One instance of domestic violence anywhere is unacceptable, but 75,000 cases in the Northern Territory in the last three years is beyond the pale, and requires immediate attention by the authorities.

“Northern Territory Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw has revealed the depth of the NT's domestic violence problem, saying officers have responded to 75,000 cases (80% Aboriginal) in the past three years, with 44% of orders breached by offenders.”

This is sickening and begs the question, what can be done about it? The NT Coroner, Greg Cavanagh reported that domestic violence was "out of control" in Aboriginal communities! Is another Royal Commission warranted into yet another disgraceful occurrence up north?
Hopefully the rabid right will not turn this into an opportunity to do some “Abbo Bashing” and will offer some constructive suggestions as how to deal with the problem. Police intervention, although absolutely necessary, is an end response to the problem, and not a solution. The causes of domestic violence in the territory is deep seated, and difficult to tackle, but must be dealt with ASAP.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-22/domestic-violence-cases-in-northern-territory/7868592

Paul1405,

So the ambulance-chasing, headline-hunting Greens have finally discovered what everyone else has known for years?

Sure makes the public wonder why the Greens and Labor have wasted so much of the parliament's time on gay marriage.

Mark Latham was right,

<FORMER Labor leader Mark Latham has slammed his party’s “obsession” with gay marriage saying it should focus on the nation’s “Struggle Streets” instead.

He told 3AW radio Bill Shorten’s private members bill to push for changes to the marriage act to allow same-sex couples to tie the knot, to be introduced into parliament on Monday, was nothing more than a symbolic gesture.

He said the biggest social issue facing Austalia was unemployment, drug use and homelessness in suburbs such as Mt Druitt which was the focus of the SBS documentary, Struggle Street. [also issues that affect DV researchers say]

“If you are interested in equality and social justice in Australia then what was the really big event in the month of May,” he said. “We had the Struggle Street documentary which revealed that in the nation’s public housing estate, most notably in Mt Druit people live in conditions that you wouldn’t wish upon your dogs. Absolute chaos, despair and hopelessness in their lives.
“And surely, you would have expected a serious national response from the party of social justice?
“We didn’t hear anything.
“They’re obsessed, instead, by gay marriage.”>

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/gay-marriage/former-labor-leader-mark-latham-slams-labor-over-gay-marriage/news-story/6c89f7077536bf321ee40c25946e6f0f

"The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) (1990–2005) was the Australian Government body through which Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were formally involved in the processes of government affecting their lives."

Archbishop John Howard the Magnificent didn't approve of the character of the man elected as chairman of ATSIC. He overthrew this elected piece of Aboriginal dignity and brought it under his saintly patronage by appointment. So the troops were sent in to restore self-respect . ( Howard's that is ). ( And Abbott's, praise the lord). Internment camps for these foreign suspects are expected with good order and barbed wire.

Beach, as I suspected you would be the prime culprit when it comes to politicizing a terrible violent problem within our society. I forgot there is no place for Aboriginal people in you ideal society. Yes its all the fault of Labor and The Greens. What a mug!

I have a deal to do with the rural Maori community in northern New Zealand. I see in them many of the same parallel problems, but maybe not to the same degree as in the Aboriginal community in the NT, poor education, unemployment, poverty, housing, alcohol abuse, medical drugs and crime. But one thing that is not evident to any great degree is domestic violence, and according to my partner it never has been, its simply not tolerated by the community. I am told the reasons are the ideal of respect is very strong, family and community bonding is very powerful, the extended family is very important and must be respected and maintained. The elders within the society still retain a powerful, if not a ruling voice, they tend to be conservative in outlook, and very much respected by all. With no break down of society, stability is maintained. To be so different there has to be some social collapse within Aboriginal society in the NT.

Paul, watch this
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2016/09/19/4539321.htm

An Army on Wheels and Helicopters of Psychologists, Drug/Alcohol Counselling services, Social Worker, Support Services.

Tripling of Policing numbers in "hot spots" wouldn't hurt. The Police cannot cope and are under resourced and too much is expected from them. - 6 months training is woeful to handle people with serious mental health and violence issues.

Politicians always say they do not have the money while spending it on something else, like a football stadium, their priorities are DEAD WRONG 90% of the time. Canberra cries "poor" while wasting the budget on unnecessary BS

The cause of this goes back to 1967 Referendum. The day the new laws etc were passed a whole section of society who had never really had an experience with handling Alcohol or knowledge of it's effects walked into the nearest Pub to celebrate their new found "freedom" - for that group it was like setting match to a tanker of petrol.

Unlike other australians (where alcoholism and it;s effects were well known) the aboriginal people had no such knowledge or experience skill about how it would affect them.

NO "responsible use of alcohol" classes were done, no info, no support no nothing. Here ya go get drunk as.

50 years later it could not be any other way - this is LOGIC and obvious. Yet still insufficient help resources is provided.

The rights of "business" to sell alcohol for 50yrs superseded people's health and the damage done.

The cause and responsibility for today goes back those 50 years and is imho, a collective responsibility on the basis of their Human Rights for "Health Care" and "education" - it is not a law enforcement issue alone.

The domestic violence is a Symptom of all the past neglect across generations. Poverty triggers DV, many things do.

20-25% of all aboriginals in the NT? Wouldn't their % for DV be naturally higher and obvious?

DV is not only a aboriginal problem is an Aust wide crisis. It all comes back to PTSD of growing up in dysfunctional homes, with DV and alcoholism as children.
-

Outcomes are the same, few make it thru, most succumb to drug/alcohol abuse, "self-medicating" the internalized pain depression anxiety - all VERY normal COMMON - known for DECADES

Children that suffered sex abuse at home or others start drinking early, it makes you "feel better" and then it doesn't - one is caught in a vicious cycle of TORMENT and Confusion and FEAR.

People tend to avoid being honest so do not seek help.

Worse in aboriginal communities because issue mentioned before, PLUS for generations they have been struggling with entrenched PTSD from many causes (stolen gen etc).

No one can manage or fix PTSD etc by themselves. It's needs long term access to medical support.

Govt house, welfare, or JOB cannot fix broken hearts, broken minds. Proper Psychotherapy can, but it is still difficult.

So most end up in poverty, stuck, with their own DV alchoholic partner (m/f) or jail.

Wash, Rinse and Repeat

Watch and listen to Jimmy Barnes on Q&A this week
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4515750.htm

Billy Connolly's autobiography (buggered by his drunken dad when 10)
Billy was lucky, he married a Psychiatrist!

NRL star - alcoholic DV home sexually abused - committed suicide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jackson_(rugby_league)

Damien Rider?
http://vimeo.com/141523955?from=outro-embed
http://www.theriderfoundation.com/

There is a plague across Australia, there are not enough resources, nor acceptance by society it is a CRISIS.

People can't face the truth - we blame the victim, easier - pull ya socks up - it's your fault!

On top of this living today is 2 to 3 times more stressful than 50 years ago. The insecurity people are facing is MASSIVE across society. Suicidal thoughts are off the charts - for good reason.

90% of the issues go back to childhood trauma, abuse, DV, alcoholism in the HOME.

That leads to unstable teens years. Problems in relationships, work, school, the law, can't think straight or make good choices.

DV victims grow up to be a new perpetrator when the PTSD kicks in.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat!

Politicians and People need to GET REAL.

We need a new way to think and communicate about life and problems
http://youtu.be/CwHBD7Ihy5U
-

Step one Paul is to remove the too easily wasted cash.

Once that is done, then we will re evaluate. But of cause that's going to take balls the likes of what Tony Abbott has, and I'm afraid the limp dick we have now does not posses such a pair.

Now of cause we can crap on forever about this rubbish, but the fact is cash, means grog, means fights. End of story.

Even Warren Mundean says as much, surely that must speak volumes.

Paul1405, "I have a deal to do with the rural Maori community in northern New Zealand. .. But one thing that is not evident to any great degree is domestic violence, and according to my partner it never has been, its simply not tolerated by the community"

Is that so? Put up the evidence, the government numbers then.

