Elise Guy, AIHW: Tel. 02 6244 1156, mob. 0468 525 418
Friday 2 March 2018
Family, Domestic & Sexual Violence in Australia: "On average, 1 woman a week and 1 man a month is killed by a current or former partner"
“Family violence refers to violence between family
members, typically where the perpetrator exercises power and control over
another person. The most common and pervasive instances occur in intimate
(current or former) partner relationships and are usually referred to as
domestic violence. Sexual violence refers to behaviours of a sexual nature carried
out against a person’s will. It can be perpetrated by a current or former
partner, other people known to the victim, or strangers.” [Australian Institute of Health and Welfare; Family,domestic and sexual violence in Australia, 2018]
Australian Institute of Health
and Welfare, media
release, 28 February 2018:
New
national statistical report sheds light on family violence
The
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has released its first
comprehensive report on family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia.
The
report brings together, for the first time, information from more than 20
different major data sources to build a picture of what is known about family,
domestic and sexual violence in Australia. It also highlights data gaps and
offers suggestions to help fill these gaps.
The
report, Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia, 2018,
covers family violence (physical violence, sexual violence and emotional abuse
between family members, as well as current or former partners), domestic
violence (a subcategory of family violence, involving current or former
partners), and sexual violence (a range of nonconsensual sexual behaviours,
perpetrated by partners, former partners, acquaintances or strangers).
‘Women
are more likely to experience violence from a known person and in their home,
while men are more likely to experience violence from strangers and in a public
place,’ said AIHW spokesperson Louise York.
1 in 6
women (aged 15 or above) —equating to 1.6 million women—have experienced
physical or sexual violence by a current or former partner, while for men it is
1 in 16—or half a million men. Three in 4 (75%) victims of domestic violence
reported the perpetrator as male, while 1 in 4 (25%) reported the perpetrator
as female.
Overall,
1 in 5 women (1.7 million) and 1 in 20 men (428,800) have experienced sexual
violence. Most (96%) female victims of sexual violence reported the perpetrator
as male, while male victims reported a more even spilt (49% female and 44% male
perpetrators).
On
average, 1 woman a week and 1 man a month is killed by a current or former
partner.
While
overall the data show that women are at greater risk, certain groups are
particularly vulnerable, such as Indigenous women, young women and pregnant
women.
Children
who are exposed to violence experience long-lasting effects
‘Children
can be victims of or witnesses to family violence—and this early exposure can
heighten their chances of experiencing further violence later in life,’ Ms York
said.
Children
who were physically or sexually abused before they were 15 were around 3 times
as likely to experience domestic violence after the age of 15 as those children
who had not experienced or witnessed violence earlier in life.
Women
who, as children, witnessed domestic violence towards either their mother or
father were more than twice as likely to be the victim of domestic violence
themselves, compared with women who had not witnessed this violence.
Men who
witnessed violence towards their mother by a partner were almost 3 times as
likely to be the victim of domestic violence compared with men who had not,
while men who witnessed violence towards their father were almost 4 times as
likely to experience domestic violence compared with those who had not.
Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people experience higher rates of family violence
The
report shows that Indigenous women were 32 times and Indigenous men were 23
times as likely to be hospitalised due to family violence as non-Indigenous
women and men respectively, while Indigenous children were around 7 times as
likely as non-Indigenous children to be the victims of substantiated cases of child
abuse or neglect.
Two in 5
Indigenous homicide victims (41%) were killed by a current or former partner,
compared with 1 in 5 non-Indigenous homicide victims (22%).
A
significant toll on victims and society
The
report also shows that family, domestic and sexual violence can have a profound
effect on people’s ability to work, health and financial situation.
‘People
who experience domestic violence are likely to need time off work as a result,
and women affected by domestic violence experience significantly poorer health
and mental health than other women,’ Ms York said.
For women
aged 25–44, domestic violence causes more illness, disability and deaths than
any other risk factor, such as smoking, alcohol use, being overweight, or being
physically inactive.
Domestic
violence is a leading cause of hospitalised assault, particularly among women.
In 2014–15, 2,800 women and 560 men were hospitalised after being assaulted by
a spouse or partner.
