Speaker 1: Already and this is this is the daily This is
Speaker 1: the daily. Ohs oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Monday,
Speaker 2: the twenty ninth of April.
Speaker 1: I'm Zara, I'm Sam.
Speaker 2: It's being labeled as Australia's National shame.
Speaker 1: Enough isn't us.
Speaker 2: That's the message echoed by thousands of people it rallies
Speaker 2: around the country following a wave of violence against women.
Speaker 1: Violent men may have to be part of the solution.
Speaker 1: You know someone who has been affected by domestic family
Speaker 1: violence and genderbates violence and you need to step up
Speaker 1: and do more.
Speaker 2: So far this year, twenty seven women have been killed
Speaker 2: in acts of gender based violence. Now, the country's Domestic
Speaker 2: Violence Commissioner is convening a crisis meeting of leaders from
Speaker 2: across the country to discuss what to do next and
Speaker 2: how to combat the rising rates of men's violence again women.
Speaker 2: In today's Deep Dive, we're going to discuss the context
Speaker 2: of this issue, what the government is saying, what we
Speaker 2: heard from the rallies over the weekend, and what comes
Speaker 2: next in this conversation. But for Sam, the.
Speaker 1: Headlines, Australia has committed another one hundred million dollars towards
Speaker 1: Ukraine's war efforts. With the assistance package announced by Defense
Speaker 1: Minister Richard Miles in his visit to Ukraine over the weekend,
Speaker 1: it takes Australia's total contributions since Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Speaker 1: to eight hundred and eighty million dollars. As part of
Speaker 1: his trip, Miles also visited Poland, where he discussed Australia's
Speaker 1: participation in a multinational program to train Ukrainian armed forces personnel.
Speaker 2: In the UK, Iraq has criminalized same sex relationships, introducing
Speaker 2: a maximum of a fifteen year prison sentence if found guilty.
Speaker 2: According to a copy of the law scene by Reuters,
Speaker 2: the law is designed to quote protect Iraqi society from
Speaker 2: moral depravity and was backed by Iraq's large conservative coalition.
Speaker 2: The law also imposes a one to three year prison
Speaker 2: sentence for anyone who changes their quote biological gender.
Speaker 1: The UK has predicted a more than fifty percent increase
Speaker 1: in strokes by twenty thirty five. That's according to the
Speaker 1: National Stroke Association. It expects the number of strokes will
Speaker 1: increase from one hundred thousand to over one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand, and will set the National Health Service back
Speaker 1: almost one hundred and forty four billion Australian dollars. The
Speaker 1: chief executive of the Stroke Association said the demand will
Speaker 1: quote be unsustainable by twenty thirty five.
Speaker 2: And today's good news. A new study has found that
Speaker 2: conservation projects and investments are slowing the overall decline of biodiversity.
Speaker 2: Published in the Journal of Science, the study found that
Speaker 2: two thirds of conservation efforts either improved the state of
Speaker 2: biodiversity or at least slow declines. The study calls for
Speaker 2: conservation efforts to be scaled.
Speaker 1: Up in order to meet global targets.
Speaker 2: This deep dive is going to include discussions about domestic
Speaker 2: and family violence. If you or anyone you know needs help,
Speaker 2: you can reach out to one eight hundred respect on
Speaker 2: one eight hundred seven three seven seven three to two.
Speaker 2: Over the last few weeks, the national conversation has been
Speaker 2: dominated by calls for greater action to protect women and
Speaker 2: girls from gender based violence. Now. This culminated over the
Speaker 2: weekend in national rallies that were held across the country,
Speaker 2: with PM Anthony Albanesi even joining protesters in Canberra yesterday
Speaker 2: and Zara.
Speaker 1: This is obviously a massive issue but before we get
Speaker 1: to what the response needs to be or what's being
Speaker 1: called for, can you set out in really clear terms
Speaker 1: for us what exactly the state of play is.
