NZ is number one – for domestic violence

Written By: - Date published: 9:47 am, March 23rd, 2017 - 96 comments
Categories: crime, domestic violence, human rights - Tags: , , , , ,

The fact that NZ leads the world in domestic violence is one of the awful symptoms of just how stressed and messed up this country is. So it’s good to see this opinion piece from Amy Adams:

NZ’s highest rate of family violence in the developed world – Amy Adams has ‘had enough’

There are plenty of successes to celebrate in this country. … Less well-known, however, is that we also top the world at the rate in which we beat our partners and kids. We have the highest rates of family violence in the developed world.

This is a shameful record.

Every five minutes police are called out to respond to abuse happening somewhere. Kids are present at two thirds of these incidents. Each year the number of family violence cases climbs.

Even after the bruises fade, the damage lives on.

Those who experience family violence go on to perpetuate the abuse on others. They are less likely to finish school and keep down a job, and are more likely to turn to drugs and alcohol, and end up homeless. They are three times more likely to attempt suicide.

When someone dies at the hands of another in this country, nearly half of these are family violence.

I’ve had enough. And so have most of you.

So we’re doing something about it.

The system is broken but the Government introduced sweeping reforms to overhaul it.

Read on for an outline of the changes – some of it looks good.

I’m proud to be part of a Government that’s prepared to take on the big challenges.

A cynic might ask why you waited until election year to publicly highlight domestic violence and “take on the big challenges”. Because this problem has existed for decades, and we topped the world in 2015. Rachel Stewart wrote at the time:

New Zealand has reached the pinnacle of world number one in domestic violence

There’s no doubt that New Zealand’s epidemic of domestic violence lies firmly at the feet of men. As does the solution.

Sorry boys, but it’s just not acceptable to trot out the tired old line that women hit men too. It’s a fact that men physically hurt women many times more than the reverse, and implying anything else is just another form of abuse towards us.

New Zealand has reached the pinnacle of world number one in domestic violence statistics. We now have the highest reported rate of intimate partner violence in the developed world.

Police undertook more than 100,000 investigations into domestic abuse last year. In 2013 children were present at 63 per cent of the callouts police attended.

Yet, it’s estimated that 90 per cent of family violence goes unreported.

Think on that for a moment. Sit with it. Let it sink in. …

There was an extended discussion here on The Standard, see the end of that post for links to a list of organisations offering help.

It’s great that the government is planning some action on this shameful situation. It’s a pity that they are treating the consequences, not the underlying social problems that contribute so much to the causes, and it’s a pity that it’s taken so long.

96 comments on “NZ is number one – for domestic violence ”

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  1. Draco T Bastard 1
    23 March 2017 at 10:44 am

    It’s a pity that they are treating the consequences, not the underlying social problems that contribute so much to the causes

    A lot of those social problems are caused by this governments policies of punishing poor people for being poor and cutting taxes for the rich.

    This government can’t really address the underlying social problems because they’re the cause of them.

  2. Belladonna 2
    23 March 2017 at 11:09 am

    Shameful – as is the lack of interest in mental abuse. Hopefully Labour will actually do something about both forms of abuse.

  3. Gosman 3
    23 March 2017 at 11:12 am

    It is errant nonsense to suggest we have the highest rate of domestic violence in the developed world. I presume this means the OECD and is linked to reports such as the following https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/SF3_4_Family_violence_Jan2013.pdf.

    I think it is inconceivable that NZ has a domestic violence rate higher than incredibly macho societies with severe social issues such as Mexico. The fact that Sweden has a higher domestic violence rate against women greater than Mexico suggests the rankings have more to do with how the people in society report or regard domestic violence rather than actual real rates. Indeed if you look at the numbers of children impacted by domestic violence Mexico has a much, much higher rate than NZ.

    This is not to state there isn’t work to be done to eliminate domestic violence just that trying to paint NZ as being some sort of pariah nation due to it is disingenuous.

    • One Two 3.1
      23 March 2017 at 11:15 am

      Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Counter Party Risk

      Gosman the handle bot is disingenuous…

    • Keith 3.2
      23 March 2017 at 4:29 pm

      Ahh, Mexico, the white world’s new straw man. Why Mexico?

      Gosman, it’s real, we’re a violent society! Fueled by cheap booze, drugs, a steady diet of violent sports or media, unaffordable accommodation and that alone is a major stressor, gross inequality and all that hopelessness that goes with that and for the past several years cut backs to public services painted as “efficiencies”.

      The recipe has all the ingredients and no one should be surprised!

      • Muttonbird 3.2.1
        23 March 2017 at 4:49 pm

        It seems he has a thing for Latin America.

      • timeforacupoftea 3.2.2
        23 March 2017 at 8:26 pm

        I have just returned from the USA where booze is 3 to 4 times cheaper than it is in New Zealand. I was buying NZ wine and Steinlager far cheaper than here.
        New Zealand is a very expensive country to live in.
        Still no excuse to bash our kids though,
        our morals have collapsed get used to it.
        I’ve been bankrupt 3 times here in NZ and not all my doing either, never bashed anyone, perhaps should have.
        We went from $800,000 to negative $300,000 in a matter of weeks in the eighties.
        We slept with a gun under the bed and a guy had heard about our problem and wanted to help. He said for $5,000 he would take out the person that caused our grief. Naturally it was tempting but NO was the answer in 20 seconds
        New Zealand is a great country to bounce back from poverty to riches.