‘Family
and domestic violence is also a leading cause of homelessness. In 2016–17,
72,000 women, 34,000 children and 9,000 men sought homelessness services due to
family and domestic violence,’ Ms York said.
The
financial impacts are also substantial, with violence against women and their
children estimated to cost at least $22 billion in direct (healthcare,
counselling, child and welfare support) and indirect (lost wages, productivity
and potential earnings) costs in 2015–16.
The
importance of evidence, data gaps and looking forward
AIHW CEO
Barry Sandison said the report was a significant piece of work for the AIHW—and
one with a real human impact. But there’s more to be done.
‘We know
that family, domestic and sexual violence is a major problem in Australia, but
without a comprehensive source of evidence and analysis, tackling such a
complex issue will continue to be difficult,’ he said.
He noted
that while the report was certainly a step in the right direction, its
development had highlighted several areas where future work is needed. For
example, inconsistent definitions of violence in data collections pose a
challenge, as does the limited information available on specific at-risk groups
(such as people with disability), childhood experiences, the characteristics of
perpetrators and the service responses for both victims and perpetrators.
‘It’s
important to note that while looking only at the numbers can at times appear to
depersonalise the pain and suffering that sits behind the statistics, the
seriousness of these issues cannot be overstated,’ Mr Sandison said.
‘This
work is an excellent example of organisations working together to build the
evidence on an important issue. It was achieved through financial support and
collaboration from several Australian Government and state government
departments.’
If the
information presented raises any issues for you, these services can help:
1800RESPECT (1800
737 732, www.1800respect.org.au)
Lifeline (13
11 14, www.lifeline.org.au)
Kids
Helpline (1800 551 800, www.kidshelpline.com.au)
Men's
Referral Service (1300 766 491, www.ntv.org.au)
Further information:
Elizabeth Ingram, AIHW: Tel. 02 6249 5048, mob. 0431 871 337
Elise Guy, AIHW: Tel. 02 6244 1156, mob. 0468 525 418
Elise Guy, AIHW: Tel. 02 6244 1156, mob. 0468 525 418
Report
Thursday 1 March 2018
No need to worry about the possibility that a Liberal-Nationals Federal Government will impose censorship on the free press in Australia
The
time to fret over the possibility of government censorship of the media is over
because in February 2018 it ceased being a distant possibility and became fact.
This
is what the Australian Press Council stated about the News Corp online article….
Australian Press Council (APC):
The
Press Council has considered whether its Standards of Practice were breached by
an article published in news.com.au on 31 May 2017, headed “Islamic State [IS]
terror guide encourages luring victims via Gumtree, eBay”.
The opening paragraph read: “ISLAMIC State has released a step-by-step guide on how to murder nonbelievers, which includes how to lure targets via fake ads on Gumtree and eBay”. The article proceeded to relay in detail how an article in “[t]he latest edition of the terror group’s English-language propaganda magazine … encourages would-be terrorists to advertise products on second-hand selling sites … to lure victims and assassinate them”. The article mostly comprised extracts from the source material describing the steps necessary to perform such acts.
The Council considered that the article did publish much of the source material from IS verbatim, with limited accompanying analysis or context, such as comments from experts and websites such as Gumtree. The Council accepted there was no intention to encourage or support terrorism, but considered that republishing content from terrorist entities in this manner can perpetuate the purpose of such propaganda and give publicity to its ideas and practices.
However, the Council accepted the public interest in alerting readers to potential risks to their safety. It considered that on balance, the public interest in alerting readers to the dangerous content of the terrorist propaganda and its instructional detail was greater than the risk to their safety posed by the effective republication of terrorist propaganda content. Given this, the Council concluded that the public interest justified publication of the article. Accordingly, the publication did not breach General Principle 6.
The Council noted that great care needs to be exercised by publications when reporting on terrorist propaganda to ensure that public safety is not compromised. In particular, effectively republishing source material comprising instructional detail in how to carry out particular terrorist acts could pose a risk to public safety, and reasonable steps should be taken to prevent such an outcome.
This
is what the Turnbull Government did…….