Here is the reality, from no other than Temuera Morrison ("Once were Warriors"),

<Once Were Warriors star Temuera Morrison fronts Women’s Refuge campaign to highlight family violence

Morrison said urgent action was needed.
“Here we are now in the year 2016, 20 years since Once Were Warriors but the problem’s got worse, we speak of whanau, we speak of aroha, we say all these words but I think we’re just saying these words.
“We need our people, we need our communities to give a little bit more to help our women.”>
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-stories/once-were-warriors-star-temuera-morrison-fronts-womens-refuge-campaign-to-highlight-family-violence/news-story/f99f6ea3b551cbc71686eb078c54dd2c

Not that the women, Maori and others, are not complicit and handy in dishing it out as well.

But just from the gender-skewed research (there has got to be another term for the guvvy grant driven 'research' and its predictable findings), it has been a common finding that intimate partner violence (IPV) a major public health threat for Maori women and a significant social issue and due to its prevalence.

While I would agree that part of the solution to reducing intimate partner violence is non-tolerance in the community, it is an over-simplification to suggest it is the whole solution.

Now, going back to the OP and my reply to it, why have the Greens and Labor 'social warriors' been seduced by gay marriage for eons and have turned their backs on obvious, serious, social problems as Mark Latham said?

Thomas O'Reilly, thanks for the down to earth intuitive posts. I watched the Four Corners program about the positive initiatives in Bourke, including the Justice Reinvestment Program. The knockers are at the ready to attack Aboriginal people for the failings, yet offer no positive alternatives. I suspect they are the same people who were once happy to see Aboriginal people marginalized on the fringe of mainstream society.
Those of the hard right like Beach, Butch and others with their knocker attitudes take every opportunity to attack progressives through the socially disadvantaged, members of society they have no regard for anyway! Fellas your out of date thinking is now irrelevant to the debate.
Obviously in the Northern Territory, and in other places, much needs to be done before we turn the corner and there is some positive future for many of our Indigenous. People speak of 200 years of failures, although there have been successes in that time. Those failures in themselves should not discourage Australia from developing a strong forward movement to facilitate positive outcomes for some of our must socially disadvantaged.

Beach 'Once Were Warriors' great movie and Temuera Morrison is a fine actor. Have you ever watched it?

You ask for facts, well the population of Northland NZ is around 150,000 with the largest centre being Whangarei about 75,000. This compares with the population of the NT at 240,000, Darwin about 120,000. The police in Northland attend on average 10 DV calls a day. The vast majority are in and around the major centres of population. About 3,500 DV cases a year in Northland, with few in rural communities (which I said) compared to the NT with around 25,000 per year, many in rural communities.
Auckland is a different story, South Auckland in particular (The setting for Once Were Warriors) its dysfunctional community would compare with Mt Druitt in Sydney.
When we stay with Aunty in Manurewa South Auckland, she loves to drive us around to point out the 18 grog outlets, but only one church in the area, in one square mile. As Aunty likes to tell us every time we visit, "No wonder our people drink so much!" Unbelievably there are 18 grog outlets, from the New World Liquor Store (Coles) to the local RSA (RSL) and lots in between.

Mark Latham, an inept former politician who lost an unloseable election for the Labor Party in 2004, which woke up that he was nothing but a failure, booted him out, now he has an ax to grind. When did this joker develop a social conscience, it was never evident when he was in parliament. Now he makes a living as a political hack, and sometime commentator for the hard right media. What a Wally!
Beach, Latham is your kind of guy! A great match for Alan Jones, does Jones support gay marriage? Does Latham?

Paul1405,

As you would be aware, the whole focus and narrative of DV discounts the possibility (reality) of higher incidences for indigenous and some other groups. As well, it insists on the homogeneity of offenders, with women as always the victims. Both are patently absurd.

That suits the already-entitled, educated, middle-class, white elite women who continue to have a throttle-hold on feminism and direct the smug, elitist new left that Latham despises.

Not sure what you are saying Beach, is it "black people bash people" because its in their DNA to do so. Are you suggesting women are not the predominant victims of DV? Are the numbers deliberately distorted by those with a secret agenda. What is your take on domestic violence, I see it as a growing problem within society, the numbers quoted for the NT alone are horrific.

Paul,

I heard on RN (ABC) radio, from a woman aboriginal leader in NSW that DV incidents were 36x higher, but that in most cases offenders or those that breached orders were given slaps on the wrist and returned to re offend. She was calling for harsher treatment of DV abusers to at least levels that non indigenous offenders faced.

This is the conundrum that the left face. There is a huge push to reduce indigenous incarceration which is 10x higher than the rest of the population, yet calls to the police for DV and other crimes are 10x higher than other population groups. You cannot reduce DV incidents without punishing the abusers.

Shadow, "You cannot reduce DV incidents without punishing the abusers" of course you can, through reform and education, prevention is the key, but you still have to punish the offenders. In a typical conservative response you concentrate on crime and punishment. Did you watch the Four Corners program on the town of Bourke, very interesting. DV is not a calculated crime where the perpetrator gives any consideration to the punishment aspect before doing what he does. Nearly all the DV matters I have every had anything to do with have involved alcohol or other drugs, or both.

"You cannot reduce DV incidents without punishing the abusers."

That's an interesting 'opinion'.

I would love to see research, studies, stats, and proof "punishment reduces DV" is true and is more effective than:
drug/alcohol addiction services,
psychological therapy,
education,
ongoing counselling,
family support services
and poverty alleviation
eg productive well paid work.

Is there any?

(not a rhetorical question)

-

Looking for the answer, try Google Scholar because intelligent highly trained and informed people are 'cleverer'!
https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=domestic+violence+solutions+reduce&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5

"among the handful of quasi-and true experiments there is fairly consistent evidence that treatment works and that the effect of treatment is substantial. "
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J012v10n02_05

"No significant differences were found between the experimental and control groups" - it was all 'punishment' with one 'counselling option' - flaky study imo.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07418820200095271?src=recsys

"Overall results suggest that therapeutic treatment for batterers may reduce domestic violence among convicted batterers who agree to this sentence."
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07418820100094861?src=recsys

Hitting Home - Sarah Ferguson
(lot's of refs to research to answer the question above)
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/hitting-home/
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/nov/24/abcs-sarah-ferguson-on-hitting-home-all-domestic-violence-begins-with-control
http://insidestory.org.au/the-enemy-within

Can violent men ever change? And can their families ever forgive them?
http://www.aww.com.au/latest-news/news-stories/inside-family-violence-rehab-1-23225

Q&A Indigenous People June 2016
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4463066.htm

Fact Check Verdict - The available evidence on domestic and family violence suggest Marcia Langton is broadly correct.
http://www.swinburne.edu.au/news/latest-news/2016/07/factcheck-indigenous-women-and-domestic-violence.php

http://www.oneinthree.com.au/news/2015/2/16/abc-tv-qa-family-violence-special-mon-feb-23-join-the-studio.html

http://australianmensrights.com/Domestic_Violence_Statistics-Child_Abuse_Australia/Men_as_Victims_of_Domestic_Violence-United_States_20-20_TV.aspx

Florida “Taking Action Against Domestic Violence” campaign
http://www.abcactionnews.com/taking-action/taadv

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ABC-Domestic-Sexual-Violence/dp/1118482182

So a reminder: Is there any studies that prove "punishment reduces DV?"
-

Surely it is the base psychology and beliefs of the Authoritarian Right Minded people (at all levels of income) that is a precursor / driving force behind all Domestic and Family Violence?

Anyone who has born into a family with a military father or touched by institutional perpetrators of child sexual abuse would agree with this, wouldn't they?

Linguist and Cognitive Scientist George Lakoff:
There two kinds of 'Idealised Families' - Nurturing Parent Families and the Strict Father Family
http://youtu.be/jCXxc_M9EmE?t=23m37s

Reason is 98% Subconscious Metaphor in Frames & CULTural Narratives
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm0R1du1GqA

-

@Paul1405, there is a related article with many comments which maybe worth reviewing how inter-connected it is to your thread theme here.

