Speaker 1: This podcast contains information and details relating to suicide. We
Speaker 1: urge anyone struggling with their emotions to contact Lifeline on
Speaker 1: thirteen eleven fourteen thirteen eleven fourteen or visit them at
Speaker 1: lifeline dot org dot au.
Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome to the eighth installment of Conversations. Today we
Speaker 2: are joined by our special guest, Domestic Violence New South
Speaker 2: Wales Deputy CEO, Elise Phillips.
Speaker 3: Welcome release, Thanks Alison, happy to be here now.
Speaker 2: Usually we will be joined by Liam Bartlett and Tim Clark,
Speaker 2: but both of them Liam's gone to Melbourne and Tim
Speaker 2: is in a trial, so just me today anyway. Just
Speaker 2: a little bit of background on you. You're a registered
Speaker 2: psychologist with over thirteen years experience in leadership roles in
Speaker 2: the government sector. You haven't lived experience of domestic violence
Speaker 2: and family violence and are passionate about influencing systems level
Speaker 2: change to increase safety, prevent violence, bring healing for victim
Speaker 2: survivors and hold people who use violence accountable. You bring
Speaker 2: strong stakeholder relationships, having spent the past three years working
Speaker 2: in the domestic family violence sector and advocating with government
Speaker 2: for greater investment where it is most needed. Before this,
Speaker 2: you worked as a counselor, group worker and a manager
Speaker 2: in family services.
Speaker 3: That's me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, Elie. It's very impressive credentials there. But
Speaker 2: also you know obviously you've had a challenging like yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was working on the frontlines and supporting frontline
Speaker 3: counselors and group workers working with families for many years.
Speaker 3: And after my own marriage and because of domestic effect
Speaker 3: family violence, I decided that I wanted to put my
Speaker 3: professional expertise and my lived expertise together are to make
Speaker 3: a difference where it's most needed. Because we've just got
Speaker 3: incredibly vulnerable people experiencing domestic and family violence, including both
Speaker 3: women and children and young people, and so wanted to
Speaker 3: be able to try and make a difference. And I
Speaker 3: suppose I do that in my current role working for
Speaker 3: Domestic Violence in New South Wales by trying to bring
Speaker 3: about changes at the systemic levels. So we are a
Speaker 3: peak organization. We represent almost two hundred people who are
Speaker 3: responding to domestic and family violence, both individual practitioners as
Speaker 3: well as services like refugees counseling, case management services, legal
Speaker 3: services services that focus on First Nations people and microant
Speaker 3: and refugee communities and services right across New southwad in metro,
Speaker 3: regional and rural areas. We listen to kind of people
Speaker 3: on the front lines who are doing this work day
Speaker 3: in and day out, and then we talk to government
Speaker 3: and we talk to police, and we talk to courts,
Speaker 3: and we advocate for things to improve in terms of legislation,
Speaker 3: in terms of training and support for people who are responding,
Speaker 3: and advocating most importantly for funding so that services are
Speaker 3: adequately resourced to help all of the people who need
Speaker 3: it in a timely way.
Speaker 2: Okay, there's a lot of questions that jump into my
Speaker 2: head just having listened to all of that. First of all,
Speaker 2: how different are you from the person who came out
Speaker 2: of that relationship back in the day to who you
Speaker 2: are now.
Speaker 3: Look, I think that you know, I haven't even probably
Speaker 3: even reflected on that question. My life is very different.
Speaker 3: My life is very different. I have a different job,
Speaker 3: my home life is incredibly different. Has been a process
Speaker 3: of recovery and healing. But for many victim survivors, particularly
Speaker 3: people who have to co parent with the person who
Speaker 3: was abusive and violent towards them, there's no end point.
Speaker 3: Leaving a relationship doesn't necessarily mean that control or abuse ends,
Speaker 3: It just changes. And having to coperent with someone is
Speaker 3: really challenging when there is a history of domestic and
Speaker 3: family violence. So it's a day to day journey even now.
Speaker 2: I'd imagine when you're coming out or something like that,
Speaker 2: your self esteem and everything like that would be at
Speaker 2: sort of a low point and to be able to
Speaker 2: transition to the advocating role and to be proactive the
Speaker 2: way I mean, was that an easy journey to make.
Speaker 3: I think that you gain a lot of strength and
Speaker 3: courage from being able to leave. It's such a difficult
Speaker 3: thing to leave an abusive relationship because victom survivors are
Speaker 3: often having to choose between violence and poverty, between violence
Speaker 3: and homelessness. There are so many systems to navigate. If
Speaker 3: you report to police, you're engaged with the criminal justice
Speaker 3: system as well as having to you know, when there
Speaker 3: is custody of children or financial settlements go through the
Speaker 3: family law system. So there are so many challenges and
Speaker 3: so much life adamin to kind of navigate in that process.
