A card in the woods and a heartbreaking message to a beloved daughter

The smell of burnt bark and the sight of charred saplings stretch into the distance where the Ross Creek forest fire raged near Ballarat on February 13.

There is one splash of fresh green: a vast pile of roses, lisianthus and sprigs of white daisies sitting on a log of charcoal.

It looks so out of place, but it is a painful reminder for the women of Ballarat, and even more so for a family whose beloved daughter was allegedly left dead in her new car. The vehicle was then set alight in this lonely place less than a week ago.

Hannah McGuire was the third woman allegedly killed by a man in the Ballarat area in two months, and the words left on the pink card with the flowers are some of those the hurting women in the region, the state and the country desperately need to hear: “You matter”.

McGuire was the third woman allegedly murdered by a man in the Ballarat area in the past two months.

“Hannah, always remember you mattered, you were important and loved, and you brought to this world things no one else could,” it says.

“We loved you for a million years and we’ll love you for a million more. Our special Princess. Love Mum, Dad, Fletch and Jude xx”

McGuire was 23, an education student and teacher’s aide, and the 18th woman to have allegedly died violently this year.

Her former partner, Lachlan Young, 21, has been charged and remains in custody.

The card left by Hannah McGuire’s loving family.Credit: Wendy Tuohy

As those fighting to stop the violence towards women in a region with a far higher rate of it than the state average will attest – as would searchers who were out looking, again, on Thursday for the body of missing Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy – this story affects everyone.

Djab Wurrung woman Sissy Austin, a former Ballarat family violence worker, survived being smashed in the face and knocked unconscious by a man with a rock while jogging just 20 kilometres from where Murphy went missing while jogging in the bush near Ballarat.

Austin was assaulted about 35 kilometres from where Hannah McGuire’s burnt-out car was found. Police have not charged anyone with the February 2023 assault, which caused Austin horrific facial injuries.

Former Ballarat family violence worker Sissy Austin survived a vicious attack while jogging in the bush near Ballarat, and has organised an anti-violence rally in the town for Friday evening.Credit: Penny Stephens

Patrick Orren Stephenson, 22, has been charged with Samantha Murphy’s murder,  but despite the work of widespread community groups looking for her in forests and bushland, her body is yet to be found.

The third woman killed, Rebecca Young, 42 and a mother of five died in her home in Sebastopol on February 16, in an apparent murder-suicide by her partner, Ian Butler, 55. Two of her teenage children were in the house when Young was stabbed to death.

On Thursday, Sissy Austin was at her new home about half an hour from Ballarat, painting two banners to display at the community rally she has organised to protest the killings and violence towards women in the town, and all over the country.

Despite wide publicity in the case of some killings of women by men, including Sydney school teacher Lilie James late last year, or Celeste Manno, whose stalker-killer, Luay Sako, was sentenced in March, what hits the headlines is only a fraction of the violence women experience, especially in the regions, Austin says.

“This is not new … I worked for the family violence sector for four years in Ballarat, and all you need to do is spend a day in the Ballarat Magistrates’ Court to see what women are going through in the town,” she says.

“And that’s only a small proportion of the women applying for intervention orders ... Ballarat has some of the highest numbers of children being removed by child protection because of family violence. The stats of children being removed are quite horrific.”

Women’s services in the region do a laudable job, Austin says, but the demand for help is overwhelming. Many women do not report violence against them because, in small towns, perpetrators, friends, families and people who work in women’s safety may be connected.

Damage to Sissy Austin’s face after the attack by a man with a makeshift weapon, while she was out jogging, was severe.Credit: Facebook

“Everyone knows which houses are the safe houses now and everyone knows which hotels and motels are used for women’s safety, and that impacts a lot of women coming forward,” she says.

“I think a lot of women are just in survival mode in the town … there’s a mix of fear and survival mode. But many women I’ve spoken to are not lacking in fight, and will fight for our right to exist in the town.”

Austin has joined scores of Ballarat community members searching for Samantha Murphy “almost daily” since she disappeared on February 4. She says Murphy’s fate is even discussed by the children of Ballarat.

“Where they’re searching for Samantha Murphy’s body again today, that forest is nearly exactly where I was attacked a year ago,” she said. Community trauma due to the spate of killings “has got to the point where everyone’s just needing to cry. It’s a roller coaster.”

