Page 933 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 30 March 1993
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Today I am going to raise an issue that I believe is fundamental to the problem of domestic violence, and that is the issue of unemployment. I do not wish to trivialise or politicise in any way the issue of violence against women. However, I have a genuine belief that unemployment has a devastating effect on domestic harmony. Today, therefore, I wish to address that concern. Factors that play an important part in domestic violence are environment and, as I think Ms Szuty adequately put it, attitude. The unfortunate irony is that legislation alone will not solve the problems we face as a community. Attitudes cannot be changed overnight through the actions of any government. Attitudes will alter in time, as the community accepts the fact that violence against women is simply not on, even if some judges, as Ms Szuty rightly put it, definitely need to review their thinking. There is already a greater public awareness that it is unacceptable to use female sex object images or statements. While it may not appear so on some occasions to all of us here, if we compare older films and advertising, a change for the better can be seen. Even though things are changing slowly, they are changing; but we still should not be complacent.
The area that concerns me and others at the moment is the domestic environment. It is well documented that a major cause of domestic violence is related to stress brought about by money problems. The parallel between the rise in unemployment and violence against women is an issue that needs to be taken very seriously. A survey conducted in 1987 by the Office of the Status of Women found that 90 per cent of all violence that occurred against women was perpetrated by their male partner. Given that, together with the fact that the 1986 census showed that 20.5 per cent of offenders were unemployed and 26.2 per cent had employment unknown and probably unemployed, it would be fair to assume that the present increased unemployment would account for significant increases in violence against women.
The Australian Institute of Criminology's National Committee on Violence publication Violence : Directions for Australia states that the 1986 Wallace and 1987 Bonney studies of homicide in New South Wales reported that 22 per cent of homicide victims in New South Wales were unemployed. The publication also reported that the Victorian Law Reform Commission advised that persons outside the paid workforce were significantly more likely to have been victims of both fatal and non-fatal domestic assault in that State". In the same publication it was mentioned that 41 per cent of homicide victims in New South Wales were identified as unemployed. The Wallace study showed that 47 per cent of all female homicide victims were killed by their spouse. These details predate our current unemployment crisis. Given that we now have over a million unemployed in Australia - even though Canberra has an 8.8 per cent unemployment rate, which I accept is below the 11.2 per cent national figure - this unemployment rate must surely play a very large role in the domestic stress factor.
The actual number of women who are victims of domestic violence is not known because many attacks are never reported, but it is estimated that 30 per cent of all calls to police relate to domestic violence. I find this statistic totally amazing. The details contained in the discussion paper on domestic violence show that in the 1991-92 year the ACT Domestic Violence Crisis Service received 6,091 calls.
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