For quite some time now, you’ve been speaking in mellifluous tone on how lack of respect for women is at the root of violence towards us, with particular reference to domestic and family violence.
There are times when listening to your respect defence I imagine I’m in a courtroom. Your political rhetoric is in the nature of a legal argument, designed to convince, persuade and coax a jury into accepting your narrative, and so extend leniency to your client.
Perhaps I might stretch the analogy and describe your client in this instance as The Perpetrator of Domestic Violence. Your Honour, he is not a bad man, he merely needs to be taught how to respect women, at least sufficiently not to kill them.
I assume you believe that you are respectful of women. I don’t believe you are. I believe that to be respectful of anyone requires not only rhetoric but action, that is, doing everything you can for them when you see they are being mistreated by others. Failure to do this is, in your terms, disrespectful. In mine, it is criminally neglectful.
Action has a two-fold effect, Mr Turnbull. It assists the woman under attack, and it demonstrates to the perpetrator how respect is a practice as well as a theory.
You are in a unique position to walk your talk in the matter of respect, yet you seem to be running on the spot.
If you truly respected us you would make funding available for the frontline services we so desperately need to save our lives, our health, our well-being and our children’s well-being when we are faced with a violent man who will harm us, and/or kill us. That would be respectful of you, Mr Turnbull.
That you continue to refuse to make this money available is an act of extreme disrespect for our well-being, and for our very lives.
If you truly believe that lack of respect for women is the root cause of the domestic violence perpetrated upon us, then as leader of this country you must demonstrate active respect for us, if you sincerely want to bring about change. Otherwise you are on the side of the perpetrator.
In depriving us of refuges, community legal centres and ongoing specialist services to assist us and our children to recover from unspeakable trauma, you are signalling to the perpetrators that they are free to continue their savagery, and not only are they likely to get away with it, they are enabled by you to continue, as we have no avenues of escape.
If our government cannot respect us enough to provide the assistance we so desperately need, why should a perpetrator?
I think it was Leo Tolstoy who wrote that respect was invented to fill the place where love should be. His heroine, Anna Karenina, died at his authorial hand, like so many of us die at the hands of the men who control the narrative. You are the man who controls our narrative. You have the power to change our stories. All that is required of you is that you respect us enough to provide resources for our shelter, protection and assistance.
Until you can do that, Mr Turnbull, your rhetoric of respect is a lie, and you, sir, are a liar.
Sincerely, Survivor.
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That was superb Jennifer Wilson. Just beautiful. Love the logic, love the legal argument. You win and yes, the whole Liberal National Party is full of liars.
Thanks Jennifer for putting this so succinctly. These services aren’t luxuries, and will save more lives than the billions of dollars to be spent on submarines which will do very little.
But Malcolm is an appeaser, and so would rather flap pieces of paper around than do anything.
This country needs to do more than just have these yearly weeks dedicated to : DV, breast cancer, the homeless ,mentally ill, pensioners, suicide, AIDS, Indigenous people etc…. We tend to have a talk fest ,lasting a week, and then nothing, out of sight out of mind, like the asylum seekers. Maybe in the future we’ll have an Asylum Seeker Week as well…
Agreeing with what Rose Batty says or does is not enough; let’s start the actions, counselling services , safe-houses, MORE funding, not LESS…
I seem to remember that Turnbull spoke publicly about DV the first week after the election win…?
Why do we suppose that the respect rhetoric would ever morph into anything practical such as services for abused women and children?
This coalition government has no respect for most sections of Australian society, our indigenous people, pensioners, unemployed, youth, educators, medical practitioners, health care workers and immigrants.
The only respect they show is to the donors who provide the capital which allows them to spread their propaganda, the people with off shore bank accounts and tax avoidance schemes.
They have no respect for the offices they hold, or the democratic institutions which they use to expand the profits of their mates.
They have no respect for international law, for human rights advocates, for the voice of the people, or for our fragile environment.
I am always impressed by your writing Jennifer. Thank you.
Wow a great powerful piece of writing Jennifer,and i have always said that Turnbull sounds like a QC in court defending Kerry Packer every time he speaks,he is not genuine and it shows, or to put it in more agricultual terms, he is a bullshitter.
Most people especially Australians can spot insincerity a mile off and this bloke has it in spades,the fact is he has cut funding for womens refuge places and domestic violence programs across the board and it’s about time he stopped giving Winston Chúrchill ”’ We Will Fight Them On The Beaches”” speeches and talk in plain English,but i am afraid he is well past that achievement and is just another born to rule obnoxious waffler who loves the sound of his own voice.””””””
So nicely put, Jennifer. He plays with the lives of 50% of voters, so carelessly. Not to mention our children’s lives. I agree with Adrianne, there is no respect beyond their own self interest and they are no longer even pretending otherwise.
We must all realise that we are nothing but economic inputs and outputs to this mob. Expenses or drains need to be blocked especially at the bottom end of the market.
Respect for women is the critical factor though the question to me why is there a lack of this respect. To me it’s totally associted with dysfunctional males .What is it in their upbringing and life experience that makes this so? The spectrum of community impacts of such dysfunctional males is wide – from DV, road rage, criminal activity, to sociopathic activity in the business and political world, and in sport, as well as bullying all aspects of life. I was recently abused In a very vulgar way, by a man, for swimming in his lane at a public swimming pool! The male of our species has to change though I know attitudinal change is an immensely difficult thing for some humans. Do we need a new paradigm in the way males are reared,educated and socialised ?
,
Just another Magical Reannouncement Tour by the Libs. Cut services rrlated tovdomestic violence by $130,000,000 and then tour the country announcing a new you-beaut “funding package of 30 million, divided into 4 with shiny new names and Voila! Malcolm’s work is finished! Rosie Batty was right when she diplomatically queried how easily they whipped out $170 million for a plebescite yet made wo many cuts to DV and h0the resultant homelessness.
This is a beautifully eloquent letter – there is no room left for the recipient, Mr Turnbull to argue with, or to give a back answer.
I agree, for Mr Turnbull, to to nothing, is, criminal negligence – and the same applies to doing nothing for the homeless as well because some of these women and children fit in this category as well.There should be no such category
The money which would be wasted on a plebescite, could be averted, and can easily be saved if parliament simply voted in parliament about this issue.
Just think of the battered frightened women and children whose lives can be saved, and their future lives enhanced a hundredfold.
As a Prime Minister you could be remembered as the man who led by example, showed initiative, and transformed lives of these women and children, instead of, the do-nothing Prime Minister.
Please lift your game before any more lives are trashed, Prime Minister
Thank you very much for reading my post, and for all your generous responses.
I wish Turnbull could be persuaded to respond to the questions we ask, but I doubt that will ever happen.
Cheers to everyone, Jennifer.
Arthur, feminists have been discussing this idea for many years.
Mr Turnbull, you have disappointed those who voted for you with hope. Please don’t abdicate your responsibility to those who need your support the most.
Meheru Bradbury
You are attempting an appeal to something that does not exist within Turnbull’s nature. What many of us see as his responsibility he sees as liabilities.