CART (0)It is reported in the Australian today (16 December, 2003) that the federal government has canned a proposed Christmas season television advertising campaign against domestic violence because government members objected to the fact that only men were shown to be the aggressors. The campaign, entitled “No respect, no relationship”, was in the planning for two years by the Office of the Status of Women. It will not now be shown due to what looks like political interference by unnamed Liberal politicians on the vetting committee who, it was reported, said the behaviour depicted in the advertisements “was not really violence”, and because men were portrayed as the perpetrators.
Comment: It is of course well established that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of domestic violence against women. The federal government’s cancellation of this television advertising campaign is yet another example of its refusal to spend even its Budget allocation on domestic violence. For the past two years, the allocation has been underspent. Scandalously, the government used money earmarked for campaigns against domestic violence and sexual assault to fund its notorious anti-terrorism “fridge magnet” campaign in February 2003. For a full account of this scandal, see The End of Equality p. 93