Yvette D’Ath’s fight against domestic violence ahead of political retirement

Queensland’s top law officer says there’s “no doubt” a lot of violence is going unreported in Far North Queensland, even as the region has the unenviable record of the highest domestic and family violence charges in the state.

Queensland’s top law officer says there’s “no doubt” a lot of violence is going unreported in Far North Queensland, even as the region has the unenviable record of the highest domestic and family violence charges in the state.

There were 2349 charges lodged in the Cairns Magistrates Court in the 11 months to May this year — a record high in the state — official data reveals.

The second busiest court was Townsville with 1414 charges in the same period, and Brisbane third at 1278 charges.

Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath said unique housing challenges and fewer police and social services in remote areas meant women and children were at greater risk of abuse.

“When you’ve got 10 people, multiple generations living in the same household, how do you put a protection order in place and say you can’t be within 100m of this person when they’re all living together?” she said.

Relationships Australia head of operations Chris Le Gay Brereton, Superintendent Monique Ralph, Attorney-General Yvette D'Ath and Relationships Australia CEO Natasha Rae in Cairns in early June, announcing the launch of the state's first co-responder police and DV specialist response. Picture: Annabel Bowles

It is these circumstances in the Far North that led Ms D’Ath to run the state’s first domestic violence co-responder trial in Cairns, which means domestic violence specialists from Relationship Australia now join police officers as they respond to DV matters in the community.

While visiting Cairns earlier this month to unveil the trial, Ms D’Ath shared her own harrowing experiences of sexual harassment in an exclusive interview with the Cairns Post.

“As a young teenager, I had a family friend wanting me to kiss him goodnight when we’re leaving their house. This is a grown man … I was maybe 13,” she said.

“When I pecked him on the cheek, he said ‘No, kiss me like you kiss a boyfriend’. That has stayed with me my whole life.”

Yvette D'Ath, the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, has spoken publicly about her own harrowing experiences of sexual harassment. Picture: Steve Pohlner

Just years later, she says a man came into her workplace and tried to kiss her in a back room while no one was around.

And only in 2019, Ms D’Ath says she was groped by an international judge inside Parliament House during her first stint as Attorney-General.

“He grabbed my backside twice during photos. I laughed it off because what are you going to do, make a scene?” she said.

Now armed with a few years of hindsight, Ms D’Ath says she wished she handled it differently.

She has since publicly spoke out about her experiences as a reminder that sexual harassment and domestic violence can impact anyone, no matter who they are.

“You can ask most women and I think they can all say that they’ve been sexually harassed or sexually assaulted. I don’t know too many women who haven’t,” she said.

“We accept that this is just what we have to endure as women and it shouldn’t be.”

As a senior government member since 2015 and the minister for domestic violence prevention since May last year, Ms D’Ath has led reforms including making coercive control and strangulation criminal offences.

She also boosted funding to DV support service providers by 20 per cent.

But with her political retirement just months away, she’s becoming more brazen in her view about how women and children are still falling victim to a broken society.

“We’re not seeing the tide turn,” Ms D’Ath said.

“What we are seeing is plenty of victims coming forward, which is a really good thing, seeing a lot of predominantly women coming forward for help, coming forward to police (to get) protection orders.

“That says they have confidence in the system and that’s coming a long way from where we were a decade ago.

Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath at a candle lighting vigil in Brisbane in May for Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month. Picture: David Clark

“We have educated girls and women about how to try not to be attacked in their own communities. But where’s the conversation with the men saying stop attacking women?

“Why aren’t they out there rallying, why aren’t they angry that their daughters and their sisters and their partners and their mothers are being hurt and killed?

“We’re putting all the onus on women and we have for decades.”

Ms D’Ath is confident new coercive control laws set to come into effect next year will help capture offenders before their behaviour escalates.

“A controlling relationship with someone who claims to love you, sees you as their property – ‘If I can’t have you, no one can’ – can certainly turn to the most tragic of outcomes,” she said.

“Our focus has got to be stopping it from happening.

“Language is dangerous and we have to change our language. We have to change the way we talk about women and girls, the language we use with our sons.

“Stop saying ‘Don’t cry, don’t be a girl, don’t be a wuss’. We frame it so that they’re not to show emotions, that they’ve got to be tough and in control … and that girls are weak.”

Ms D’Ath also supports News Corp’s campaign to limit social media access to kids aged 16 or over.

“We’ve got young boys and girls exposed to sexualised behaviour … fairly violent, graphic pornography and thinking that’s what a relationship is like,” she said.

“But banning it is not the only solution … we still have to educate not just young people, but adults.

“We need to educate everyone about what abuse looks like. Abuse isn’t just physical, it’s psychological abuse, it is financial abuse … refusing to let them have contraception because children are a way of controlling and stopping them from leaving.

“With coercive control becoming a stand-alone offence next year, it’s more important than ever that the service providers, the police, the broader community knows what that looks like.”

Originally published as Yvette D’Ath’s fight against domestic violence ahead of political retirement