Prevelance of Domestic Violence in Australia

Essay by materialistaUniversity, Bachelor'sA-, March 2004

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Domestic violence is a broad term that covers a spectrum of abuses committed against people by intimate partners who seek to physically or psychologically dominate. Physical and emotional violence are the most commonly understood, but it also involves sexual, social, threats, intimidation and economic deprivation. It is an issue that has experienced enhanced publicity in recent years and overall is an issue that has both the government's attention and initiatives. However various readings show, that within the umbrella heading of domestic violence are multiple groups, sectors of the community and a diverse range of people in situations of domestic violence that the government were not or are not necessarily equally committed to assisting, such as the Indigenous communities, homosexual community and those affected by domestic violence that cannot speak up about it.

Where William Deane was referencing the mistakes of the government in relation to sensitive and often controversial Social Justice issues such as children overboard and the Guantanamo Bay jailings, domestic violence is an issue that the government can safely recognise and publicly combat without fear of public backlash.

The mistakes to be dealt with, however, lie in the unacknowledged groups such as victims in a homosexual relationship, and to a lesser extent, indigenous victims of domestic violence and people living in rural areas. The Partnerships Against Domestic Violence (PADV) is a commonwealth initiative that aims to prevent domestic violence, introduced in 1997 by the Prime Minister at the National Domestic Violence Summit. The scheme has six priority themes (PADV, 2003):

"h Helping children and young people

"h Helping adults break the cycle of violence

"h Protecting the people at risk through improving police and court response

"h Educating he community against violence

"h Researching areas where "new information is needed to support violence protection"

"h Assisting people in...