Three women have been murdered in the Ballarat region – two allegedly by former partners.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called an emergency national cabinet meeting for today, Wednesday, with all state and territory leaders to address the prevention of gendered violence incited online and improving information-sharing about high-risk perpetrators and serial offenders.
Mr Albanese described violence against women as a ‘national crisis’, pointing to the statistics of one woman dying every four days, on average, at the hand of a partner.
Victoria Police Western Region Division Four family violence training officer Senior Sergeant Simone Field said the community needed to take a stand and show women and children they were believed when reporting family violence.
“I feel like the community really needs to stand up and believe women,” she said.
“It’s an extremely low percentage of women who make false statements to police, so you’re right when you believe a female who comes forward and says this is going on.”
Sen Sgt Field said there also needed to be more funding for men’s behaviour change programs, and to make them more accessible in rural areas.
“The courts direct men into these programs as part of sentencing, but there’s got to be these programs available – there’s waiting lists,” she said.
Sen Sgt Field said coercive control was a major aspect of family violence, and was particularly difficult to manage in the Wimmera and Grampians region because of distance, isolation and people willing to come forward in smaller communities.
“Also our demographic is older in this region and it’s the culture piece that we have to change. There’s a big change that’s got to happen in that space around things that normally go on behind closed doors,” she said.
“I think our younger generation is more willing to report, but we need to bring everyone along.”
Sen Sgt Field said strategies to address family violence following the Royal Commission into Family Violence in 2015 had resulted in greater information-sharing between all services in Victoria.
“I think where we have come leaps and bounds is information sharing. It’s taken a couple of years to embed and for everybody to understand it because historically police have been very careful in releasing information,” Sen Sgt Field said.
“But now it’s mandated we share information with The Orange Door, and vice versa, and there’s more than 1000 entities that we are sharing information with – including schools, kinders, emergency departments.”
Sen Sgt Field said police being able to take statements via body cameras at the scene, the addition of telephone reporting, and allowing victims to give evidence via video link at court were also a positive change.
She said the increase in family violence incidents was reflective of more victims being willing to report offending, but it remained an under-reported crime.
“I’m not suggesting we’re seeing an increase in stalking, but we’re more aware it goes hand in hand with family violence offending,” she said.
“Monitoring people on social media is a theme we see when investigating contravention of intervention orders ... this is how some of our younger offenders keep people under surveillance through social media.”
Across the region, the following number of family violence incidents were recorded in 2022-23: Horsham 592, a 15.4 percent increase compared to 2021-22; Ararat 290, a 9.4 percent increase; Hindmarsh 88, an 8.6 percent increase; Northern Grampians 297, an 8.8 percent increase; West Wimmera 42, an 8.7 percent decrease; and Yarrimabiack 123, a 26.8 percent increase.
• Family and domestic violence helplines: 1800 Respect national helpline 1800 737 732; Women’s Crisis Line 1800 811 811; Men’s Referral Service 1300 766 491; Lifeline 24-hour crisis line 131 114; Vic Safe Steps crisis response 1800 015 188.
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