Horrific statistics show scale of domestic violence problem on Coast - no ifs or buts about it
Statistics prove beyond any doubt that the Gold Coast is in the grip of a major crisis, yet astonishingly, some people still try to play it down, writes Keith Woods.
Opinion
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- Coast community’s touching tribute to Kelly Wilkinson
DURING the dark days of terrorism in Northern Ireland, a phrase became popular among locals: “Whataboutery”.
It referred to the practice whereby people on one side of the community, when asked to condemn a terrorist attack by their own mob, would agree it was a bad thing, but then go on to effectively condone the outrage by asking “what about” the awful things other lot had done.
Bonney MP Sam O’Connor was forced to contend with a Gold Coast version of whataboutery in the last few days. When he made a public call for men who felt themselves going down a “dark road” that could lead to violence against their partners to seek help, he was hit with a wave of negative feedback. Most accused him of being somehow anti-man, asking “what about women’s violence towards men?”
So, what about some facts.
There were 62 women murdered in Australia last year. Of those, 56 were domestic-violence related deaths. The equivalent number of men was 18.
Statistics compiled by the volunteer group Impact also show that 84 per cent of all murders last year were known to have been committed by men, and only 10 per cent by women (in the other 6% of cases, no perpetrator has been identified by police).
Longer-term statistics compiled by the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network show that men commit more than 80 per cent of murders between couples who have a history of domestic violence.
In the 20 per cent of murders committed by women, over two-thirds were women killing men who had been abusing them.
There’s more.
On the Gold Coast, police data shows the domestic violence problem is especially acute - and is getting worse.
Queensland Police records show there were 3175 domestic violence order breaches on the Gold Coast last year. To put that into context, in 2010 the number was 647. That’s a stunning 390% increase in that period.
The number of sexual assault offences has also risen substantially during that period, from 312 offences to 556 (a 78% increase).
Our rising population, or greater police action, does not come anywhere near explaining these awful figures. Overall crime rates have not risen by anywhere near as much, with the total number of offences recorded by Queensland police in that 2010 to 2020 period rising by 15.5%.
These are the statistics that back up what people working on the front line of the domestic violence crisis on the Gold Coast have been saying for some time – they are overwhelmed, because they have never seen so many cases.
They are also statistics that show how much pressure has been put on police.
In the case of Kelly Wilkinson’s death, police have admitted that their response was wholly inadequate. How much better would it have been if police were better resourced to cope with this crisis?
Many hundreds of women and their families have already lost faith in the system.
As one would expect, that includes the family of Ms Wilkinson.
Despite the circumstances, their fear of the man charged over her death has not subsided.
Amidst their agonising grief, they are also very afraid he will seek bail when he’s well enough to be released from hospital.
That’s a damning indictment of the system. As are the figures showing the domestic violence crisis spinning out of control.
This column has long argued for tighter laws and greater resources for police and domestic violence support organisations.
But there is another important element that is needed.
The whole Gold Coast community needs to make its voices heard, to say what is happening is unacceptable. To say that enough is enough. To offer no excuses to domestic violence abusers. To make sure they know they are pariahs.
You don’t do that with comments asking “what about women’s violence towards men”.
To be blunt, no men have been burnt to death by their female partners, but that’s what happened to Hannah Clarke, and police now allege it also happened to Kelly Wilkinson.
There is no equivalence to these horrors.
The message that controlling and violent behaviour towards women is thoroughly unacceptable needs to reach those who really need to hear it — the men responsible — loud and clear.
For that to happen, we all need to be of one voice. There can be no room for whataboutery, no equivocation.
LAST WEEK: CALL THESE MEN WHAT THEY ARE - TERRORISTS
HOW do you define terrorism?
The Oxford English Dictionary says it is “the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to inculcate fear”.
Their rivals at Miriam-Webster say it is “the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion”.
The abuse that thousands of Gold Coast women have suffered at the hands of violent and abusive partners most certainly meets these definitions.
There are other parallels.
Where once terrorists would plant bombs, or open fire from a safe distance, before making their cowardly escape, more recently we have had to cope with a new kind of terrorist, one who fully expects to die in their attack.
Many of the perpetrators of domestic violence murders appear of a similar twisted mindset.
Karina Lock’s ex-husband turned his gun on himself after murdering his ex-wife in front of horrified diners at a Helensvale McDonald’s.
The vile excuse of a man that burned Hannah Clarke and her children to death in a suburban Brisbane street stabbed himself to death after his unspeakable crime.
The loser who killed a nine-month-old girl in South Australia last week did so knowing he too would die in the process.
These are not the kind of people to be scared off by a domestic violence order (DVO).
In all of these cases, and so many more, the horrific final acts of these men followed a prolonged period of abuse. They terrorised the women unfortunate enough to take a chance on them. They were terrorists.
These terrorists are doing far more damage than the Islamic extremist variety.
This column calculates that, including the two victims of the Lindt siege, Islamic extremists have killed six people on Australian soil since 2014.
In contrast, statistics compiled by the Counting Dead Women Australia group show 494 women have been killed by violence in the same period. It’s only April, but already there have been 11 killed this year.
Ask yourself this, is our society responding with the same concern to this threat as it did to the threat of Islamic extremism?
Among those killed this year is mother of three Kelly Wilkinson, who suffered a horrific death in Arundel last week.
At a vigil for Kelly in Parkwood on Monday, someone held a sign saying reading simply: “legislation has to change”.
This column could not agree more.
We need to acknowledge the scale of the crisis, the very real danger facing women, and treat the men responsible the same as any other dangerous terrorist with hate in their heart.
We need to treat the abusers, and their apologists, with all the respect previously reserved for Islamic extremists and their ilk.
We need to make DVOs more like the control orders provided for in anti-terrorist legislation, which allow for curfews, the wearing of an electronic monitoring tag and regular reporting to police.
Jail them immediately when they breach them. And pour resources into police to allow for effective monitoring, as we were so willing to do with anti-terrorism units.
Make coercive control a crime, as Hannah Clarke’s grieving parents have been asking.
It’s been done before. Look how effective the VLAD Act and anti-consorting laws have been in driving bikies from the Gold Coast. It’s high time we did something similar to tackle the scourge of the DV terrorists.
As Bond University Criminology Associate Professor Wayne Petherick so pithily remarked last week, our response so far has amounted to little more than “thoughts and prayers”, when what is needed is “real action”.
The many horrific murders of women recorded on the Gold Coast and across the nation cannot be dismissed as “domestic” matters. We cannot look away.
There is a savagery and a cruelty that challenges the basic values of our society.
By anyone’s definition, this is terrorism.
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