Speaker 3: But coming out the other side, you gain a lot
Speaker 3: of your integrity and self respect back from having taken
Speaker 3: those very difficult steps to gain independence back and freedom
Speaker 3: to take control back over your own life. And there's
Speaker 3: a lot of privilege in my story as a white
Speaker 3: woman who was educated and was working and had an income.
Speaker 3: I'm very mindful that there were fewer barriers is that
Speaker 3: I had to overcome compared to women who might not
Speaker 3: be working, might not have access to income, might not
Speaker 3: have family or friends to be able to support them.
Speaker 3: So being able to use my voice and advocate for
Speaker 3: system reform and system that better responds to victim survivors
Speaker 3: no matter who they are or their circumstances, that is
Speaker 3: kind of a way that I can make meaning out
Speaker 3: of the experiences that I've had and try and make
Speaker 3: the world a bit of a better, safer place for
Speaker 3: my children.
Speaker 2: Were you surprise when you got into the advocate role
Speaker 2: how prevalent it was and how many barriers still existed.
Speaker 3: We know that domestic and family violence is far more
Speaker 3: prevalent than many of us realize, and this is one
Speaker 3: of the things that we really need to shift if
Speaker 3: we want to be able to reduce the prevalence of
Speaker 3: domestic and family violence. We need to first recognize when
Speaker 3: it's happening and recognize that we really do have some
Speaker 3: serious challenges in this country. We know that victims, survivors, themselves,
Speaker 3: their friends and family around them may struggle to identify
Speaker 3: their experience as violence or abuse, but as a society,
Speaker 3: we're gradually increasing our awareness of this issue and our
Speaker 3: understanding of what it looks like. Even if a victim
Speaker 3: does know that what they're experiencing is not okay, they
Speaker 3: might not be able to report it to others right
Speaker 3: away because of shame and stigma, because the perpetrator leads
Speaker 3: them to think that they are to blame, because the
Speaker 3: fears of wanting to burden friends or family, or fews
Speaker 3: that they won't be believed. As a society, we sometimes
Speaker 3: hold on to the good bloke mentality and find it
Speaker 3: hard to believe that a man who is friendly and
Speaker 3: calm and seemingly a good dad could be abusing their
Speaker 3: partner or their children behind closed doors, and in some cases,
Speaker 3: victims have very legitimate fears that if they tell someone
Speaker 3: what's going on, or if they try to leave, that
Speaker 3: violence and abuse will escalate. We know that it's when
Speaker 3: victim survivors are preparing to leave or when they do
Speaker 3: leave an abusive relationship that they are at greatest risk,
Speaker 3: and that's when domestic and family violence homicides are much
Speaker 3: more likely to occur. So we definitely need to kind
Speaker 3: of raise awareness of the prevalence, and we need to
Speaker 3: start to change community attitudes. Many people still think, despite
Speaker 3: the media reports and protests marching in the streets, that
Speaker 3: domestic in family violence isn't happening in their local community.
Speaker 3: They think that this is happening to other people in
Speaker 3: other areas. And what we know is that domestic and
Speaker 3: family violence affects families in every community, no matter where
Speaker 3: you live, no matter how affluent the suburb, and ignoring
Speaker 3: that reality allows this problem to continue. If we recognize it,
Speaker 3: then we realize we can all play a role in
Speaker 3: creating a safer society.
Speaker 2: I'm still staggered by how how we got here, you know,
Speaker 2: to this point where it's still so commonplace that I mean,
Speaker 2: we think we've evolved so much, right, and it's great
Speaker 2: that in the last ten years since Amy died, for example,
Speaker 2: that we have words like coerce of control and gas lighting,
Speaker 2: which are you know, even our kids know those words. Now.
Speaker 2: It's terrific, it's you know, because certainly that wasn't around
Speaker 2: when I was growing up, So that's good at least.
Speaker 2: But the term hidden homicide is that something that you
Speaker 2: have come across or is that a term that's used.
Speaker 2: I mean in England it's very much used and a
Speaker 2: lot of certainly all the cases I look at involving
Speaker 2: women and maybe that you know, I haven't really looked
Speaker 2: at the male cases yet. I haven't had that opportunity,
Speaker 2: but certainly that the female cases they're all being hidden homicides.
Speaker 2: Is this something that you've known about for a long time?
Speaker 3: It's not a term that we use commonplace in the
Speaker 3: domestic family violence sector Here in Australia. We have the
Speaker 3: Domestic Violence Death Review Team here in New South Wales
Speaker 3: and there are similar teams in other jurisdictions in Australia
Speaker 3: that look at murders and particularly when they suspect that
Speaker 3: domestic and family violence has occurred, and identify what were
Speaker 3: the missed opportunities in that case to be able to intervene,
Speaker 3: to be able to put supports in place, and to
Speaker 3: be able to protect those victim survivors. But we don't
Speaker 3: yet see government implementing the recommendations of those reports consistently,
Speaker 3: and there are still a number of recommendations from those
Speaker 3: reports that are yet to be implemented, either in states
Speaker 3: and territories or at the national level.