News.com.au, 28 February 2018:
…the
article titled “Islamic State terror guide encourages luring victims via
Gumtree, eBay” no longer exists.
A
week after it was published on May 31, 2017, the Attorney-General’s office
contacted news.com.au to demand it be taken down, saying the Classification
Board had ruled it should be refused classification as it “directly or
indirectly” advocated terrorist acts.
It
appears to be the first time section 9A of the Classification (Publications,
Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 has been used to censor a news report, since
it was first added in 2007.
The
action has alarmed the publisher of news.com.au as Australian media in general
were not informed the Classification Board had the power to ban news stories or
that the eSafety Commissioner had the power to instigate investigations into
news articles.
“The
first news.com.au knew of this matter was when contacted by the
Attorney-General’s Department and advised of the Classification Board
decision,” news.com.au argued as part of a separate Press Council investigation
into the article.
“The
department, board and the eSafety Commissioner did not contact news.com.au
beforehand to advise of the investigation. Consequently, news.com.au was not
given the right to make submissions or a defence in regard to the article.”
News.com.au
removed the article as it was facing legal penalties from the Australian
Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) if it refused, including fines or
even civil or criminal legal action.
In
justifying its decision, the Classification Board noted the article contained
“detailed references and lengthy quotations from Rumiyah (Islamic
State’s propaganda magazine)” with limited author text to provide context.
News.com.au
asked the board why there was no opportunity for news organisations to defend
the article based on public interest grounds but a response provided by a
spokesman for the eSafety Commissioner did not directly address this.
The
spokesman said the board did consider whether the material could “reasonably be
considered to be done merely as part of public discussion or debate, or as
entertainment or satire” before making its decision.
He
also acknowledged this may have been the first time a news article had been
censored using this section.
However, as a government which to a man fails to grasp how the Internet works their well-laid plans seldom go off without a hitch and, the article that Turnbull & Co wish to erase from memory remains on national and international news sites as I write.
Wednesday 28 February 2018
The face of betrayal
Nationals New England MP Barnaby Joyce has been returned to the backbench and the Turnbull Government coverup has begun at the expense of an accountable parliamentary democracy......
Hansard, 26 February 2018
Shorter Michael McCormack Nationals MP for Riverina: turns up for work, never rebels
So who is the 53 year-old Nationals MP for Riverina Michael Francis McCormack, the new Leader of the National Party in federal parliament and Deputy Prime Minister of Australia?
Like Barnaby Joyce before him he was raised Catholic in a country New South Wales town.
Also like Joyce his professional career before entering politics was not associated with the land or farming.
After leaving school McCormack became a journalist at The Daily Advertiser in Wagga Wagga, went on to become a run of th mill editor before starting a small publishing firm, MSS Media Pty Ltd which appears to have produced very forgetable books.
Like many federal politicians he's a homeowner with an investment property, a working wife and children who are now adults.
Again, like many Liberal-Nationals politicians before him he failed to properly declare income derivied from this investment property - until it became certain that he would be putting his name forward for the deputy prime minister ballot.
Also like many other federal ministers he regularly attends major sporting events as the guest of big business.
According to They Vote For You McCormack, first as an ordinary backbencher and later as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister, Assistant Minister for Defence, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Defence Personnel, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC and Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, has never voted against the Coalition Government party line since he entered the House of Representatives in 2010.
He voted very
strongly for:
In other words the new Deputy Prime Minister is a typical National Party member.
In favour of: selling off government assets, raising the cost of health care, lowering the take-home pay of ordinary workers, making the lives of welfare recipients miserable; breaking international law in relation to the treatment of asylum seekers; upending state CSG mining moratoriums and hounding the unions.
Tuesday 27 February 2018
US President Trump censors House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence minority memo concerning FBI Russia investigation before releasing it for publication
Democratic Rebuttal to GOP FISA Memo by PBS NewsHour on Scribd
https://www.scribd.com/document/372311495/Democratic-Rebuttal-to-GOP-FISA-Memo
Labels:
elections,
law,
US politics,
US-Russia relations
The mess that Barnaby left
Environmental Defender’s Office NSW, undated 2017:
EDO NSW, on behalf of
its client the Inland Rivers Network, has commenced civil enforcement
proceedings in the NSW Land and Environment Court in relation to allegations of
unlawful water pumping by a large-scale irrigator on the Barwon-Darling River.