Women runners training for the Ballarat marathon on April 27 have added extra safety measures to their running routine, says Austin, including sending their Garmin tracker links of proposed jogs to partners and friends.

“I make sure to say hi to everyone I pass so they remember me. So then if I was to be attacked, someone could be like, ‘Oh, I remember that girl, she said hi to me.’ They’ll recall they saw me at that time.”

Marianne Hendron, chief executive of Women’s Health Grampians, the lead organisation for prevention of violence against women in the Central Highlands, Grampians, Pyrenees and Wimmera, is also deeply affected by the three alleged murders. Parts of her region have twice the level of violence per 100,000 women of the Victorian average.

Workers who have been engaged tirelessly to try to make regional women safer, and to find them housing when they need to escape, are feeling demoralised by the rate and complexity of harm being done to them.

‘Men in this community are also … outraged. There is an appetite for men to take action, be active bystanders and pull up their mates.’

Marianne Hendron, chief executive Women’s Health Grampains

“We’ve had these three, rapid-succession incidents in Ballarat, and it’s very palpable in the community,” Hendron says. “To be honest with you, we’ve just had a big cry in the street about it. Especially when we’ve worked in this space for so long … it’s disheartening.”

“You want to feel confident that you’re making a difference, and things are changing.”

Hendron, like other violence-prevention leaders who spoke to this masthead, says it is worrying that the two men in custody for the killings of Murphy and McGuire are so young.

Marianne Hendron, chief executive of Women’s Health Grampians, says young people’s engagement with online platforms that perpetuate misogyny, and those with hardcore porn, has had evident effects since the pandemic.Credit: Penny Stephens

High rates of violence against women in the region after the pandemic, when many young people spent vast amounts of time online, may in part reflect the influence of radicalisation during lockdowns.

“Radicalisation [by misogynistic influencers here and abroad] is a factor, as is the pervasiveness of hardcore porn. That plays into it as well, there is no question,” she says.

“Men in this community are also shocked and outraged, and I believe there is an appetite for men to take action, be active bystanders and pull up their mates.”

As all of Ballarat asks why, Hendron says the disproportionate amount of violence against women there is in part down to isolation and lack of access to services such as childcare, which would give women agency in their lives, via the ability to engage with work.

Sissy Austin works on banners for the rally she organised in Ballarat in Friday night, to demand women have the right to be safe.Credit: Penny Stephens

“There is also probably a conservatism that helps to maintain more rigid gender stereotypes … that we know leads to violence against women,” she says.

Respectful-relationships education is not rolled out consistently, with some schools in Ballarat saying they do not need it, says Hendron, and thousands of students missed out on it altogether during remote schooling.

Dr Jess Cadwallader, principal strategic adviser for the Central Highlands Family Violence Committee, confirms that higher levels of gender inequality in the regions lead to more stereotypical expectations of women in relationships.

“This leads to higher levels of family violence … and the normalisation of men’s violence, whether against women or against other men,” she says.

Due to huge demand for women’s support services, intervention to help women earlier is difficult as the most high-risk cases need to be prioritised.

But, though Family Safety Victoria has also been downsized, Cadwallader stresses that women who feel they are in danger are usually right, according to research, and should always come forward, as “we are triaging all the time”.

The continuing impact of the generational trauma inflicted by Ballarat’s disproportionately high number of paedophile clergy and orphanages is possibly also reflected in the violence statistics, say local women’s safety experts.

But whatever the factors, they say there is no excuse for violence that is making large numbers of women feel unsafe going about daily lives.

Katrina Bevelander, operations director of the Ballarat Centre Against Sexual Assault, has a concise and powerful summary of how the events of this year have left women feeling.

“We’ve had three awful fatalities and we have a community that’s feeling unsafe,” she says.

“It is trying to understand these incidents in a way that makes sense, so people can move about in their lives feeling safe again. We have all heard stories of women who have adjusted their exercise regimes, of young women who are needing their parents to walk them to the car at night because they don’t feel safe.

“But we know this has existed all along. There are women always feeling this way in the community, because they are unsafe at home. What these fatalities have done is shine a spotlight on what women experience, day in, day out.”

If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline 131 114, or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636. Or, in Ballarat, call Orange Door on 1800 219 819