NSW deputy Labor leader Linda Burney has described regional western NSW as being “past a state of emergency” due to the high incidence of domestic violence.
Rates of domestic violence are skyrocketing and not enough is being done to address the problem in this area.
Statistics show that in this region, the domestic violence incident rate was three times the NSW average in 2014. 1,425 domestic violence-related assaults were recorded in this region alone in 2014. This, obviously, does not include incidents that go unreported.
Burney’s call to action comes following the news of the death of an 18 year old woman in Brewarrina in Western NSW on Saturday evening. The woman was found in her home suffering serous injuries and died at the scene. Her 22 year old partner has been remanded in custody in relation to her death. He had three outstanding arrest warrants against him at the time she was killed.
This woman was the 33rd to be killed as a result of violence in Australia since January 1, 2015, and another woman – 51 year old Linda Locke – has been killed in the days since.
Burney says this death also sheds light on the fact that this rural region is suffering particularly badly under the weight of the domestic violence epidemic.
In these parts of NSW, domestic violence is considered “normal”.
“We’re talking about young people, teenagers, all doing it. There’s very little understanding that domestic violence is not a normal part of your relationship, because it is normal out there,” she told Guardian Australia.
“People are just numb. They’re used to the violence and they’re used to the awfulness.”
Why are the rates of violence so much higher in this region than the rest of the state?
Burney said the increased severity of the epidemic is owed to a number of factors, including high levels of drug and alcohol abuse in these regional towns and resultant high levels of unemployment. In particular, Burney said, many of these towns struggle with widespread addiction to ice (crystal methamphetamine).
Burney said more attention and funding needs to be directed towards addressing these alarmingly high rates of violence.
“Anywhere else in the country other than these tiny Aboriginal towns in western NSW and there would be a national outcry, with every intervention being thrown at it,” she said.
Burney said that not only is the problem not being adequately addressed, but it is being exacerbated by recent state and federal cuts to domestic violence services which hit rural NSW particularly hard.
The Going Home Staying Home reforms, implemented by the NSW government in 2014, changed tendering processes for homelessness services to favour large organisations over specialist services. This meant that many specialist services in regional areas lost funding or were absorbed by larger organisations – Walgett, a town in western NSW with one of the highest rates of domestic violence, was particularly badly affected by the reforms.
NSW Greens MLC Mehreen Faruqi also drew attention to the problems facing regional NSW late last year.
“There are still many regional NSW and other providers that have or will be shutting down services as a result of a harsh and uninformed policy. “
“We know that regional NSW has some of the highest rates of domestic violence, but because of these short-sighted reforms, providers such as Kempsey Women’s Refuge, who have long supported Indigenous women and their children, have been forced to close and hand over the keys to a large generalist provider,” she said.
With rates of violence three times a state average that is already endemically high, why is the government moving funding and services away from rural NSW?