The two water access
licences at the centre of these allegations allow the licence holder to pump
water from the Barwon-Darling River in accordance with specified licence
conditions, as well as rules set out in the relevant ‘water sharing plan’. The
conditions and rules specify – amongst other things – how much water can be
legally pumped in a water accounting year (which is the same as the financial
year) and at what times pumping is permissible (which depends on the volume of
water flowing in the river at any given time).
Our client alleges that
the holder of these licences pumped water in contravention of some of these
conditions and rules, thereby breaching relevant provisions of the Water
Management Act 2000 (NSW) (WM Act). The allegations are based on licence
data obtained by EDO NSW earlier in 2017 from Water NSW, a state-owned
corporation charged with the responsibility of regulating compliance with the
WM Act.
Analysis of this data,
along with the relevant rules and publicly available information on river
heights, indicates that the licence holder may have pumped significantly more
water than was permissible on one licence during the 2014-15 water year, and
taken a significant amount of water under another licence during a period of
low flow when pumping was not permitted in the 2015-16 water year. Despite
being made aware of these allegations by EDO NSW on two occasions, in April and
August 2017, and having had access to the data since at least July 2016, Water
NSW has not provided any indication that it intends to take compliance action
against the licence holder.
Both allegations concern
the potentially unlawful pumping of significant volumes of water, which may
have had serious impacts on environmental flows in the river and downstream
water users. However, our client is particularly concerned by the alleged
over-extraction in the 2014/15 water year, as this period was so dry that the
Menindee Lakes – which are filled by flows from the Barwon-Darling River – fell
to 4 percent of their total storage capacity. This in turn threatened Broken
Hill’s water security and led the NSW Government to impose an embargo on water
extractions during part of that year in order to improve flows down the
Barwon-Darling into the Lakes and Lower Darling River.
In these proceedings,
the Inland Rivers Network is seeking, amongst other things, an injunction
preventing the licence holder from continuing to breach the relevant licence
conditions. In addition, and in order to make good any depletion of
environmental flows caused by the alleged unlawful pumping, our client is also
asking the Court to require the licence holder to return to the river system an
equivalent volume of water to that alleged to have been unlawfully taken, or to
restrain the licence holder from pumping such a volume from the river system,
during the next period of low flows in the river system. Failure to comply with
a court order constitutes contempt of court, which is a criminal offence.
EDO NSW is grateful to
barristers Tom Howard SC and Natasha Hammond for their assistance in this
matter.
Brendan Dobbie, Senior
Solicitor at EDO NSW, has carriage of this matter for IRN.
The Australia Institute, Moving
targets: Barnaby Joyce, Warrego valley buybacks and amendments to the Murray
Darling Basin Plan, February 2018:
In 2008, then Senator
Joyce criticised the Labor government’s purchase of water in the Warrego
valley: that is going to have no effect whatsoever in solving the problems of
the lower Murray-Darling, and especially the southern states.
Despite the now Deputy
Prime Minister and Water Minister’s own fierce criticism of that purchase, he
approved the $16,977,600 purchase of another 10.611 gigalitres of water in the
Warrego valley in March 2017 at more than twice the price paid by the Labor
government. Questions should be raised about what changed the Deputy Prime
Minister’s mind and whether that purchase was value for money.
This purchase also has
serious implications for the recent amendments to the Basin Plan that was
disallowed by the Senate on 14 February 2018.
This purchase was not
required to meet the water recovery target in the Warrego under the
Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Instead, it was intended to count towards the water
recovery target in the Border Rivers. This swap required an amendment to s6.05
of the Basin Plan, which was tabled in parliament and disallowed by the Senate.
Yet, the Warrego purchase was not reflected in the Sustainable Diversion Limits
(SDLs) put to Parliament as part of the amendments.
Murray-Darling Basin
Authority (MDBA) is required to base its recommendations to change SDLs based
on best available science, but the proposed amendments allowed MDBA and States
to subsequently change the SDLs in a valley without any consideration of the
science.
