Last night, a 53 year old mother of three was killed with an axe by her estranged husband in a suburban street just minutes from where I live on Gold Coast.
The Channel Ten News carried the obligatory interviews by people who said – ‘well this is just a normal street where nothing like this ever happens’. (this time complete with one of my daughter’s friends in the shot).
Then as per always, Channel Ten puts up the Domestic Hotline Phone number telling people to reach out for help.
But clearly help isn’t coming anytime soon to the women of Australia who are murdered or injured by men who used to love them. (on a weekly basis).
We all applauded Malcolm Turnbull’s $100 million Package to address Domestic Violence and two years on….have the killings stopped or slowed….it wouldn’t appear so? Click Here to Read My Blog on Turnbull’s DV Package.
Around the same time as the Turnbull announcement, I wrote a blog after a woman ran into a McDonalds Store (again pretty close to where I live) begging for help before being shot and killed be her ex husband. Click here to read that blog.
There is something clearly wrong here.
There is something clearly not working in terms of keeping our women safe.
- Is it an issue with our culture?
- Is it a problem with out justice system?
- Are we brainwashed by violent movies?
- Is it because we no longer value marriage?
- It is due to our society’s thrust away from the Judaeo Christian ethic on which we are founded?
- Is it due to a police force who not empowered to act on a complaint before it turns into an actual violent act?
- Is it the failure of the Domestic Violence Orders?
- Is this purely an issue with the mentality in men?
- Why are aussie men so violent?
- Is the issue with the way our society handles Alcohol or Drugs?
- Is there an issue with our need to label problems in children and then give them a pill rather than look at other ways of dealing with behavioural issues, so they grow up differently?
- Is it because we simply don’t say no to children anymore so when they grow up and a woman says no….there is a violent reaction?
I understand some of those questions are simplistic. Maybe you have a better question? But maybe a better question is not what we are after but better answers than the one being offered at the moment. We as a nation are on an ugly round about….A Woman is killed, the news reports it, people are shocked and outraged, reset….repeat…and rest…..repeat….rest…and repeat and then sometimes there is one murder so bad the politicians say enough is enough and then it resets and repeat, resets and repeat……until someone or something resets the culture and thinking in people. What will it take?
Categories: Australian, Current Affairs, Justice, Women
peterpilt 
Our society has gone downhill because it has gone away from the Judeao-Christian values it was founded on. As the Bible says “Remove not the ancient landmarks.”
I agree with above comment, but I have to also say that we shake our heads at the Americans and their gun laws but we are guilty of reacting the same way about domestic violence. We wring our hands and say, what can we do? Doesn’t anybody know?
While I can’t speak for Aussie culture, here in the U.S. I think violence has become so mainstream as “entertainment” that the value of human life seems to be at an all-time low. There is an old computer programming term: “Garbage in, garbage out.” I think what we are seeing in the erosion of society is a result of that very thing.
Is it an issue with our culture? – Yes.
Is it a problem with out justice system? – Yes.
Are we brainwashed by violent movies? – Not especially, but some will be more susceptible.
Is it because we no longer value marriage? – Yes. Very much so.
It is due to our society’s thrust away from the Judaeo Christian ethic on which we are founded? – Completely the *main* reason.
Is it due to a police force who not empowered to act on a complaint before it turns into an actual violent act? – Yes.
Is it the failure of the Domestic Violence Orders? – Yes. They are effectively impotent by their very nature.
Is this purely an issue with the mentality in men? – No.
Why are aussie men so violent? – I have no evidence they are any different from the men of any other western nation.
Is the issue with the way our society handles Alcohol or Drugs? – They are indeed a problem but not *the* problem. They exacerbate the real problem which is essentially in their upbringing that eventually leads them to take drugs and alcohol.
Is there an issue with our need to label problems in children and then give them a pill rather than look at other ways of dealing with behavioural issues, so they grow up differently? – Absolutely! More than anything else its their upbringing.
Is it because we simply don’t say no to children anymore so when they grow up and a woman says no….there is a violent reaction? – I believe only partly. Also, I think this has increased in the last couple of decades. A host of reasons for that.
Totally agree