An open letter to my aboriginal compatriots : By Rodney Crisp
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18533&page=1

Best

Domestic Violence is Unacceptable however it is still only a Symptom - not the Cause of Dis-Ease.

I believe most of triggers/causes for endemic family dysfunctions in Aboriginal communities (and in others DV);
plus the prolific failures of (well intentioned?) Government designed and funded solutions and their 'interventions';
can be logically directed at the feet of systemic interference by "Pathological Narcissists and Psychopaths" in our Institutions.

These types are the one's who often rise to leadership positions that wield the most power and influence in Public Policy formation;
Frame the discourse in predetermined set ways;
as well as constructing and manipulating the direction of Public Opinion.

My reference:
"Psychopaths are as prevalent in the Corporate world [and POLITICS] as they are in Prisons"

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=7472&page=0#229970

Continues with:

"It's not first time issues around Corporate Psychopaths and Destructive Leadership have made the news."
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18533&page=0#330213

Consider this:

Framing PR Advertising Public Opinion - Framing effect (psychology)
The framing effect is an example of cognitive bias, in which people react to a particular choice in different ways depending on how it is presented.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_effect_(psychology)

And
http://www.cognitivepolicyworks.com/resource-center/education-policy-and-practice/the-framing-of-no-child-left-behind/

Cherry-Picking Fallacy
Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cherry_picking

Finally:

All we EVER get is the rhetoric that pushes everyone's buttons one way or another. There is no genuine 'public opinion' it is always contrived and created by others.

Whomever Controls Majority Opinion - Controls 'Reality'

Point at the screen, look at your fingers.

Continuing on:
[Those who have] 'Skin in the Game' and are POINTING out faults in the other side, always has 3 fingers pointing back at themselves!
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=7472&page=0#230058

Any positive thoughts on that, and how it may relate to the "Big Picture" and directly to DV/FV in Aboriginal Communities not getting solved?
-

Paul asked earlier " Are you suggesting women are not the predominant victims of DV? Are the numbers deliberately distorted by those with a secret agenda."

Not specific to indigenous communities but a topic that has been well canvassed on OLO over many years.

Overall from my perspective, Yes to both excerpt in some specific categories.

From http://www.domesticviolenceresearch.org/pages/12_page_findings.htm
Facts and Statistics on Prevalence of Partner Abuse

Victimization

Overall, 24% of individuals assaulted by a partner at least once in their lifetime (23% for females and 19.3% for males)
Higher overall rates among dating students
Higher victimization for male than female high school students
Lifetime rates higher among women than men
Past year rates somewhat higher among men
Higher rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) among younger, dating populations “highlights the need for school-based IPV prevention and intervention efforts”

Perpetration

Overall, 25.3% of individuals have perpetrated IPV
Rates of female-perpetrated violence higher than male-perpetrated (28.3% vs. 21.6%)
Wide range in perpetration rates: 1.0% to 61.6% for males; 2.4% to 68.9% for women,
Range of findings due to variety of samples and operational definitions of PV

Emotional Abuse and Control

80% of individuals have perpetrated emotional abuse
Emotional abuse categorized as either expressive (in response to a provocation) or coercive (intended to monitor, control and/or threaten)
Across studies, 40% of women and 32% of men reported expressive abuse; 41% of women and 43% of men reported coercive abuse
According to national samples, 0.2% of men and 4.5% of women have been forced to have sexual intercourse by a partner
4.1% to 8% of women and 0.5% to 2% of men report at least one incident of stalking during their lifetime
Intimate stalkers comprise somewhere between one-third and one half of all stalkers.
Within studies of stalking and obsessive behaviors, gender differences are much less when all types of obsessive pursuit behaviors are considered, but more skewed toward female victims when the focus is on physical stalking

R0bert

Part 2
Facts and Statistics on Context

Bi-directional vs. Uni-directional

Among large population samples, 57.9% of IPV reported was bi-directional, 42% unidirectional; 13.8% of the unidirectional violence was male to female (MFPV), 28.3% was female to male (FMPV)
Among school and college samples, percentage of bidirectional violence was 51.9%; 16.2% was MFPV and 31.9% was FMPV
Among respondents reporting IPV in legal or female-oriented clinical/treatment seeking samples not associated with the military, 72.3% was bi-directional; 13.3% was MFPV, 14.4% was FMPV
Within military and male treatment samples, only 39% of IPV was bi-directional; 43.4% was MFPV and 17.3% FMPV
Unweighted rates: bidirectional rates ranged from 49.2% (legal/female treatment) to 69.7% (legal/male treatment)
Extent of bi-directionality in IPV comparable between heterosexual and LGBT populations
50.9% of IPV among Whites bilateral; 49% among Latinos; 61.8% among African-Americans

R0bert

Part 3

Motivation

Male and female IPV perpetrated from similar motives – primarily to get back at a partner for emotionally hurting them, because of stress or jealousy, to express anger and other feelings that they could not put into words or communicate, and to get their partner’s attention.
Eight studies directly compared men and women in the power/control motive and subjected their findings to statistical analyses. Three reported no significant gender differences and one had mixed findings. One paper found that women were more motivated to perpetrate violence as a result of power/control than were men, and three found that men were more motivated; however, gender differences were weak
Of the ten papers containing gender-specific statistical analyses, five indicated that women were significantly more likely to report self-defense as a motive for perpetration than men. Four papers did not find statistically significant gender differences, and one paper reported that men were more likely to report this motive than women. Authors point out that it might be particularly difficult for highly masculine males to admit to perpetrating violence in self-defense, as this admission implies vulnerability.
Self-defense was endorsed in most samples by only a minority of respondents, male and female. For non-perpetrator samples, the rates of self-defense reported by men ranged from 0% to 21%, and for women the range was 5% to 35%. The highest rates of reported self-defense motives (50% for men, 65.4% for women) came from samples of perpetrators, who may have reasons to overestimate this motive.
None of the studies reported that anger/retaliation was significantly more of a motive for men than women’s violence; instead, two papers indicated that anger was more likely to be a motive for women’s violence as compared to men.
Jealousy/partner cheating seems to be a motive to perpetrate violence for both men and women.

R0bert

Thomas,
Domestic violence is not peculiar to the Aboriginal community, but is systemic in dysfunctional households, black and white. The proportion of such households in the Aboriginal community, particularly in isolated communities is very high. Add alcohol to the mix of poverty, poor education, unemployment, relationship breakdown all brings on violence as a first response in so many cases. As you say DV is very much a symptom, and a manifestation of so many underlying problems. As a society we need to do a lot more in tacking those deep seated problems. Until we do, domestic violence is going to continue at unacceptably high levels

Paul1405,

With respect, whether you intend it or not, that is the obscurity and obfuscation that prevent priority and resources being directed to indigenous family violence (and dollars actually reaching the sharp end).

As well, the focus exclusively on partner or spousal violence, ie 'DV', might suit those educated middle-class feminists with their career futures in NGOs, the public bureaucracies and in academia, but it cruelly disregards violence directed at children.

R0bert,

The type of violence you point to is prevalent across all stratum's pf society. Although many will not resort to physical violence they will use physiological violence to abuse and attack. I believe an acceptance of violence has grown within society, in the last 20 years I have come across a growing number of people who use verbal abuse in the first instance, often over the most travel of matters. People you would expect to be calm and reasonable, but they are selfish, and self centered. I see so many young children abusive to their parents, often over the demand for material things. Is this an early grounding for future abuse?

A report today highlights six Western Sydney suburbs as 'hot spots' for domestic violence Bankstown, Campbelltown, Mt Druitt, Parramatta, Blacktown and Penrith. These same burbs could also be hot spots for unemployment and all the other kinds of social problems.

Paul I don't want to get tied up in diverting the discussion too much into the broader political issues around DV. I do though think that the push to portray DV as a gender issue and the misrepresentation of it as prevelant across all spectrum of society have both done a lot of harm to any efforts to reduce its prevelance. Its true that it occurs in all types of households but in the same way that lung cancer can strike anybody but some factors make it a much higher risk. Factors typically identified with disadvantage are the big factors far outweighing gender, privilege or any out the other usual subjects of the narrative.

