social media personalities who condone violence against women, 43 women were murdered by their intimate partner last financial year, and there was an 11 per cent increase in reports of sexual violence in 2023.

She said domestic violence was not the same thing as terrorism, days after the United Kingdom’s home affairs office said it would treat extreme misogyny like Islamist and far-right extremist ideologies for its new counter-extremism strategy – a demand that some women’s safety advocates also made after the Bondi junction stabbings appeared to target women.

“If we called Molly Ticehurst’s murder terrorism, then most of the community would be shaking their head and going: ‘What are you talking about? That doesn’t make sense to me’,” Cronin said.

“[But] we need to take it as seriously as we take terrorism ... We need to be using all of the tools that are available to us that we use for terrorism.”

She said Australia needed to take threats of domestic, family and sexual violence as seriously as it takes terrorist threats, and act on them as urgently, while still recognising the difference.

“We have some incredible tools, that the police have, in terms of social media, watching who’s buying fertiliser at Bunnings and tracking things,” she said.

Family violence commissioner Michaela Cronin asked if Molly Ticehurst (pictured) might still be alive if police tracked violence data as closely as they did terror suspects.

“One of the things that we need to get better at is information sharing. The business sector has a phenomenal amount of information that can be brought together to be keeping an eye on men. So I think we need to use the tools.”

Experts have been calling on authorities to investigate new ways to spot red flags for dangerous men, whether it involves looking at their online activity, GPS and mental health data or involvement in family law disputes as signs of potential violence.

Cronin said there was a desperate need for more and better data about men. “We do not know enough about trajectories into using violence and out of using violence… We don’t have enough services available when men call and say ‘I’m a bit worried about my behaviour’,” she said.

“We know there’s a big debate about young men and online misogyny. We are watching a generation grow up with access to online misogyny, pornography, hate speech in a way that we’ve never seen before. And we are really struggling, as a community, [with] how to deal with that.

“We need to be having very different conversations with men ... We need to be engaging with men in different ways than we are now, we need to have eyes on men in different ways than we do now. We need to be listening to what communities, women and children mean when they say we need greater accountability.”

Cronin said there was a complex challenge in such conversations, being that while men as a group hold more power in the community, individual men are vulnerable and may be struggling to understand what it means to be a good man.

The commission’s annual report to parliament, released on Wednesday, said governments had to work with service providers and the community to ensure there were more intervention options for men who were using or at risk of violence.

“Increased accountability for people who use violence is vital, taking into consideration the forms of accountability being sought by victim-survivors,” it said.

“Improved information sharing, risk assessments of men using violence known to the system and effective justice interventions that prevent harm are critical.”

It also said frontline and crisis services also needed better and more sustainable resourcing.

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