Speaker 2: Obviously, femocide is certainly something that's been identified. Is that
Speaker 2: something that your organization looks into as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. We certainly watched the Counting Dead Women statistics
Speaker 3: to kind of look at how we're tracking in the
Speaker 3: number of women's lives that are being taken during the
Speaker 3: domestic in the family violence and the most recent New
Speaker 3: South Wales Death Review Team report showed that almost half
Speaker 3: of the people who were killed in domestic and family
Speaker 3: violence circumstances hadn't reported to police. And it's really crucial
Speaker 3: that we don't assume because someone hasn't reported violence and
Speaker 3: abuse to the police, It's really important that we don't
Speaker 3: assume that there wasn't violence and abuse occurring, because we
Speaker 3: know that there are many barriers again in the way
Speaker 3: of people reporting to police, particularly for migrant and refugee women,
Speaker 3: when they might be language barriers, their visa status might
Speaker 3: be dependent on their partner, and they might be fearful
Speaker 3: of not being believed. First Nations women are fearful that
Speaker 3: of chop protective services, and then if they make reports
Speaker 3: that their children could be removed from their care, or
Speaker 3: they might also be fearful about backlash within their community
Speaker 3: if they report, or fearful that if their partner is
Speaker 3: locked up that they are going to become another debt
Speaker 3: in custody. So in a system that has so many
Speaker 3: challenges like that that get in the way of reporting
Speaker 3: to police, it's really crucial that we do investigate cases
Speaker 3: thoroughly and not assume that because of police report hasn't
Speaker 3: been made that the abuse kind of been that bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's a majority, isn't it. Really my understanding
Speaker 2: the majority of people in domestic violence situations don't actually
Speaker 2: report it to police.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, despite the fact that we've had massive increases
Speaker 3: in reports to police. You know, it's hard to believe
Speaker 3: that a f few years ago, domestic in the family
Speaker 3: violence wasn't a crime. And it's been this year in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four that we've celebrated the establishment of the
Speaker 3: first women's refuge that was established Elsie's Place, in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy four, So we really have come a huge way
Speaker 3: in just fifty years. It is hard to realize how
Speaker 3: far we still have to go. But we shouldn't assume
Speaker 3: that more people are being abusive now than in the
Speaker 3: past just because reporting rates are increasing. Sometimes reporting rates
Speaker 3: are increasing because people know that help is available, and
Speaker 3: that's a good thing if people are reaching out for
Speaker 3: help sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't think there's any well, there might be,
Speaker 2: but certainly in my reviewing of figures and things like that,
Speaker 2: it's not this idea that all of a sudden people
Speaker 2: are becoming abusive. As you say, it's only been fifty
Speaker 2: years where it's considered a crime and that still baffles me.
Speaker 2: And the fact that you still have the majority not
Speaker 2: reporting it. That is what are currently the biggest challenges.
Speaker 2: For example, I understand this happened in Wa. There was
Speaker 2: footage of some of a woman being hit and battered
Speaker 2: by her partner at the time, but she wouldn't sign
Speaker 2: a statement because obviously she was fitful, right, even though
Speaker 2: there was proof. But it has to happen, right that
Speaker 2: they have to actually sign off on it. It can't
Speaker 2: just be reported or reflected if they don't agree to
Speaker 2: sign a statement.
Speaker 3: These are some of the challenges that we face because
Speaker 3: the legislation is different from one state and territory to another.
Speaker 3: So in New South Wales where I'm faced, for example,
Speaker 3: police have a duty of care. If they have a
Speaker 3: duty if they believe that domestic and family violence is occurring,
Speaker 3: they have an obligation to take out an apprehensive domestic
Speaker 3: in family violence order to protect the person who is
Speaker 3: being harmed, regardless of whether the person wants that to
Speaker 3: be taken out or not, so that decision is actually
Speaker 3: taken out of the victim survivor's hands. That was a
Speaker 3: reform that was made quite some time ago because of
Speaker 3: the challenges that police were experiencing where they wanted to
Speaker 3: take action but victim survivors were fearful that that was
Speaker 3: going to lead to an escalation in abuse. It's in fact,
Speaker 3: perhaps somewhat easier now that victim survivors you can say,
Speaker 3: well that that wasn't my call, that was the police's decision.
Speaker 3: But still picking up that phone to call police in
Speaker 3: the first instance, it used a significant challenge to overcome,
Speaker 3: although there are of course other circumstances when other parties
Speaker 3: might hear or see abuse and report to police on
Speaker 3: behalf of the victim survivor.
Speaker 2: What are the big things that could happen now do
Speaker 2: you think that would help victim survivors?
Speaker 3: The biggest thing that we need is fun. The domestic
Speaker 3: and family violence sector has been historically underfunded and under resourced.
