The Role Of Domestic Violence In Australia

Domestic violence within Australia is a fear induced mechanism that generates a loss of self sufficiency and personal freedoms for the victim, acting as an outlet to induce change and cement the perpetrators dominant position in the power hierarchy of the family structure (Berrington 2016). 2015 Australian of the Year, Rosie Batty labelled domestic violence as “family terrorism”, suggesting that associating the phrase 'domestic violence' alongside that of 'terrorism' would compel Government's to increase funding aimed at eliminating the issue, and adopt more effective legal and non-legal responses to the threat. Batty's assertion that domestic violence is a greater threat than terrorism is widely accepted due to vast statistical evidence; for

Using violence to coerce a population conditions their behaviour our of fear (Berrington 2016) and makes achieving the goals of the perpetrator easier. For example, Rosie Batty's ex-partner Greg Anderson used threats of violence to inflict fear upon Rosie to manipulate her to follow his demands; Greg threatened to kill Rosie if she ever denied him contact with Luke, Rosie's son, (Thompson and McGregor 2014), an attempt to scare her into changing her behaviour to fit his personal agenda. Consequently, Rosie ensured contact between Luke and Greg continued throughout a majority of Luke's life, out of fear for both her and Luke's personal safety. Similarly, Government responses to the societal fear inflicted by ongoing threats of terrorism within Australia have resulted in limitations being placed on fundamental rights in the form of restrictive legislation conditioning the behaviour of citizens. The Anti-Terrorism Act (No.2) 2005 gives federal courts the power to issue control orders to terrorism suspects, potentially violating the right to privacy and freedom of movement (Australian Human Right's Commission 2008); perpetrators of both terrorism and domestic violence manipulate the principle of fear to enforce control and create change (Taub 2016). Batty's likening

The Australian Government is withdrawing financial support for agencies attempting to eradicate the issue (Lord 2015), with reductions to the legal aid budget seeing deteriorating numbers of affordable housing options for victims of domestic violence (Why domestic violence is more of a threat 2015). The lack of media interest in domestic violence incidents normalises the issue (Domestic Violence laws in Australia 2009), creating the impression that family violence is either irrelevant to an audience, or very uncommon (Davoren 2015). Comparatively, terrorists exploit the universal media attention gathered by their attacks for the benefit of recruitment and propaganda (Bilgen 2012), expanding their audience and obviously creating a larger fear response than domestic violence, an issue suppressed within the media and subsequently the subject of very little community awareness. The urgency of Batty's response to Australia's hesitance to punish instances of domestic violence becomes particularly obvious in examining the case of Man Monis (See Appendix D); insufficient punishment for prior sex offences saw Monis's bail being granted, facilitating his politically motivated attack in Sydney 2014, killing two people. It is hard to argue that had Monis been convicted of terror related offences