Hi Paul,

Thomas may be right, that DV is common across all sections of Australian society: go down any street in Mosman or Toorak or Springfield on a Friday night and you'll hear the screams and thumps and women getting thrown against a wall or down stairs, or belted with bricks or star-pickets, just like on any un-named remote 'community'. Mosman is brutal on a Friday night.

Now let's get real: do your own maths: 60,000 cases in three years in the NT involved Aboriginal people, overwhelmingly women, averaging 20,000 per year. [Sorry, I broke your rule: "Hopefully the rabid right will not turn this into an opportunity to do some “Abbo Bashing” and will offer some constructive suggestions as how to deal with the problem."] How many women of that un-named ethnic group are there in the NT ? Total un-named population: about 70,000. Female: say 36,000. Adult female: about 20,000. Likelihood of every single one being bashed: about once each year, every year, year after year. i.e. hospitalised. Two or three times as likely in remote 'communities'.

And by the way, the likelihood of a non-un-named woman in the NT of being bashed: about once every eight to ten years.

You set a very difficult bench-mark, Paul: so what steps would YOU take to reduce the bashing of un-named-group women by un-named-group men ? Hopefully you will not turn this into an opportunity to do some “Abbo Bashing” and will offer some constructive suggestions as how to deal with the problem - i.e. you can't mention the A word. Employment, yes, of course - but in 'communities' ? Not likely.

The floor is yours :)

Joe

Paul, Thomas,

http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/conferences/outlook99/stewart.pdf

I think this study puts the subject into perspective. The salient points are:
-For those at high risk of offending with habitually violent tendencies and those already exposed to the criminal justice system, short prison sentences make little to no difference to the likelihood of re offending.
-For those at lower risk, the threat of criminal punishment and community awareness was a significant deterrent.

Given that the major risk of someone becoming a DV offender is growing up in a household where DV occurred regularly. AVOs do help to keep offenders away and prison kept them away from their families for longer.

Gee Paul, it sounds like you are mixing with the wrong type of people, but then they do say birds of a feather & all that.

As for domestic violence in lower socioeconomic areas, it is to be expected for a number of reasons. Most of these people are where they are due to character failings. These failings that make them perform poorly in the work day world, also make them less able to deal with problems in their private lives, giving the, less avenues of response to problems.

At the same time many of them are on welfare, & spend much more time together than those in the workforce. If they had to spend 8 to 12 hours a day working for their tucker, they would have less time or energy to be aggressive to their partners.

Then again even someone as kind & gentle as I am, would quite possibly become aggressive if they had to deal with some of the slobs, male & female, I see around the Centrelink office I pass when I go into Beenleigh.

[Deleted for abuse. Poster suspended.]

Hi Thomas,

Sorry, I misquoted you: so, when you wrote on Saturday, 24 September 2016 6:10:09 PM, second last paragraph, that "DV is not only a aboriginal problem is an Aust wide crisis..... ", you misquoted yourself ?

But thanks for the advice. Sorry, you'll what ? What, you and your mother ? How is she, by the way ? And your sister ? Being a gentleman, I'll say no more about them, except to say that if they can punch as well as ........

Anyway, more important issues for the sane rest of us: since Paul is a bit busy right now, others of us will have to make suggestions about what should be done. It's easy enough to say how and why a situation comes about, but as Marx pointed out, what can be done about it ? [Thesis 11, Thomas]

If DV perpetrators in remote 'communities' were all treated equally before the law, no BS 'cultural' leeway whatsoever [what the hell sort of society are we to allow some people to get the sh!t beaten out of them since they are, after all, Aboriginal ?! Despicable] then any bloke committing DV would do equal time for it. Repeat offenders likewise. If the penal system tried that for a decade or so, we might see some difference. We certainly would see some peace and quiet, and a few women - and kids too - survive a bit longer.

What, you thought there was no connection between increased rates of DV and increased rates of murder ? Of both wives/girlfriends AND children ?

So Rule # 1: Do the crime, do the time.

Ideally, some will use the time to get a better education. If not, they do the full time. Who cares ? Although you'd think that fifty thousand years of wife-beating might teach people something. Maybe not.

Rule # 2: come out and do the crime again, you do twice the time.

Rule # 3: And so on.

[TBC]

[continued]

And another thing.

Alternatively, create compulsory men's 'refuges', where violent men can be locked away from 'communities' until they are able to live sanely. I've never understood why women should have to be locked away from violent men, who then have completely free reign of the streets. Why should that be ? Bloody absurd.

'Men's 'refuges', a bit like refuges for wild animals, wouldn't have to be elaborate, just a strong fence and lockable gate, half an acre or so a mile out of town, maybe some straw mattresses. Everything else would, of course, be destroyed, so why bother ? If a number of blokes were locked up simultaneously and beat the daylights out of each other, well, that's self-determination. They could be served a meal in the morning, say Weetbix and water, like their kids are having; it could be slipped under the gate.

Problem solved :)

Joe

THIS:

"DV is not only a aboriginal problem is an Aust wide crisis..... "

DOES NOT EQUAL THIS:

"Thomas may be right"

WITH

"that DV is common across all sections of Australian society"

DOES NOT EQUAL THIS:

"Thomas may be right"

WITH

'go down any street in Mosman or Toorak or Springfield on a Friday night and you'll hear the screams and thumps and women getting thrown against a wall or down stairs, or belted with bricks or star-pickets, just like on any un-named remote 'community'. Mosman is brutal on a Friday night."

If you wish to state something, express and opinion, or quote facts, or just make a statement then SAY IT - LEAVE ME OUT OF IT.

Stop lying about what I said, stop putting WORDS into MY mouth! Losers do that!

Got it?

Clear enough yet LOUDMOUTH?

Or should I also post a hard copy in Braille?

Because clearly you are having great difficulty computing "pixels" into accurate truthful statements when they come back out of your mind via your fingers to the keyboard.

And you do not only do it to me but everyone you 'disagree' with no matter how puerile and wrong you are about what they really wrote and the context of that.

I am calling out on it big time, and will continue to do so if you persist.

Here's a nickle - use it to start off a Crowd Funding Appeal for new glasses and/or remedial reading lessons?

I do not care what you believe or say on any subject - but STOP misrepresenting what I said and spreading LIES about it publicly.

Like big deal Loudmouth, you can go online and RIDICULE PEOPLE and VERBAL them anytime you want.

Wow, what a hero, what a big man you are. Everyone on OLO who has a different view than you must be literally shaking in their boots man, worrying you'll abuse them too.

Get a life - as in a worthwhile one - not built on rubbishing everyone you meet on OLO and every other place you may infest.

Plonk!

Hi Thomas,

So, when you write, "DV is not only a aboriginal problem is an Aust wide crisis", you don't mean that DV is common across all sections of Australian society ? Note, I'm not quoting you there, simply paraphrasing, or re-phrasing what you actually wrote.

I was probably channelling Philip Adams in that bit about Mosman and Toorak. He made the comparison some time ago, in trying to make light of DV in Aboriginal (sorry, Paul, un-named) 'communities'.

Just to correct you on an elementary point: you assert that "I do not care what you believe or say on any subject .... " but it's not a matter of what I or you or anybody believes or asserts, but on what they can demonstrate, on what they have evidence for. Can you understand that ?

I'll keep trying :)

Cheers,

Joe

Joe, the figures of 75,000 and 60,000 were those of the Northern Territory Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw, not mine. you can disagree with them if you wish. Your sarcasm with reference to the affluent burbs of Mosman (try Point Piper Turnbull territory) or Toorak or Springfield (I only know it from the Simpson's), whilst those suburbs might not suffer from a great deal of physical DV they do have levels of verbal violence which results in family breakdown, high levels of divorce, might indicate that, single parent families. Maybe if you look behind the Range Rovers and the serenity of Friday nights, you may see not so nice things happening in those burbs as well. Wealth and education help cushion the impact of relationship breakup amoung the more affluent.
Please explain the bit about the "un-named ethnic group" I only refereed to the general population, and the Aboriginal population.