Speaker 3: The scale and the cost of domestic and family violence
Speaker 3: to our country is estimated to be twenty six billion
Speaker 3: dollars per year and commonwealth investment is currently sitting at
Speaker 3: about three point four billion. If we're really going to
Speaker 3: get serious about preventing violence, it's estimated that responses should
Speaker 3: make up nine to twelve percent of the government's expenditure.
Speaker 3: At the moment, it's about three percent of the federal
Speaker 3: government's expenditure five percent in New South Wales, so we're
Speaker 3: not seeing enough investment in responding to this issue. Prevention
Speaker 3: of violence being requires that we invest in primary prevention,
Speaker 3: which is stopping it before it starts by changing community attitudes,
Speaker 3: and that needs to happen in schools, in workplaces, through
Speaker 3: sporting institutions, and through media camps. We also need early
Speaker 3: intervention where people who are at risk of experiencing, for
Speaker 3: perpetrating violence are supported to change their trajectory. We need
Speaker 3: the obvious, which is supports and responses for people who
Speaker 3: are experiencing violence or using violence, and we need much
Speaker 3: more investment in recovery oriented services. If we are able
Speaker 3: to help victim survivors to get their life back on track,
Speaker 3: if we can make sure they have housing, support them
Speaker 3: back into employment, and ensure that they and their children
Speaker 3: have the therapeutic supports that they need, then investing in
Speaker 3: that in the short term is actually going to save costs.
Speaker 3: In the long term, it's also going to mean that
Speaker 3: we limit the intergenerational transmission of violence from one generation
Speaker 3: to another, because the heartbreaking reality is if a child
Speaker 3: or young person is exposed to violence, they are more
Speaker 3: likely to go on to be either a victim or
Speaker 3: a perpetrator of violence in the future. And we just
Speaker 3: have to stop that trajectory. But we can't do it
Speaker 3: without investment and resources.
Speaker 2: What are the latest steps that you can tell me
Speaker 2: in relation to just any that you might know offhand,
Speaker 2: just to give people a bit of perspective on how
Speaker 2: prevalent it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we know that it's roughly one in four women
Speaker 3: who will experience domestic and family violence over the course
Speaker 3: of their lifetime, and the Australian Child Male Treatment study
Speaker 3: recently released some really concerning stats around the high rates
Speaker 3: of children and young people reporting that they're experiencing domestic
Speaker 3: and family violence in their childhood as well. So we
Speaker 3: do know that this is a prevalent issue and it
Speaker 3: does need a better response. We also need to be
Speaker 3: doing better in collecting data. We need more consistent and
Speaker 3: accurate reporting on domestic and family violence so that we
Speaker 3: can understand the patterns and identify those key moments where
Speaker 3: we can intervene.
Speaker 2: But as you mentioned, it is a case that I
Speaker 2: mean seems to be unanimous across everyone I speak to
Speaker 2: in the industry that the leaving part is certainly the
Speaker 2: most dangerous time for a victim. Speaking of that, you've
Speaker 2: had a chance, hopefully to catch up a little bit
Speaker 2: with Amy Wensley's so just looking at it just your
Speaker 2: overall sort of perspective. What were your thoughts as you
Speaker 2: were listening to Amy's story.
Speaker 3: We're not in a position to comment on specific cases,
Speaker 3: but I guess generally speaking out of you, is that
Speaker 3: all cases where someone has died need to be treated
Speaker 3: seriously and investigated thoroughly. We saw in Amy's case that
Speaker 3: she was taking steps to if the home where the
Speaker 3: abuse was happening, whether that would have been leaving for
Speaker 3: good or leaving for a time, it does fit that
Speaker 3: profile where we see that risk escalates when victim survivors
Speaker 3: attempt to leave, and we know that police need to
Speaker 3: consider whether domestic and family violence is part of the
Speaker 3: picture in each and every call out that they attend,
Speaker 3: even if there hasn't been a history of reporting to
Speaker 3: police in the past. The other thing we need is
Speaker 3: for victim survivors to be believed. You know, too often
Speaker 3: we hear victim survivors tell us that they tried to
Speaker 3: disclose what they're experiencing, but they weren't believed. And we
Speaker 3: know that that happens more often for First Nations women
Speaker 3: and for migrant and refugee people. So that's another thing
Speaker 3: that we need to get rap.
Speaker 2: What about victim blaming in these sorts of situations.
Speaker 3: Have you come across that, Yeah, we kind of have
Speaker 3: a for that in the domestic and family for sector.