Speaker 2: Yes. So, at least twenty seven women that we know
Speaker 2: of have died in Australia in twenty twenty four in
Speaker 2: violent attacks. And the reason we know this is because
Speaker 2: there's a research project called Counting Dead Women and that
Speaker 2: collates all of these figures in one place on Facebook.
Speaker 2: Now the twenty seven women so far, so we're in
Speaker 2: April as we speak. The number of deaths that we
Speaker 2: have seen so far this year represents a significant increase
Speaker 2: from the same time period last year in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: So the numbers vary again because it can sometimes be
Speaker 2: pretty difficult with reporting around these crimes. But the ABC
Speaker 2: last week said eleven more women had died violently in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four compared to the same time period last year.
Speaker 2: Even since that article was published, another woman has been murdered,
Speaker 2: so that figure is now out of date. Put another way,
Speaker 2: until recently, an average of one woman was being killed
Speaker 2: a week. Now that average has risen to almost one
Speaker 2: every four days. And as people were marching in the
Speaker 2: streets over the weekend, calling from an end to this
Speaker 2: gender based violence. A Perth man was charged with murder
Speaker 2: after he allegedly assaulted the woman he lived with and
Speaker 2: set fire to their whole. Now, that story that was
Speaker 2: reported over the weekend came after a particularly horrific week
Speaker 2: that included news that twenty eight year old Molly Ticehurst
Speaker 2: had been found dead at her home with her former partner,
Speaker 2: who was out on bail and who breached an apprehended
Speaker 2: violence order was the person charged with her murder. Now,
Speaker 2: we won't go through each of the incidents that have
Speaker 2: happened this year, but if you do want to know more,
Speaker 2: you can look at destroy the Joints Counting Dead Women
Speaker 2: page and again that's become a resource that lots of
Speaker 2: news outlets have started to rely on to track these deaths.
Speaker 1: Sos Ovia said, there is a lot of media attention
Speaker 1: on the issue of gender based violence at the moment.
Speaker 1: I mean we only had to look at the size
Speaker 1: of the rallies over the weekend in every capital city,
Speaker 1: but what is actually been done about it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the Domestic Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner, her
Speaker 2: name's MICHAELA. Cronin She's called a crisis meeting for next Tuesday,
Speaker 2: and that's in response to the rising rates of gender
Speaker 2: based violence that we are seeing reported now. The meeting
Speaker 2: is designed to bring together decision makers, academics and key
Speaker 2: organizations who are all working in this space to try
Speaker 2: to figure out what comes next after this national conversation.
Speaker 2: So we know that Teran Chaula, who we spoke to
Speaker 2: on the pod last week, Amani Hater, and Alison Scott,
Speaker 2: who have all lost women in their families due to
Speaker 2: gender based violence, they'll also attend to the meeting, so
Speaker 2: there will be people with lived experience there to inform
Speaker 2: that conversation. And the National Roundtable is specifically looking at
Speaker 2: ways to deliver the federal government's National Plan to End
Speaker 2: Violence against Women and Children. Now, this is the strategy
Speaker 2: that is at the centerpiece of how the government is
Speaker 2: trying to respond to this issue, and I think it's
Speaker 2: important to talk about what that strategy aimes to do
Speaker 2: because it's an extremely lofty ambition. It aims to eradicate
Speaker 2: gendered violence against women and girls over the next ten years.
Speaker 2: It's abundantly obvious to anyone paying attention that, based on
Speaker 2: the statistics that I mentioned before, We are not getting
Speaker 2: any closer to that goal, but in fact we are
Speaker 2: going backward if year on year those stats are getting worse,
Speaker 2: and so the government has a very big job ahead
Speaker 2: of them if they want to get close to this goal.
Speaker 2: At the rallies over the weekend, the participants issued five
Speaker 2: key demands, and I'll just quickly run through them. So
Speaker 2: number one the declaration of a national emergency. Number two,
Speaker 2: mandatory victim blaming prevention training for police, media and first responders.