Hassy, are you registered with the Beenleigh Centrelink, tip get there early, say 8.30am, and avoid the feral's, most of whom don't get a move on until about 10 or 11.

Shadow, I agree with what you say, and it is an interesting and factual report, every MP should be aware of it, and take notes. However, at the moment we are tinkering at the edges of the problem and not do nearly enough to tackle the root causes of DV. Police and judicial intervention will not stop DV, although I agree it is absolutely necessary. Where are the girls on this? Poirot, Suse anyone, I feel like a bloke giving a group of expectant mums a lecture on 'My practical experience dealing with pregnancy'. So my favorite posters, you know who you are, if you read this, how about throwing something in. I would welcome it.

Thomas, welcome to the club, how was it in the naughty boys corner, haven't been there since the beginning of the year when Shadow and myself spent a week in the cooler. Shadow, have you got Tom's brief You didn't get us off!

Paul,

I don't have all the answers, but sending repeat offenders home is not the answer, as all you are doing is traumatising the children and repeating the cycle of abuse.

DV doesn't exist in isolation. Happy couples don't assault each other; tolerably miserable couples might have a slanging match here and there but they don't hit each other and so on.. In order to reduce DV we have to work out ways in which couples can be happy with each other, or at least tolerably miserable together.

Telling either partner that they need have no tolerance for their partner's expression of their unhappiness is a damned fine way to increase that unhappiness and to ensure that violence increases.

That is precisely the message that the DV advocacy industry has been pushing for years and unsurprisingly, DV increases every year, followed rapidly by DV advocates calling for more funding...

Paul, this is not a matter of simply supporting victims so we feel good about ourselves, it should be about reducing the number of victims.

The primary causes of DV are social disadvantage, followed by financial insecurity, both of which are also highly correlated with substance abuse.

Over the last 6 years of leasing rooms in my home, I've hosted many substance abusers and I've made a point of trying to understand their stories. None of them want to be drunks or drug abusers, all of them are deeply ashamed of their "failure", nearly all of them have a tale of woe around a relationship breakdown, loss of a job and so on. Several of them have had criminal histories as a result of their behaviour while under the influence. None of them have been bad people, but all of them have been difficult to live with because of their addiction and associated behaviours.

They are the people who perpetrate DV, but they are much more victims of their behaviour than anyone else. Pretending otherwise is purely a political game.

Craig,

Lots of people have problems and issues, however, there is no excuse for violence, and to remain of the community one has to take responsibility for one's actions, and either control oneself or if one cannot then to remove oneself from the situation.

I struggle to see how the perpetrator of DV can be more of a victim than the recipient of the violence.

The violence is a symptom, Shadow Minister, just as empty-headed rants about "lefties" are a symptom of deeper problems.

Perhaps, if you'd like to understand the problem, you might go and volunteer at a homeless shelter for men or some similar organisation where you can learn a little at first hand. I didn't start out intending to do so, but the majority of people who seek rooming accommodation are either foreign students or middle-aged men down on their luck, in my experience. I've had many of both as tenants.

Psychoactive substances are popular because they reduce the pain that people feel, but they also reduce the inhibitions to acting out impulsively that prevent us from taking a swing at people who annoy us. People who become violent are not guilty of some form of "original sin", they are simply incapable of controlling themselves in the moment, for many reasons. Alcohol and some other drugs, when combined with stress, social isolation (far more common for men than women, yet we only hear about women in this regard), a complaining partner and a sense of futility are a potent cocktail.

The awareness of the intolerance of the law for minor DV infractions leads some to escalate to more serious violence and you have an ongoing problem that endlessly supplies a "cause" and a decent living for those who service the fallout.

There is so much sloppy 'research', how can anyone trust the numbers and policy?

<Help Change the Debate
..The most recent statistics from the ABS Personal Safety Survey show 1.06 per cent of women are physically assaulted by their partner or ex-partner each year in Australia. This figure is derived from the 2012 PSS and published in its Horizons report by Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, available at http://bit.ly/1ZYSyEj. The rate is obtained by dividing cell B9 in Table 19 (93,400) by the total female residential population aged 18 and older (8,735,400).

One in 100 women experiencing this physical violence from their partners is obviously a matter of great concern. But this percentage is very different from the usual figures being trotted out. You’ll never find the figure of 1.06 per cent mentioned by any of the domestic violence organisations in this country. Their goal is to fuel the flames, to promote an alarmist reaction with the hope of attracting ever greater funding for the cause.

What we hear from them is that one in three women are victims of violence. But that’s utterly misleading because it doesn’t just refer to domestic violence. These statistics are also taken from the Personal Safety Survey but refer to the proportion of adult women who have experienced any type of physical violence at all (or threat of violence.) So we’re not just talking about violence by a partner or violence in the home but any aggressive incident, even involving a perfect stranger — such as an altercation with an aggressive shopping trolley driver or an incident of road rage.

That’s partly how the figure inflates to one in three, but it also doesn’t even refer to what’s happening now because these figures include lifetime incidents for adult women — so with our 70-year-olds the violence could have taken place more than 50 years ago. And the equivalent figure for men is worse — one in two."
http://www.bettinaarndt.com.au/news/help-change-debate/
tbc..

continued..

"As for the most horrific crimes, where domestic violence ends in homicide, we are constantly told that domestic violence kills one woman every week. That’s roughly true.

"According to AIC figures, one woman is killed by an intimate partner or ex-partner every nine days. One man is killed by his partner about every 30 days. So it is important to acknowledge that male violence is likelier to result in injury or death than female violence towards a partner.

The fact remains that almost a quarter (23.1 per cent) of victims of intimate partner homicide are male — and we hardly ever hear about these deaths."
http://www.bettinaarndt.com.au/news/help-change-debate/

Hi Craig,

What you describe may be so, but I'd suggest that what is euphemistically referred to as 'domestic violence' in remote Aboriginal communities lifts the concept up a couple of notches. Big Nana would have far more experience than me, as both a nurse and a community participant, but I would submit that the violence is more brutal, more drearily predictable, more regular and far more damaging long-term.

As to why such 'DV' occurs, I suspect that the perpetrators, usually men but not exclusively, can. They can get away with it. It's one of the more vicious and dreadful facets of traditional culture which is 'preserved'. Yes, it's kicked along by grog, and probably Ice as well these days. But the bottom line is that men do it because they can. They enjoy it. And they expect to get away with it. As, of course, they have done.

I'm sure that Big Nana could write up a sort of time sequence of events on pension day, when the first fights can be expected, perhaps first between a couple of young men at, say, 3 pm, then maybe between a couple of young women at 3.45 pm, then a bit more general, young and older, men and women by 5 pm, then more targeted and vicious through the night: men against their women, carrying on as long as the grog lasts. Of course, all accompanied by a growing Greek chorus of obscenities, epithets, screams, threats, and the sounds of hard objects coming into contact with bodies and heads. All bloody night. So one can imagine the kids sitting bolt-upright all night, powerless and terrified.

So no, Mosman and Toorak will never witness anything like that. I apologise for suggesting so, but blame Philip Adams.

Cheers,

Joe

At a minimum, all should enjoy the coverage, application and protection of Australian law.

The twisted multiculturalism that minimises the crimes of indigenous offenders on cultural grounds and tradition, for example, the gang rape of an indigenous girl, is totally unacceptable.

This was Labor Premier Bligh being forced by public disgust and anger at the treatment of victims by courts, a situation that her own party helped to create, but refusing a judicial inquiry of course. The left only sees independent inquiries as being relevant where others are concerned and then it has to be a Royal Commission.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/another-rape-to-be-investigated/2007/12/12/1197135545274.html

Multicultural policy has a lot to answer for.

Hi Joe, I'm sure you're right, but I don't think it has much to do with "getting away with it" so much as knowing that going to prison offers a way out of hopelessness for a time and that there is no genuine social sanction (within their own community, where imprisonment is a standard experience) for those who take it.