Speaker 3: It's called misidentification when the victim survivor is falsely identified
Speaker 3: as the perpetrator. And this really requires that we have
Speaker 3: a better understanding of how people who have experienced trauma
Speaker 3: may behave. Sometimes we have this view of what a
Speaker 3: typical victim might look like, someone who's downtrodden, who is passive,
Speaker 3: who you know, just curls up in a ball, and
Speaker 3: that's not always the case. There are times when a
Speaker 3: victim survivor may be angry and frustrated at the abuse
Speaker 3: that they're experiencing or the fact that the system is
Speaker 3: failing to protect them. They might be distressed or aggressive
Speaker 3: when first responders, including police, attend a call out. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: there are cases where the person who is causing harm
Speaker 3: might be cool, calm and collected and carries and it's
Speaker 3: in those circumstances when women are more likely to not
Speaker 3: be believed. It's much more likely to occur when people
Speaker 3: are first nations because we have systemic racism and discrimination
Speaker 3: that continues to occur, and it's more likely to happen
Speaker 3: when there's language barriers as well. For understandable reasons, police
Speaker 3: have such a difficult job. They're called out in the
Speaker 3: heat of the moment, and we know that domestic and
Speaker 3: family violence makes up such a significant portion of the
Speaker 3: work that they do day in and day out. They're
Speaker 3: having to make split second decisions. They're having to make
Speaker 3: judgments based on the evidence before them in that particular moment.
Speaker 3: They don't always have the history. And in New South
Speaker 3: Wales in this year there's been the criminalization of coercive control,
Speaker 3: so coercive control is now considered a crime here in
Speaker 3: the South Wares, which previously wasn't the case. Similar legislation
Speaker 3: is being implemented in Queensland and considered in South Australia,
Speaker 3: and this legislation could be a game changer because it
Speaker 3: means that police are required to look at a pattern
Speaker 3: of behavior. They're not just looking at what has happened
Speaker 3: in that one incident from the day when they were
Speaker 3: called out, but they're actually required to investigate has there
Speaker 3: been a history of abuse and control in the past.
Speaker 3: Is a victim survivor being restricted from having financial independence?
Speaker 3: Are they being restricted from practicing their religion or their culture?
Speaker 3: Are they being isolated from friends and family and required
Speaker 3: to do things the way that the perpetrator wants them
Speaker 3: to be done because of the fear and threat of violence.
Speaker 3: It's our hope that if police can start to investigate
Speaker 3: patterns of behavior that occur over time, that we're going
Speaker 3: to get better at identifying when couci control is happening,
Speaker 3: and better at a realizing that just because a victim
Speaker 3: survivor might be aggressive or might respond with force to
Speaker 3: the abuse that they're experiencing in one incident, it doesn't
Speaker 3: necessarily mean that they're the perpetrator and they are still
Speaker 3: the person most in need of protection, even though they
Speaker 3: might not appeal like the ideal of victim on that
Speaker 3: one day.
Speaker 2: I guess that's with everything anyway. I mean, that's the
Speaker 2: way these things work. And particularly if you get to
Speaker 2: a point whether survive well, there is no survivor that
Speaker 2: they're not there to defend themselves. That would be more problematic,
Speaker 2: wouldn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly, And in circumstances like that, ideally there would
Speaker 3: be investigations undertaken and a number of people interviewed in
Speaker 3: order to gather a full picture of what had happened
Speaker 3: in the lead up to that event.
Speaker 2: That's the thing. It would take days to be able
Speaker 2: to do that properly. This is something that when you're
Speaker 2: talking about the First Nations and people from different backgrounds,
Speaker 2: I've definitely seen a lot where it is so like
Speaker 2: just with reports that are online that is so much
Speaker 2: more problematic, isn't it to a massive extent?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we know that Aboriginal women are much more likely
Speaker 3: to be killed due to domestic and family silence. The
Speaker 3: rate of Aboriginal women being hospitalized is forty times the
Speaker 3: rate of non Indigenous women, and it's important to point
Speaker 3: out that often it's a non indigenous perpetrator abusing an
Speaker 3: Aboriginal woman, and so it is absolutely crucial that we
Speaker 3: are looking at how we can respond more effectively.
Speaker 2: But it's those marginalized people that are also treated the
Speaker 2: worst by authorities. How do you improve that? What do
Speaker 2: you do about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean it would be nice to think that
Speaker 3: everyone is treated the same under our judicial responses, but
Speaker 3: there are well documented issues of systemic racism and discrimination
Speaker 3: in the way in which services and systems and the
Speaker 3: people working within those systems respond to people who are
Speaker 3: First Nations or from migrant and refugee backgrounds. While we
Speaker 3: know that police are trying to address this through regular
Speaker 3: and ongoing cultural awareness and anti racism training, we need
Speaker 3: to be doing more in this space here in New
Speaker 3: South Wales, just a few weeks ago there was police
Speaker 3: officers themselves coming out to talk about toxic cultures within
Speaker 3: the New Southwolk Police Force and referring to it as
Speaker 3: a boys club and suggesting that there is still significant
Speaker 3: cultural change that needs to happen for these systems and
Speaker 3: structures to be responding more effectively. Now we hear from
Speaker 3: our members and from bites survivors that there are many
Speaker 3: cases where police officers do respond in an appropriate, professional,
Speaker 3: compassionate and trauble informed way, but the concern is around
Speaker 3: the inconsistency are around the fact that that's not necessarily
Speaker 3: a guarantee that there are times when responsors are far
Speaker 3: from ideal and it's not just about training individual police
Speaker 3: officers either. The system in its entirety needs more resources.
