“I saw a guy on TV the other day and he was crying – and your heart just goes out to him – and as much as that was hard to watch, and he would not know this, but he was giving permission to other guys to actually show those emotions and that it’s a healthy way of expressing yourself,” she said.
“Those sort of messages are really important – that it’s not a weakness to seek help. It’s not a weakness to talk.
“You never get over it. It’s about getting through it and walking beside each other through it, not harming each other in the process.”
At-risk times
Ms Mackay said recovery workers and specialised family violence services had reported there were critical times after a natural disaster when there would be an increase in family violence.
“It’ll go quiet in the month after, and particularly if you’re on the ground in communities, you start to hear those stories at the one-month mark,” she said
“Then definitely at the three-month mark, and it can be absolutely at your sort of eight to nine month mark as well, which basically mirrors the recovery process of emotional recovery as well.”
Ms Mackay said evidence following the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 aligned with research following natural disasters worldwide about an increase in family violence against women.
“We interviewed a number of organisations, including Monash University, Women’s Health In The North and Women’s Health Goulburn North East, and we went and spoke to women post Black Saturday, and women were reporting that for some women it was domestic violence and that sort of abuse was happening before, and then it actually exacerbated after the firestorm,” she said.
“But for some women they hadn’t experienced it before the firestorm and it ramped up afterwards.
“What our understanding of that is that there was always some sort of power and control behaviours before the firestorm, but after it was a bit of anything goes and for women, the abuse just got worse.”
Ms Mackay said during and after a disaster, men and women felt expected to play stereotypical roles of men being protectors and women providing support.
“In terms of the hierarchy of horror after Black Saturday in particular, women put their needs last and they wouldn’t disclose what was happening in the home,” she said.
“We do see an increase in sort of that, those sort of abusive behaviours in community as well.
“There’s a lot of ratcheting up of those sort of violent behaviours – men leaning towards alcohol and drugs as a coping means.
“What we see is that ramping up of existing gender inequalities in a disaster.”
Ms Mackay said the overwhelming majority of victim-survivors were women.
“We used to call it the hidden disaster,” she said.
“What we are doing at Gender and Disaster Australia is working with recovery services – response services, working in evacuation centres to actually acknowledge that this happens and let’s work with everybody to keep everyone safe.”
Gender and Disaster Australia works with Women’s Health Grampians, and some Communities of Respect and Equality, CoRE, Alliance members, to provide lessons in disaster training.
Ms Mackay said health organisations and local government staff, as well as volunteers, were critical in identifying the safety needs of men, women, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning and asexual plus community.
“They actually already apply a gender lens to planning for disaster, for the response actions and for the recovery phase so they’re already doing this work,” she said.
“It’s about actually looking at what might this evacuation centre look like for a woman who’s escaped domestic violence, who has an intervention order in place – how do we keep her safe?
“How do we keep people who are from marginalised groups, people who are gay, people who are LGBTQA+, how do we make sure that they walk in there feeling safe as well?
“And we need to keep men safe in that recovery space because men are less likely to reach out for help when they really, really need it, and which often they’ve been the responders and they need the space to recover as well, emotionally, physically and mentally as well.
“Once people do our training, they’re like ‘oh my gosh, I had never thought of this before’.”
Ms Mackay said her advice to victim-survivors was to reach out to a local specialist services.
“Just have someone to talk to and reach out to,” she said.
“For community, it’s really a matter of working alongside, just be really kind to each other, and reaching out to people if you think they need support.
“As I said, we call it the hidden disaster, so if you suspect, you’re possibly right, so reach out with support services and refer them to talk to someone.
“It’s the same with guys, refer them – there’s loads of services out there for people to actually talk to before they get to breaking point.
“And being kind to them, ourselves and to each other is a really, really critical thing because communities are incredible.”
Support and help
People in immediate danger of violence should call triple zero.
Support services available for victims of family violence:
• Sexual Assault and Family Violence Centre, phone 5381 1211
• Grampians Community Health, phone 5358 7400
• The Orange Door Horsham, phone 1800 271 042
Statewide
• Safe Steps Family Violence Response Centre, 24 hours a day, 1800 015 188 or visit www.safesteps.org.au.
• 1800RESPECT is the national domestic, family and sexual violence counselling service, available 24 hours a day on 1800 737 732 or via online chat at www.1800respect.org.au.
• No to Violence’s Men’s Referral Service provides 24-7 counselling and referrals for men who are concerned about their behaviour, phone 1300 766 491.
The entire January 21, 2026 edition of The Weekly Advertiser is available online. READ IT HERE!