Yesterday I dropped one of my newest friends off at a detox facility. He has been in and out of rehab for 7 years. When he moved in, just 6 weeks ago, he was fresh out of a rehab program run by Fishers of Men (his fourth attempt with them), but he didn't tell me that up front. Within a week he had smashed his car and done a runner; two weeks later, having been given the car back he was carted home by the cops after being done high-range dui; three days later the cops were here again, looking for him after he smashed his car again and did another runner; a week later I got a call from the hospital where he'd been taken after being in a serious car accident with one of his mates (from rehab), who'd wrapped his car around a telegraph pole.

This guy is a really decent bloke who spends his whole life being ashamed of himself when he's not drunk or drugged on prescription medications. He's not of Aboriginal descent. All his mates are from rehab.

As you say, Mosman and Toorak are a different kettle of fish altogether.

OTB, the DV advocacy sector has some very good people within it, but it also has a bunch of unscrupulous people focussed only on the money. I'm not sure how to reconcile that. Any ideas?

Hi Craig,

God, I hope you're keeping a journal :) You could pass on some of those strange doings to your grand-kids, they'd be horrified but won't believe you. But yes, crazy and true. It's an incredibly high-coast existence, you wonder where the money comes from to buy one car, let alone a succession of them, to rapidly wrap around telegraph poles. And all without having to work for it.

Your comment that " ..... I don't think it has much to do with "getting away with it" so much as knowing that going to prison offers a way out of hopelessness for a time.... " might need some qualification: I don't think people think too far ahead like that, DV in remote 'communities' is much more spur of the moment, the immediate solution to acute anger and no thought of the consequences. Perhaps the link between action and outcome, cause and effect, is tenuous.

I'm just reading 'The Life and Adventures of William Buckley' who lived with Aboriginal groups around what is now Geelong for thirty-odd years, from 1803, i.e. long before whites had got into that area. It's something of a chronicle of battles, killings, spearings, clubbings, usually over either a woman running off with some other bloke, or being seized and taken away and eventually being killed along with her abductor and his brothers, and her original husband and his family, including young children. How on earth the population was maintained is a mystery. But there was not much powerlessness there. Buckley fostered a little blind boy who was eventually killed and, he claims, eaten.

I'm not saying that happens these days :) But I think that 'community' DV is much more likely to have its own internal dynamics, regardless of supposed outside pressures. More from 'culture' than colonialism, if you like.

Cheers,

Joe

Craig,

The law is there to protect everyone, especially a vulnerable person being assaulted, and while the perpetrator might have mitigating factors such as drugs, alcohol, or being a left whinge air head, if he assaults some one he is guilty of a criminal offense.

It is one of the foundations of the law that an adult enjoying the rights and freedoms granted by law, is directly responsible for his actions. If someone is unable or unwilling to prevent himself causing harm to others then it is the responsibility of the courts to do so.

Behind every meth head or sociopath there is a battered woman and damaged children, and a limit to the number of chances to re offend.

I have also read Buckleys memoirs Joe. Really interesting and I learnt how they organised to meet on certain days without having a maths system!
But I didn't learn anything new about violence in remote communities. As you say, violence there is beyond anything I have encountered in the white community.
Not just in intensity although that was horrific, especially the head injuries, but what shocked me the most was the total acceptance of the violence. It was taken as a normal part of life, regardless of who was watching, whether babies and children got stepped on or hit in the process, and usually involving weapons. Hitting women across the head with a hard object is one of the seemingly few unchanged cultural customs that still exist.
Yes alcohol and drugs increase the problem but don't kid yourself that it doesn't exist when the community is dry. It always exists, and always has from everything I have read and heard. One old woman told me about how, as a prepubescent girl she was knocked out and dragged away from her family by a man from another tribe. Her father and uncles eventually found the couple but seeing as she had already been raped and he was of the right skin group they allowed him to keep her after they had given him a token beating.
Had he been of the wrong skin group she would have been killed and he would have been speared through the leg.
On a positive note, the violence appears less once remote people move into town and live through a generation or so. It seems living amongst people with different attitudes to violence does eventually get through, although it still exists, just at a lower level

Hi Joe and Big Nana,
those are interesting perspectives on pre-European Aboriginal culture. It's not really surprising, there are similar cultural models in PNG, where I grew up and where the cultural background is closely related (as are the people). In cultures based around small tribal groups fertility is too important to be based on Western notions of love. Ask any European aristocrat...

Either way, it's not very useful to try to externally apportion individual blame in such situations, which are culturally and perhaps to some extent econmically driven. Big Nana, I think your comment in relation to immersion in a different culture changing social attitudes is really helpful. I don't think it's necessary to move people to towns though; that hasn't been the experience in PNG, where the best successes have come from local people taking control of local wealth and using it to promote modernisation, both economical and social.

I should correct you on one thing Joe, the person I referred to in my last post has a strong work ethic. He gave up a job after the last car accident because he was injured.

Shadow Minister, thanks for the political statement. Given that your ideas of personal responsibility have formed the basis of the past 50 years of rhetoric around DV and it's getting more prevalent, have you got anything else?

Maybe it's just a matter of directing police resources more appropriately?

I live in sunny Newcastle-upon-Hunter, and although we have violent crime - including domestic violence - we don't have it anywhere near as bad as the NT. But I'm pretty sure we have a lot more police. Which to me seems to be getting things a bit arse-about-face. It's as if policemen are allocated on the basis of population levels rather than need. And I reckon we probably don't need quite so many in civilised suburbia, where a good number of them seem to be employed as glorified taxmen - distributing infringement notices to generate revenue. Is there anything that stops states like NSW and Victoria, who appear to have more police than they really need lending some of theirs to the NT, where they seem to need more boots on the ground in trouble spots? States lend each other firemen all the time, why not policemen?

Hi Toni, it's not police that are needed, it's a change of culture. Aboriginal people, in common with many people in entrenched intergenerational poverty, have a strong distrust of authority, especially police. Carting more of them off to jail after they've offended isn't the answer.

The real problem, from my own limited perspective, is that there isn't much to do on many communities and local social hierarchies have been badly damaged. Kids aren't getting properly educated because parents don't see any point if they're going to stay on country and so each new generation just goes on repeating the same problematic behaviours for lack of any other ideas.

We need to take this seriously as a community, not just because Aborigines are fellow people who are in trouble, but because the experience of having no meaningful work is going to be a common one for everyone within a generation. We need to understand the problems associated with that and work out how to fix them, purely out of self-interest.

"The twisted multiculturalism that minimises the crimes of indigenous offenders on cultural grounds and tradition, for example, the gang rape of an indigenous girl, is totally unacceptable."
Beach, as a left leaning progressive that is certainly nothing that I would accept. I don't know who does, but if they exists they are wrong.

Shadow, I only see perpetrators and victims. The perpetrator needs help to stop re-offending, or not offending in the first place,removing the perpetrator from the environment at times is most necessary, and sadly jail is what it has to be. The victims of course certainly need help.
In the past DV was somewhat socially acceptable, a mans right to exercise his dominance over women. Although not fully approved of by most, it was ignored in many instances. I do not accept that indigenous people are anymore violent by nature than the rest of us, its difficult to find any group that is not violent, either within their own environment, crime, or state sanctioned violence in the form of war. The European has a well established history of violence.
What concerns me is why is DV on the increase, and in some instances totally out of control, when much has been done to try and curb the problem. Have all our efforts been in vain, and the problem is just going to grow exponentially for infinitum, Craig is right to say " personal responsibility have formed the basis of the past 50 years of rhetoric around DV and it's getting more prevalent" As someone who does not want more people in bigger jails, I much prefer preventive programs than punitive action to deal with a problem. As I said before, I did like the 'Four Corners' program on the town of Bourke and the justice reinvestment program.

Paul1405,

Why the 'if'? I gave the link and those were just two cases out of a number that were reviewed after justifiable public outrage. The link again,

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/another-rape-to-be-investigated/2007/12/12/1197135545274.html

The elite's multicultural policy has a lot to answer for.