Speaker 3: We understand the pressure, or we can try to understand
Speaker 3: the pressure that police officers are under when they're attending
Speaker 3: a call out and that they know in the time
Speaker 3: they're spending doing that investigation, there's five more cases piling up.
Speaker 3: We know that domestic and family flience cases often have
Speaker 3: more time continuing paperwork that takes police officers offline to
Speaker 3: be completed. So and we also know here in New
Speaker 3: South Wales that there are a high number of vacant
Speaker 3: positions that are yet to be filled. So we really
Speaker 3: need more resources for police and justice systems to be
Speaker 3: able to investigate thoroughly and to be able to provide
Speaker 3: those best practice responses and do the cultural change that
Speaker 3: is required.
Speaker 2: Do you also investigate or look at statistics for how
Speaker 2: many family domestic victims end up taking their own lives.
Speaker 3: It's something that has been identified as needing further investigation.
Speaker 3: So the federal government recently commissioned a rapid review into prevention,
Speaker 3: and one of the recommendations of that review, I think
Speaker 3: it was in Summer's in partition who is pushing for
Speaker 3: this recommendation, was to do more investigation in the number
Speaker 3: of people who experience domestic and family violence and then
Speaker 3: go on to suicide. There is some data that indicate
Speaker 3: that experiencing domestic and family violence is a risk factor
Speaker 3: for suicide, but we definitely need to continue to do
Speaker 3: that research to better understand the link between victimization of
Speaker 3: domestic and family violence and suicide. In New South Wales,
Speaker 3: for example, the Domestic Fialanced Death Review Team has been
Speaker 3: able to identify that almost half of the female suicides
Speaker 3: had recorded history of domestic and family violence. So there
Speaker 3: does seem to be a substantial.
Speaker 2: Link, yes, but how many are actual real suicides?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. We haven't got the data that you
Speaker 3: can tell us with any confidence the likelihood of the
Speaker 3: situations being a suicide versus a homicide. We've definitely much
Speaker 3: more research to be occurring in that space so that
Speaker 3: we're better equipped to be able to make these judgments
Speaker 3: and able to gather all of the data that and
Speaker 3: information that's needed to be able to make those determinations.
Speaker 2: Are you ever consulted by authorities as to cases that
Speaker 2: there is confusion over what the cause of death is,
Speaker 2: whether there is you know, to substantiate whether you consider
Speaker 2: this a domestic violent situation? Is that is your expertise
Speaker 2: ever called in in those you know, maybe suspicious deaths
Speaker 2: or that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: BESTIICIANC in South Wales haven't been consulted in those circumstances
Speaker 3: that I'm aware of. I can't comment on whether other
Speaker 3: domestic and family advance experts might have been consulted in
Speaker 3: both types of circumstances. I'm just not sure.
Speaker 2: Do you think there is a potential that domestic violence
Speaker 2: experts be consulted in relation to sudden deaths that haven't
Speaker 2: been determined.
Speaker 3: We know that the domestic and family advance workers do
Speaker 3: have specialist expertise and specialist knowledge that other responders might
Speaker 3: not have, and we do advocate for there to be
Speaker 3: greater consultation with specialist services right across the board. You know,
Speaker 3: we want to be consulted and have input into the
Speaker 3: training that police and magistrates received. We want to have
Speaker 3: input and oversight of police procedures and the bench books
Speaker 3: that magistrates use to guide them in their decision making.
Speaker 3: And there's also a place for co location. So in
Speaker 3: New South Wales in the last couple of years there's
Speaker 3: been a trial where domestic and family violence workers are
Speaker 3: located day in and day are working in a police
Speaker 3: station and that means that they are, you know, someone
Speaker 3: on the ground that police officers can kind of check
Speaker 3: in with and consult with on a day to day basis,
Speaker 3: and they can also be there when a victim, survivor
Speaker 3: or a family member or a friend kind of walks
Speaker 3: through the doors and wants support, wants information, or wants
Speaker 3: to make a statement. So this has been positively evaluated.
Speaker 3: We're really optimistic that this trial will continue and that
Speaker 3: it will actually be expanded eventually right across the state.
Speaker 3: But we're hearing really positive things from the DFV workers,
Speaker 3: from police, and from victim survivors who are getting more
Speaker 3: trauma in formed responses. So I suppose we certainly think
Speaker 3: that there's a place for that specialist knowledge and expertise
Speaker 3: to be relied upon law.
Speaker 2: We have a lot of domestic violence survivors who listen
Speaker 2: to our podcast and people who are currently in domestic
Speaker 2: violent situations. What would you say to them? What tips
Speaker 2: or recommendations would you give them on how to address
Speaker 2: situations and how to I guess stay safe, particularly if
Speaker 2: children are involved, because I'd imagine as a parent, right,
Speaker 2: I'd be so afraid for their lives more than my own.
