Domestic violence and the welfare state

Domestic violence and the welfare state

Australia’s domestic violence crisis was spotlighted recently, due to a series of horrific incidents in Queensland that included the deaths of two women on the Gold Coast and a machete attack on a woman at Wacol. Political and popular demands for decisive national leadership addressing the domestic homicide epidemic led to Australia’s then-prime minister Tony Abbott and his frontbencher Christopher Pyne making public statements calling for public courage and new values. More recently, Malcolm Turnbull, in his first major announcement as the new prime minister, has ‘upped the ante’ calling for a ‘cultural shift’ to challenge the misogynistic attitudes which support and legitimate violence against women.

This rush to reclaim and reposition national ‘values’ and ‘culture’ is peculiarly context free. Such statements create the strategic impression of action and leadership, but also conveniently skate over deeper cultural and political issues of how vulnerability to violence is compounded by intersections of social class, race and ethnicity. By invoking the often-repeated claim that domestic violence transcends all social class boundaries, neoliberal politicians effectively avoid responsibility for creating a ‘lean and mean’ policy environment that makes some women more vulnerable to abuse.

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