CART (0)Urgent talks were convened in Parliament House, Perth last week after it was revealed that six women and a baby had been killed in the past four months in domestic violence episodes. The state’s 36 women’s refuges also reported an upsurge of women seeking emergency accommodation in the months since December 2003. All refuges were full to over-flowing and having to turn women and children away.. The Australian (27 April, 2004) reported that up to 500 women could be accommodated by Western Australian refuges each night but that a snapshot survey had revealed that 334 women and 509 children had been turned away from refuges during September and October. The Minister for Women’s Interests, Sheila McHale, has ordered an investigation into the 26 deaths from domestic violence that occurred in the state in 2001-02. It was also reported on the same day by The Australian that last weekend in Brisbane, Jason Dalton, a former One Nation Party candidate had strangled his two baby children (aged 12 months and 13 weeks). He and his wife had separated two months earlier and she had taken our a domestic violence order against him after he had threatened to kill her. Mr Dalton had campaigned against family law reform and the child support agency.
Comment: the WA inquiry is most welcome, but isn’t it time we had a national inquiry? Women and children are being murdered and al we get from most politicians is sanctimonious drivel. The federal government would not even run the television advertising campaign against violence in relationships prepared by its own Office of the Status of Women. It’s time to get serious and start saving lives.