Speaker 2: You don't want to endanger them in any way. How
Speaker 2: do you leave safely?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really important that safety is the number one priority,
Speaker 3: and people who are in that situation day in and
Speaker 3: day out, are hyper vigilant and they're highly attuned to
Speaker 3: the to risk. We kind of refer to them as
Speaker 3: being the ex but in that situation about how to
Speaker 3: keep themselves safe, having a safety plan can be really useful,
Speaker 3: having a plan around where you will go, what you
Speaker 3: will do what you will take if violence and abuse escalates,
Speaker 3: And there are domestic and family violence specialists that are
Speaker 3: able to help victim survivors to prepare and write a
Speaker 3: safety plan. You can do that by contacting one eight
Speaker 3: hundred respect or other similar services across the different states
Speaker 3: and jurisdictions. We know that for some survivors, they feel
Speaker 3: that it's safer to stay than it is to leave,
Speaker 3: because many victim survivors know that the family law system
Speaker 3: will require that their children continue to have contact with
Speaker 3: the abuser even if they do leave. And when you're
Speaker 3: living with a perpetrator, you're there and you can protect
Speaker 3: your kids and you can keep them safe or safer.
Speaker 3: But if your kids are having contact with the perpetrator
Speaker 3: after you've left, when you're not there to keep them safe,
Speaker 3: that's one of the significant barriers that actually makes it
Speaker 3: harder for people to leave. They're sometimes fearful about what,
Speaker 3: Who's going to keep my kids safe if I'm not
Speaker 3: there to do it. And we need to continue to
Speaker 3: look at our family law system and make sure that
Speaker 3: women are being believed in that system when they are
Speaker 3: reporting that violence and abuse is occurring. There are some
Speaker 3: challenges in between our family law system and which is
Speaker 3: federal and our state based child protection systems. But you know,
Speaker 3: for bit the survivors who are listening, we would encourage
Speaker 3: them to know that there are helps and supports available
Speaker 3: for you if and when you are able to reach
Speaker 3: out for support. The number of refugees is growing, and
Speaker 3: so you know that may is that that crisis housing
Speaker 3: is more available than it has been in the past.
Speaker 3: And we also have the Escaping Violence Payment five thousand
Speaker 3: dollars payment from the federal government. Fifteen hundred dollars is
Speaker 3: provided in cash and the remainder is provided in goods
Speaker 3: and services. That helps people to be able to rebuild
Speaker 3: their life if and when they choose to leave.
Speaker 2: That is a very scary situation you just described. Is
Speaker 2: there a way if a victim can prove the violence
Speaker 2: and that they're also a threat to their children, that
Speaker 2: they can prevent their children from being placed in that situation?
Speaker 2: You know, it's just supervised visits or things like that.
Speaker 2: How would they go about that?
Speaker 3: There were some amendments to the legislation recently which have
Speaker 3: kind of watered down. We previously had presumption of equal
Speaker 3: shared parental responsibility and that's kind of been watered down
Speaker 3: now so that courts are required to give more consideration
Speaker 3: to whether there has been domestic in family violence occurring.
Speaker 3: Some of the challenges, however, is that the survivors, for
Speaker 3: the reasons we've already discussed, may not have reported the
Speaker 3: violence and abuse that they've experienced to police. It might
Speaker 3: be something that they haven't shared or that they've only
Speaker 3: shared with friends and families, so that can make it
Speaker 3: more difficult to prove or provide evidence to support their claim.
Speaker 3: But one thing that we do encourage people to do
Speaker 3: is to start recording what they're experiencing, even if they're
Speaker 3: not planning to leave or not planning to leave for
Speaker 3: a while. If you can start recording what's going on,
Speaker 3: then you're going to have that information at your fingertips
Speaker 3: if you need to use it in future. In New
Speaker 3: South Wales, the police created an app called the empower
Speaker 3: You App that actually is a place where you can
Speaker 3: capture notes, you can capture photos. There's information about support
Speaker 3: services in that app as well, and you can also
Speaker 3: send the data to a friend to keep if it's
Speaker 3: not safe for you to keep that information on your
Speaker 3: own phone, particularly if you're worried that the perpetrator might
Speaker 3: be using fyware to track your phone. So being able
Speaker 3: to capture information about what's going on can be useful
Speaker 3: later down the track if and when you want to
Speaker 3: report or provide evidence through the criminal justice system or
Speaker 3: the family law system.