Speaker 2: Number three, alternative reporting options for violence victims. Number four
Speaker 2: the media to wait forty eight hours before identifying violence victims.
Speaker 2: And number five for the government to give better, more
Speaker 2: sustainable funding for organizations with five year minimum commitments.
Speaker 1: And how has the government responded to the spike in
Speaker 1: deaths this year and their plan going forward?
Speaker 2: Well, As I said at the top, Anthony Albernezi actually
Speaker 2: walked with protesters at the rallies held over the weekend,
Speaker 2: and before the rally he wrote on x violence against
Speaker 2: women is not a problem that women should have to solve.
Speaker 2: Governments need to do better, men need to step up
Speaker 2: and as a society we must do better. We know
Speaker 2: there is so much more to do and we will
Speaker 2: keep working. And we've had basically similar sentiments reflected across
Speaker 2: the government and from Anthony Albernesi's ministers. We had the
Speaker 2: Attorney General Mark Dreyfus saying last week that it's time
Speaker 2: for men to step up to combat gender based violence,
Speaker 2: and Minister for Women Katie Gallaher saying that this is
Speaker 2: a crisis and that women don't feel safe, you know,
Speaker 2: saying things like fifty percent of the population in this
Speaker 2: country have to think about what it means to park
Speaker 2: your car in a dark space, and what it means
Speaker 2: to walk by yourself, and what it means to do
Speaker 2: anything by yourself.
Speaker 1: Okay, And if we heard from the opposition on this
Speaker 1: and is stretching across the aisle, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is one of those rare moments where
Speaker 2: we are seeing complete bipartisanship. We've had Opposition leader Peter
Speaker 2: Dudden echoing the calls for greater actions, saying society is
Speaker 2: failing women at the moment. But it is very clear,
Speaker 2: as I said, that the dial isn't shifting, and so
Speaker 2: it is going to take a bipart as an effort
Speaker 2: to rethink the ways that we are addressing this issue,
Speaker 2: and Sam, I've been doing a lot of reading here
Speaker 2: because I think there's been so much discourse about how
Speaker 2: we're failing, how we're not doing any better. But I'm
Speaker 2: yet to see many people come up with a solution
Speaker 2: that we need to teach boys and men to respect
Speaker 2: women more and that that will end gendered violence. But
Speaker 2: I think one of the most productive pieces that I read,
Speaker 2: and I'll throw it in our show notes in case
Speaker 2: anyone wants to do some further reading on this, was
Speaker 2: something that gender violence expert Jess Hill wrote, which was
Speaker 2: about the fact that the government basically need to transform
Speaker 2: the way that they are approaching this issue and start
Speaker 2: from scratch with a completely different strategy. And she wrote
Speaker 2: this full long paper with Professor Michael Salter, but then
Speaker 2: she also published something in The Guardian that was basically
Speaker 2: an abridged version, and she goes through step by step
Speaker 2: what she believes needs to be done. And I think
Speaker 2: for anyone feeling particularly helpless after the last couple of
Speaker 2: weeks and what we've seen and what we've heard, I
Speaker 2: think something like this can be rather helpful in thinking
Speaker 2: about solutions because a lot of people are angry a
Speaker 2: lot of people want to do better, but we need
Speaker 2: to actually walk the walk, and we need to see
Speaker 2: the government lay out a very clear plan of how
Speaker 2: they actually want to eradicate this gender based violence, because
Speaker 2: what's being done at the moment clearly is not working.
Speaker 1: That's right, and we'll put that link in today's show notes.
Speaker 1: And just once again, if you need any help, or
Speaker 1: you know anyone that needs any help, you can reach
Speaker 1: out to one eight hundred respect on one eight hundred
Speaker 1: seventy three seven seven, three to two. That's all I've
Speaker 1: got time for today. We'll speak to you again tomorrow.
Speaker 1: My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bungelung Kalgodin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: s right island and nations. We pay our respects to
Speaker 1: the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.