Craig,

It's not a political point, it's a point of law that has been in place for centuries. Also, things have changed in the last 50 years particularly because the law has been applied. Society and the law no longer considers a wife to be the property of the husband, and violent dv assaults are no longer tolerated either legally or by the community.

If one is changed with DV, I am happy for a lenient first sentence with counselling, but a second, third or fourth conviction needs a jail term, and perhaps permanent separation from the family.

Shadow Minister, I wasn't referring to the law of assault, there's nothing wrong with that and of course nobody is condoning marital violence. However, the policies around the topic have been failures, because if the experts are to be believed it doesn't seem to be reducing, but increasing in prevalence.

I don't claim any special expertise on the subject, but simply saying "men shouldn't hit women, no matter what women do to provoke them" is clearly ineffective. It gives women carte blanche to escalate situations until he snaps, at which time the cops are involved, she gets tea and sympathy (and the house to herself) and he gets carted off. It's got to the point that even if he responds by raising his voice and she complains he's likely to be in strife. It may make us feel good about our efforts to "protect women", but in fact it increases the risk that women face.

As a child I was a late bloomer physically, but "blessed" with a quick wit. I soon learnt not to use it when confronting a bigger bloke who was looking for an excuse. Explaining to a teacher how I got my bloody nose was not nearly as enjoyable not having one. We need to be educating women not to provoke physical responses, but to seek help when situations calm down, when cooler heads can prevail.

We hear a great deal about male anger, but women are just as capable of acting poorly when angry or under the influence. Giving them the idea that they can do so with impunity is a form of "perverse incentive" that can lead to bad consequences for all concerned.

The current models are driven by political motivations, helped along by police who want to have a simple way of dealing with violence when it occurs. They are not effective at stopping it from happening, as can be easily seen.

Beach, your 9 year old story refers to Anna Bligh ordering a review, it does not give the outcome of that review. What was the outcome? There must be something to report by now. Link please.

A news item yesterday reported that the mortality rate for Indigenous kids aged between one and five was (according to my unreliable short-term memory) ten times the national average. Abstract from that the Indigenous working population whose mortality patterns would be similar to the Australian average, double it for remote areas, and it's possible that mortality of very young children is forty times the national rate.

Remote-'community' domestic violence isn't just an unwilling spectator sport for young children, but something that they are often dragged into, and fatally. Kids in those 'communities' are not just neglected, poorly fed and cared-for and sexually abused, they are belted, thrown against walls or out of windows just as much as their mothers or aunties.

Reflecting on this, I went back to some stats that I'd drawn up about thirty years ago, of mortality rates at one southern community, between 1890 and 1957: 59 % of deaths were of people below twenty years old, and only 18 % were of people over sixty. Even in the 1950s, the comparisons were roughly the same.

If current mortality rates are also comparable, then one consequence stands out starkly: half the Indigenous population doesn't live long enough to reproduce. A corollary of that is: to cover up brutality against Indigenous children and women, or to do nothing about it, may amount to genocide. Because that's the long-term effect of losing half your child-bearing population.

These are urgent issues, and most certainly not to be swept under the carpet with mealy-mouthed side-tracking issues like 'Recognition'.

Joe

Hi Joe, I agree, those are terrible figures and they bear out my own calculation based on other data, that around 80% of all serious domestic violence in the country occurs among a few Aboriginal communities (not by any means all are affected).

Leaving that aside, perhaps you could put your anthropological hat on for a moment? I'm interested in the comments by yourself and Big Nana that this culture of violence predates European settlement. It seems to me that there may well be an evolutionary explanation for it. These were nomadic peoples, who often occupied very harsh environments and lived in small tribal groups by necessity - the land won't support large groups in any one place, especially in drought. It's also a very harsh environment more generally.

I wonder whether the treatment of children and women is a form of selective pressure? To put it crudely, it's better to have the weak die young than to allow them to drag the whole group down. In order to breed tough kids who'll survive, you need tough mothers, so do your best to weed out those who aren't. I've known some bloody tough Aboriginal women, as I'm sure you must have as well.

The problem, perhaps, is that the world has changed very rapidly around these people, in much less than 10 generations since white settlement in many regions. The cultural models which made them such a successful coloniser of this continent are no longer appropriate to the challenges facing them, but they haven't had time to evolve new ones. My understanding of Aboriginal cultures generally is that they are very conservative and distrustful of new ideas, which would also be understandable in evolutionary terms: you don't want to go taking chances on new ideas if you already have a successful model for survival even if it's not perfect.

I know that's a bit of a digression, but it might help with context. Any thoughts?

Hi Craig,

Out of my deep respect for you, I'll overlook that hurtful slight about being 'anthropological', as I'm sure Big Nana would too. But I have great admiration for some anthropologists like Peter Sutton, the Berndts, Phillip Clarke, Phillip Jones, and I sympathise with the usual antropologist career imperatives that they must be 'loyal', utterly unquestioning, of one's group's behaviour, in order to remain that group's bitch, and in order to retain some academic cachet.

Yes, indeed, there are many tough Aboriginal women. I met my dear mother-in-law actually before I met my wife, at a funeral, when she was about forty, and stroppy as buggery (she was the first woman who I ever heard use certain words and phrases, but I had lived a sheltered life in Bankstown); I didn't know then that she had already had ten kids. When she and the old man were drinking of a weekend, if she got too insensible, he use to kick her around - but the next weekend, I'm told, when HE was pretty insensible, she would kick the daylights out of him. Her daughter really took after her (well, except for the mutual kickings). Ah, halcyon days !

Yes, women fight back, and the men get ever more violent in response. Is it traditional ? I'm just finishing William Buckley's account of 32 years with the Geelong groups, and there's some of it there, although there seemed to be so much violence generally, it's hard to differentiate: actually there seemed to be more indiscriminate, random violence against children. In SA, in the various documentary sources, there are plenty of references to violence against women, and the law was often bent to allow for 'tradition'.

[TBC]

[contd.]

Back to now. The upshot is that almost all women murdered in the NT each year tend to be Indigenous, from 'communities', killed by partners. I wouldn't be surprised if that goes for kids as well. But it's probably been the rule in 'traditional' societies, tribal societies, since we all left Africa.

Peter Sutton re-examined many Aboriginal skeletal remains of women and found that a huge proportion had died with head-crush injuries on the left side. That's been the reality for more than fifty thousand years. How many women in that time ?

And for how much longer ?

Cheers and thanks,

Joe

The point of being an adult is that one controls ones temper even in cases of provocation. Hitting a woman is never excusable. Walk away, even walk out.

Or be prepared to suffer the consequences.

Joe, I apologise most profusely, but it was either anthropology or sociology, so I settled for the lesser of two weevils...

That information is fascinating. It fits with my rather sketchy hypothesis, but it would be interesting to know what experts in the field think. I suspect the problem will resolve itself in a couple of generations at most, if left alone to do so. Aborigines have survived lots of other threats to their survival during their time in Australia. It may just be a matter of showing a better way and waiting for the older generations to die off. In the meantime, the problem is probably best managed as harm minimisation rather than active enforcement of punitive laws that don't work.

Shadow Minister, you haven't actually been paying attention, have you?

Hi Craig,

The late Helen Hughes, and Gary Johns and Stephanie Jarrett have written eloquently about the prevalence of violence in Aboriginal 'communities'. I guess we all have our memories of women being stripped and chased around the yard by their beloveds armed with various blunt instruments and a skinful ? Or maybe not.

This article focusses on one 'community', by no means the most notorious: https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2008/11/the-cultural-roots-of-aboriginal-violence/

Highly recommended :)

Cheers,

Joe

Thanks for that link, Joe, it's an eye-opener. The same kinship models operate up in PNG as the "wantok" system; wantok meaning someone who shares your plestok, or in other words, comes from the same village, or at least the same valley. They also have a strong "bigman" system, although to a large extent it is more binding on the leader than his wantoks. It's what has caused so many problems with corruption in PNG, as people in charge are to some extent coerced to give wantoks special treatment and to ignore infractions.