Speaker 2: Well, it's very complicated, isn't it. It's a lot to
Speaker 2: take in, and it would be very overwhelming for victims,
Speaker 2: particularly they're just trying to hold a household together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really difficult time to you know, because
Speaker 3: often people are having you know, when you leave, you're
Speaker 3: having to deal with police, you're having to you maybe
Speaker 3: apply it to send a link the benefits, you're having
Speaker 3: to deal with child support, you're potentially having to to
Speaker 3: find a roof over your head, as well as if
Speaker 3: you're employed, trying to maintain employment or get the kids
Speaker 3: to education and childcare. And that's what's really good for
Speaker 3: the general community to understand. Then it kind of chicks
Speaker 3: away at some of those victim blaming why didn't they
Speaker 3: leave type attitudes. That recognition of how incredibly difficult it
Speaker 3: is to navigate all of those systems all at once,
Speaker 3: and there's a need for governments to look at how
Speaker 3: they can make those systems more use a friendly, and
Speaker 3: how they can reduce the red tape in order to
Speaker 3: access services.
Speaker 2: It's definitely a case of one size doesn't fit all, though,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's right, And we've been advocating with the
Speaker 3: new Southlas government Housing service recently around what they can
Speaker 3: do to make sure that they have flexible person centered responses.
Speaker 3: Some victim survivors might not want to be located where
Speaker 3: the perpetrator is. They might actually want to be moved
Speaker 3: to a different community, whereas for others, they might want
Speaker 3: to be housed within their local community because that's where
Speaker 3: their work and their friends and their family and their
Speaker 3: support are. So it's really crucial that every person has
Speaker 3: a tailored response to whatever it is that they need,
Speaker 3: lather than the system saying oh, well there's a house
Speaker 3: available here, so that's your only option.
Speaker 2: Last question, abos dbos are they strong enough? Are they
Speaker 2: complied with? Is there enough weight to support them being breached?
Speaker 3: Look here in your Sufflat things are getting better. Just
Speaker 3: a couple of months ago in your Stufas government passed
Speaker 3: some new aggravated breach legislation. So you know, previously if
Speaker 3: someone did the wrong thing and contravened the conditions of
Speaker 3: the apprehended domestic violence order, they would be breached. But
Speaker 3: now there's two additional aggravated breach options where someone who
Speaker 3: who is breaching continuously but perhaps they're not significant breaches,
Speaker 3: but when you look at it altogether, you realize that
Speaker 3: this is a pattern of someone who is making persistence.
Speaker 3: You're persistently pushing the boundaries. They are able to be
Speaker 3: charged under this new legislation, which has more significant consequences
Speaker 3: and we hope will have more of a deterring effect.
Speaker 3: And then there's another aggravated breach option for when perpetrators
Speaker 3: breached the conditions of that ADVO in a really serious
Speaker 3: and significant manner. So things are improving the capacity of
Speaker 3: police to take action when those conditions are breached is changing.
Speaker 3: And the other change we've had in New South Wales
Speaker 3: is that we have electronic monitoring for offenders who are
Speaker 3: released on bail. Previously, we only had ankle bracelets on
Speaker 3: offenders when they were released from prison at the end
Speaker 3: of their custodial sentence, whereas now we have people who
Speaker 3: are serious offenders who are going to be monitored even
Speaker 3: if they have it yet been convicted, and our hope
Speaker 3: is that that is going to save life and keep
Speaker 3: people safe.
Speaker 2: That absolutely, that's a great idea. Have you ever heard
Speaker 2: of a lifetime ABO or DBO?
Speaker 3: Only when I heard it referenced in the podcast, it's
Speaker 3: not something that I'm aware of here in New South Wales,
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's something new to have a look at.
Speaker 2: I remember speaking to Anna about it at the time.
Speaker 2: I thought, I've never even heard of one of those, And.
Speaker 3: I certainly know that victims will others to have that
Speaker 3: fear that the ABBO is the only thing that's keeping
Speaker 3: them safe, and then when it does expire, that the
Speaker 3: coercion and the control and the abuse will start back
Speaker 3: up again. There is an option for people to go
Speaker 3: back to court and apply for an extension, but if
Speaker 3: there haven't been in breaches then it might be harder
Speaker 3: to get that extension over the line. So these are
Speaker 3: some of the fews and challenges that we have, you know,
Speaker 3: when there are short term time frames on some of
Speaker 3: these orders.
Speaker 2: Elise, is there anything else you'd like to say?
Speaker 3: I think just that we know how important the role
Speaker 3: of police is in responding to domestic and family violence.
Speaker 3: And the challenges that they face in their day to
Speaker 3: day jobs, and that you know, we've got a really
Speaker 3: good relationship with police. We have opportunities to talk to
Speaker 3: them about their training and their systems and their processes.
Speaker 3: So you know, we're ever optimistic that things will continue
Speaker 3: to improve, but we're also not afraid to speak up
Speaker 3: when we think that things aren't being done in ways
Speaker 3: that will protect the survivors and keep them safe.
Speaker 2: Alice, I want to thank you for your time today
Speaker 2: and the work that you do. It's so very important
Speaker 2: and you know it is making a difference and in
Speaker 2: New South Wales they really seem to be leaning the way,
Speaker 2: so that must be heartening and part of that would
Speaker 2: be obviously the role that your organization plays. So thank you.
Speaker 3: Thanks. Heartening