Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. As the Prime Minister noted, we had the great privilege of listening to a very fine speech by Dr Ann O'Neill earlier in this week, in an event that was allied to White Ribbon week. The Prime Minister noted the question that Ann O'Neill stated she was most often asked—after events of such unimaginable horror, and after which she was very badly injured and survived. But, having lost two children to a murder at the hands of her partner who then committed suicide, to get asked that question—what was it that had happened; what was it that she had done that had brought about that response—is nearly unimaginable. And those incidents that happened to Ann O'Neill—who must actually be one of the bravest Australians I have ever met—were not that long ago. Attitudes have improved, I think, and somewhat substantially.

In addition to announcements that this government has made around the $100 million funding package, on the specific issue of domestic violence and with respect to some very specific, on-the-ground, coalface service-delivery issues, a very important paper was released today. The research paper is entitled Reducing violence against women and their children. I might just note here that Senator Michaelia Cash, the Minister for Women, was a significant driving force behind the commissioning and conduct of this research. It essentially involves qualitative research, amongst other types of research, where focus groups were put questions about scenarios that involved fairly low but not insignificant levels of violence, and then the responses from the groups—and they involved parents and young children; and some of the scenarios involved young children—were interrogated to try and work out what was going on. Fascinatingly, and very unhappily, they mirror in a way precisely that question that Ann O'Neill said that she was most often asked.

The report in essence describes three responses. The first is that there is a very deep underappreciation of what constitutes unacceptable, violating or intimidatory conduct towards a woman or a girl. The second is that there is a consistent minimisation of violence and aggressive behaviour. The third is that there is a very deep passive acceptance of conduct that should simply never happen. I recall something said by a colleague from a previous professional life at the DPP. You would have heard of the term 'passive aggressive'. He described very many men who are perpetrators in these circumstances as 'passive dismissive' about the level of violence in which they have engaged.

This report will help us commission $30 million worth of an awareness campaign because it goes to the very long-term root issue about a very strange masculine permissiveness towards violence. When that violence is permitted at low levels, it grows, unhappily, at high levels.

See this speech in context