It's a very primitive form of social organisation arranged around mutual obligation and as the article points out, it causes no end of trouble. PNG people share a simlar problem with alcohol, too. I seem to recall that both groups lack one of the key ADH genes that help with alcohol metabolism in the liver, but I could be wrong.

I knew there was a lot of commonality between the peoples of PNG and of Australia, but I'm coming to realise just how closely linked they are. It seems to me that the major cultural differences are related to the nature of the country rather than anything else.

In PNG the post-colonial experience hasn't been all positive, but there is certainly much to be proud of. The people seem to be getting on with dragging their own cultures in a very short period of 2 or 3 generations through a process that took Europeans several thousand years. It's not surprising that there are problems. I think we'll find that Aboriginal people will do the same, if given the chance and support.

The PNG people have the advantage that in the majority of cases they maintained local autonomy within villages, where the Aborigines been forced to completely change lifestyles from nomadic to closely settled; from small tribal groups to large townships with several tribes, with very little time to adjust

Joe, you might find this interesting.

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/humans-are-unusually-violent-mammals-but-averagely-violent-primates/501935/

"Gómez’s team calculated that at the origin of Homo sapiens, we were six times more lethally violent than the average mammal, but about as violent as expected for a primate. But time and social organizations have sated our ancestral bloodthirst, leaving us with modern rates of lethal violence that are well below the prehistoric baseline. We are an average member of an especially violent group of mammals, and we’ve managed to curb our ancestry.

Gómez’s team predicted that when our species arose, around 2 percent of us (1 in 50) would have been murdered by other people."

That goes along with Steven Pinker's work in "The Better Angels of Our Nature", where he makes a clear case for our times being the least violent in history.

The thing is that evolution, whether cultural or genetic, takes time. It's been 500 years since the Enlightenment and yet in some parts of the Western world there is still cultural resistance to Enlightenment models of thought. Pity the poor bloody Aborigines who have to try to leap several thousand years in a century or two.

Thanks Craig,

All is forgiven ! At least you didn't accuse me of being a sociologist :)

I've thought about that problem with metabolising alcohol for years, coupled with what seemed to be the huge quantities and rapidity with which alcohol is often consumed. As well, maybe in a foraging society, and societies evolving from foraging societies, the ethos is boom and bust: if it's there, go all out for it; if not, then go without. Maybe that 'it's now or maybe never' approach transfers easily to all forms of consumption including alcohol.

In the 1877 Victorian Royal Commission into the Aborigines, the missionary at Coranderrk complained that, when the men finished their shearing contracts out in the western districts and were paid off, they would blow their entire wages on grog, and sometimes in the one night - certainly before they got back home on the Mission. He suggested that all cheques be sent directly to him, so that he could make deductions for the on-going provision of rations and stores to the families of the men, then pay them out whatever was left over. Actually, that's how it worked over this way down around Pt McLeay Mission. At least the wives were happier that way, and that's all that matters ;)

Maybe the missing ingredient is employment. But after all these years, nobody has come up with projects which actually worked in remote communities. Many things COULD work: vegetable gardens, orchards, in remote areas date palms, etc., stud cattle and/or sheep operations, but all these need two components: effort and expertise, and both of those are in slightly short supply.

But without those, i.e. education and a work ethic, the default position is DV, abuse, neglect of children, poor diet, lack of physical activity, brutal lives and early deaths.

Meanwhile, amongst working Indigenous people in the cities, lifestyles are similar to those of non-Indigenous working people, and life expectancy is probably the same too - and their numbers are growing rapidly. The Gap widens.

The elites' solution ? Talk about 'Recognition'. Yeah, that might do it.

Joe

Craig, your reference to the similarity between aboriginals and Papuans is correct. The recently released DNA studies done across Papua and Australia show that the two peoples were actually the same until about 40,000 years ago, when a group apparently splintered off from Papua and crossed into the top of QLD. Given that aboriginal elders always strongly resisted any change suggested by the young men, I would say that many cultural practises remained intact after the separation.
As regard the current level of violence, firstly I don't think it's possible for anyone to actually understand the reality of the barbarous level of violence and how normal it is considered until they actually live with it. Like Joe I had a very abrupt initiation to family violence very early in my association with my husband. He had taken me to visit an aunt and uncle who were having a barbecue. Sitting in the back yard I could hear all these screams and grunts going on down the far back of the yard. When I looked at my to be husband he shrugged and said, don't worry that's just one of my aunts and uncles, my aunt caught him with one of the young gins in from a station.
Fortunately those two were an exception in his close family but that sort of behaviour is still totally normal within certain social structure.

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As far as solutions go, I despair because of the refusal of so many public figures to accept that the basis of all this violence is cultural. Yes alcohol and drugs makes it worse.,yes colonisation has made it worse. But culturally it is normal and as long as we keep people living in isolated communities with little Influence from the the larger society it is going to continue.
Last night I was watching a video of the Paul Murray Show, about violence in communities. He had a panel of 4 people, I don't know who they were,but one man had all his statistics on precolonisation violence ready. The percentage of female skulls examined with one skull fracture, the number with two or more fractures. Listing of first hand documentation of the violence witnessed by the first white arrivals. He made a good case.
Then jumped in a female panelist with the usual..... But, but, but what about all the alcohol, and drugs and loss of culture, and stolen generation etx etc. we can't say violence is cultural because we can't compare then and now.
Sorry, but we can. If it's culturally acceptable to beat th crap out of your women, regardless of what kids get injured in the meantime, then yes, that is relevant today.
And Joe, I know what you mean about kids being used in fights. When I first went to work in the children's ward at Derby hospital I was stunned by the number of babies who came in with depressed skull fractures. Three and a half years at the Adelaide Children's Hospital and never saw one that wasn't from a car accident, in first 10 months in Derby I saw 6. The women used to hold them up as shields.
And then there are incidents like the woman who threw her 10 month old baby hard onto the concrete at a bus exchange in Darwin because her husband wouldn't give her money to get on the bus with him.There used to be a cctv video of it but it has recently been removed.

There is a lot of research on which people are more likely to be victims of DV. While we can infer that people from the same groups are also more likely to commit domestic violence, there does not seem to be much actual research on the topic. We can't truly understand DV without a clear idea of who is being violent.
It seems that Aboriginal Territorians are more violent, but we don't know if all Aboriginal groups are equally violent and whether they are more violent than non-indigenous people with the same social problems.

Hi Benk,
I don't think there are any groups that have comparable social conditions to Aborigines in either remote communities or living in the long grass around Darwin and other towns.

Those are qualitatively different conditions to those in urban concentrations of poverty within our cities.

If you look far back enough you will find violence and abuse reduces as a society evolves and the rule of law is applied more evenly.

DV appears to be the last outpost where violence is tolerated, but as even this tolerance evaporates, sad and sorry thugs of men who as children saw their fathers beat their mothers with impunity, find that they cannot, and end up with criminal records and scorned by society.

In remote aboriginal communities where law enforcement is infrequent and hobbled by politics the results are entirely expected and dramatic.

And it doesn't get any better: this, from a dear friend in relation to Elder care:

"Another aspect of this tragic mess is elder abuse, in many families and communities. 2 elderly people were given places at Old Timers in Alice Springs; their families took them back out because they did not want to part with the oldie's keycards, basic cards and access to income management.

"Old people received powercards which is 2 lots per year each 6 months worth $570 of cards so $1140 per year. As most of the old people are pushed outside their homes under a tree they get no benefit from them.

" Family members receive carer's pensions to care for a nominated family elder. Unfortunately Centrelink do not offer guidance on the requirements of the carer, so they live elsewhere and do not give one minute of care to the person. It is just another form of disposable income they receive.

"All the oldies were made by Centrelink to get keycards, many of the old people have never seen their cards, nor would they know their pin numbers as the families have them, use them and the oldies get nothing.

"They will steal clothing, food bedding from the elderly. Recently the clinic bought a bed for one of the oldies in less than 24 hrs a young bloke had taken the bed and was using it."

So, whose shame ? WHO should be ashamed ?

Joe