As I write this Letter to the Editor, it is just after hearing that the number of women killed in violent acts, which was 41 (since January 1 of this year), has been superseded by the news of the murders of 2 women (a mother, a grandmother) and 3 children, including 2 year old twin girls and a 3 year old girl, found dead in a house in a Perth suburb. A male has been apprehended.
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Then I open an email to see the news that a Mid Coast consortium has just been awarded a $1.5 million grant to concentrate on the men who perpetrate domestic violence.
All over Australia, and NSW in particular, women and children are turned away from so called homeless shelters. The NSW LNP falsely describes women and children fleeing violent homes as homeless. It cuts specialist Court Support schemes for women, it decimates the former network of specialist domestic violence crisis and support refuges, it has tried to cut funding to Rape Crisis centres.
No one has produced any credible evidence or research to show that perpetrator behaviour change programs succeed. What has been demonstrated by research is that while ever men hold the belief that based on their gender, they have a right to power and control over women, they will continue to bash, maim and kill.
Society is effectively saying, by the way it distributes resources and money, that the lives of women and children are of little to no value.
Leonie McGuire
Port Macquarie