Charlie King lists the domestic violence red flags of the NT

A Top End anti-violence advocate plans to train the Territory’s seniors to identify domestic violence red flags in their community. We reveal what the warning signs are.

Domestic violence prevention advocate Charlie King has identfied the generation that could prevent family and domestic violence.

At a recent family and domestic violence rally in Casuarina as part of the No More campaign, Mr King revealed the Territory’s oldest and wisest community members would be key to identifying the warning signs.

He said the general feeling among seniors was “they want to do something”.

“Their time is running out on this earth, like me, the road in front of them is shorter compared to the road behind them,” Mr King said.

“They’ve gathered great wisdom in their life, they want to do something now that’s good, that will make them feel as though they’ve made some contribution.”

Mr King said involving seniors in domestic violence prevention was an “untapped area” that could be relevant on a national scale.

The advocate, along with partner CatholicCare NT, is working with Seniors of Excellence president Michael Foley to train Territory seniors.

Mr Foley said seniors were well-positioned to identify domestic violence and set expectations for respectful behaviour in their families and community.

Broadcaster Charlie King speaks out against domestic violence. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

Mr King said teaching the community’s seniors to identify domestic violence in their own families would build a “big army” of prevention advocates.

He said CatholicCare NT was working with First Nations communities to help leaders identify the most effective way to combat domestic violence.

“We will employ them on a part-time basis, and get them to work not with us but within their own community,” he said.

“They will look at that issue, and they’ll come up with their ideas of how best they can actually fix it.”

Research from Our Watch suggests First Nations women are more likely to be targets of domestic violence than other demographics.

Mr King said there were nine behavioural red flags and nine green flags that anyone could look out for.

He said each warning sign could indicate physical, emotional or financial violence.

“If there’s signs of red flags with an individual in a family, pretty sure that there’s violence happening,” Mr King said.

Mr King said an individual could display nine green flags and just one red flag but it did not mitigate the individual’s potential for violence.

“Even if they’ve only done it once, and they say, ‘oh look, it was only a once-off event’,” he said.

“It is, but it lies dormant, it’s within their makeup, it’s almost like it’s in their DNA.”

No More and Catholic Care NT have identified the behavioural red and green flags to identify domestic violence. Picture: Supplied

NT Police Detective Acting Superintendent John Ginnane said domestic violence reports would always be a priority for police because of the potential for serious injury or death.

“There is associated property damage, there is the flow on effect through families and extended families,” he said.

“We recognise that, to the extent that every domestic violence job that is reported to us we treat with the highest priority and we will often prioritise that over a number of other categories of incident that we will attend.”

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