While MDBA was seeking
public submissions on changes to valley SDLs, based on science; the Department
of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR) was in negotiations to change those
valley targets, not based on science.
Parliament was asked to
pass an amendment to the Basin Plan with SDLs that would have been changed
based on a deal agreed over a year earlier, if the amendment had passed.
Given that the new SDLs
were known and agreed by governments, it is not apparent why the MDBA did not
include the new SDLs in the amendment put to parliament.
Monday 26 February 2018
Facebook Inc remains part of the problem
Tin-eared social media giant Facebook Inc demonstrates once again that it is part of the problem and not part of the solution, as it promotes toxic gun culture at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference and fails to come to grips with its part in spreading conspiracy theories and "fake news".
Facebook
has pulled a demo of Oculus Rift's VR
shooter Bullet Train from the Conservative Political Action
Conference in Maryland amid concerns over gun violence, Variety reported
earlier.
It
doesn't appear to have been Bullet Train's violent content that
prompted the withdrawal per se, but rather that CPAC draws lots of gun rights
advocates right at the same time those same National Rifle Association types
are drawing a massive wave of criticism in the wake of another
school massacre in Parkland, Florida this month.
A
number of companies have cut ties with the NRA, like software firm Symantec,
which decided
to pull discounts for the pro-gun group's members this week. A
running New
York Times tally of others to do so includes banks, airlines,
automotive rentals and services, insurance companies, and a home security
company.
As
the Times noted on
Friday, boycott campaigns tend to fade over time but this time the pressure has
built quickly, buoyed by a number of Parkland survivors speaking out on social
media and leaving some corporations with no middle ground to recede to.
Facebook is at CPAC and they have a VR shooting game pic.twitter.com/wmV23jezpN— Sean Morrow (@snmrrw) February 23, 2018
A demo clip
of Bullet Train hosted on the Oculus Rift website shows that at
least one level in the game involves the player fighting through waves of
"resistance forces" in a fairly generic rail station setting. It does
not appear to be particularly bloody, though video of CPAC attendees using the
game's motion-tracking controls in a vague pantomime of actual shooting
probably did not help, either.
In
a statement to Variety, Facebook virtual reality VP Hugo Barra said:
There
is a standard set of experiences included in the Oculus demos we feature at
public events. A few of the action games can include violence. In light of the
recent events in Florida and out of respect for the victims and their families,
we have removed them from this demo. We regret that we failed to do so in the
first place.
Yet
the optics of the Oculus Rift demo are probably not the most important issue
Facebook should be worried about right now.
Facebook
itself has also come under fire for the rapid spread of conspiracy theories
about the Parkland shooting, which as
CNN noted migrate from internet underbellies like 4chan onto
mainstream social media sites via "conservative pages, alt-right
personalities, nationalist blogs and far-right pundits." Posts on Facebook
promoting the idiotic smear that survivors speaking out against guns were
"crisis actors," i.e. some hazily defined variety of professional
propagandists paid off to promote gun control, went far and wide; the social media
giant repeatedly declined to discuss how it was enforcing violations of its
community guidelines against offenders when asked by CNN.
Per
the New
York Times, it is still really, really easy to find hundreds of posts
claiming the shooting was part of a "deep state" black flag operation
or the like using Facebook's built-in search option, which kind of calls into
question the company's sincerity:
On
Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, searches for the hashtag
#crisisactor, which accused the Parkland survivors of being actors, turned up
hundreds of posts perpetuating the falsehood (though some also criticised the
conspiracy theory). Many of the posts had been tweaked ever so slightly -- for
example, videos had been renamed #propaganda rather than #hoax -- to evade
automated detection.
The
spread of the theories on Facebook has also caused some in the tech media to
question whether the long-maligned and ill-defined "trending"
metric should be retired. Users who post conspiracy theories often
rabidly engage with others promoting similar ideas, which in numerous instances
means the posts are promoted right to the top of Facebook and other sites like
YouTube.
Labels:
Facebook,
propaganda,
Social media,
US politics,
violence
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