        We have a heap of bad buggers here for sure.
        Our prisons tell the true story.

        • Keith 3.2.2.1
          24 March 2017 at 7:46 am

          Booze is just one of the MANY factors I have outlined. Of course you know that. And it is very cheap here, far more than Aussie just not in bars.

          We were beating up our families long before this but modern NZ has more stressors/enablers than before including naggingly high unemployment .

          It is interesting to note that police have kept detailed records for at least 15 years. And you could add into the mix the huge difficulty the police and justice system have holding these abusers to account.

          Of course none of this justifies anyone assaulting or abusing anyone. But enablers are part of the problem too!

    • Alex 3.3
      23 March 2017 at 7:21 pm

      You’re absolutely right about incidence vs. reported incidence and it’s obvious to anyone who spends even a moment thinking about it.

      Family violence is massively under-reported.

      I work in a developing country in a programme to strengthen law and justice systems. Here, there is evidence that around 2/3’s of women experience frequent intimate partner violence. Last year reported incidents of family violence increased by 500% (from a very low baseline) and we are celebrating.

      The fact that NZ has the highest rates of reported violence says nothing about incidence; rather, and more likely, it shows that family violence is increasingly unacceptable to NZ’ers and that there is good access to support for victims and adequate information systems to capture and report the information.

  4. One Two 4
    23 March 2017 at 11:19 am

    Domestic violence
    Male suicide
    Female suicide
    Teen pregnancy
    Homelessness
    Inequality

    And many more…

  5. Gosman 5
    23 March 2017 at 12:18 pm

    Here are some actual statistics on Domestic violence in Mexico

    “In Mexico, the most recent official nationwide survey indicates that 44.9% of women have suffered some form of violence in their homes, with 25.8% of women reporting physical violence; 11.7% sexual violence; 56.4% economic violence; and 89.2% emotional violence”

    http://theconversation.com/sexual-and-domestic-violence-the-hidden-reasons-why-mexican-women-flee-their-homes-65352

    Are we seriously to believe that the rate in NZ is worse than that?

    [put up a comparison with the NZ information. It better be good, reliable information too that includes analysis of the different kinds of DV and how they are measured. Otherwise I’ll consider this trolling and moderate accordingly – weka]

    [and you need to likewise provide back up for the Mexico figures as well. The article you link to relies on a report in Spanish. You’re in premod until this gets sorted – weka]

    • Gosman 5.1
      23 March 2017 at 2:16 pm

      Here’s a link to statistic from NZ

      http://areyouok.org.nz/family-violence/statistics/

      “1 in 3 women experience physical and/or sexual violence from a partner in their lifetime. (10)”

      This equates to a rate of 33 1/3% for woman and as they are by far the victims of domestic violence that would mean that is the upper level for the rate.

      Here is a link to statistics in Mexico

      http://laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=360771&CategoryId=14091

      “MEXICO CITY – Thirty-eight percent of Mexican women suffer physical, sexual or psychological aggression, and nearly 75 percent of victims don’t report the abuse, according to a report from industrial-safety consultants GMSI.”

      Is this sufficient?

      [no, it’s not. Reread my original moderation notes. – weka]

      • Gosman 5.1.1
        23 March 2017 at 2:49 pm

        Here’s WHO report which breaks down Intimate partner violence prevalence by region (not country).

        http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/85239/1/9789241564625_eng.pdf?ua=1

        Given the fact that we are in an area where the prevalence rate is amongst the LOWEST (not highest) in the World (even compared to places like Europe and the America’s) and that the Western Pacific includes a nation such as PNG where Domestic violence is extremely high I would argue it is inconceivable that NZ has the highest rate of Domestic violence in the World.

        [I’m not going to open a PDF file in order to figure out what you are on about. You could have cut and pasted, or typed out the relevant bits. 2 week ban for wasting my time. My suggestion is next time put some effort into your first comment rather than expecting others to chase up detail. Otherwise it looks like trolling – weka]

    • Gosman 5.2
      23 March 2017 at 2:21 pm

      Here’s another article from last year about violence against women in Mexico

      http://www.womens-forum.com/news/womens-forum-mexico-context-report

      [dropping links doesn’t equal “It better be good, reliable information too that includes analysis of the different kinds of DV and how they are measured.”. I can’t mind read what you think is important about that link and I’m not going to start doing your homework. You started this, it’s up to you to do the legwork. I’m starting to feel like my time as a moderator is being wasted – weka]

      • Antoine 5.2.1
        24 March 2017 at 12:00 am

        PS weka, Absolutely not challenging your moderation or supporting Gosman, but I’m pretty sure he is actually right (Having spent some time in South America). Not that that detracts in any way from the importance of addressing family violence here.

        • McFlock 5.2.1.1
          24 March 2017 at 12:21 am

          If he was right, he didn’t show it. Some of those links he dumped were almost sixty pages long, and some of them seemed to have different measures if you trawled through them enough.

          They didn’t just differ on year of measurement, either: Look at his comment 5.1. He actually provided NZ data for “physical and sexual violence”, took the phrase “1 in 3” to literally mean 33 1/3%, and compared it with 38% for Mexico’s rate of “physical, sexual or psychological aggression”. If 5% of NZ’s women experience “psychological aggression” but no other types, and we make the massive assumption that “aggression” and “violence” are interchangeable (and I’ve been in meetings where people spent 30minutes discussing the semantic differences of an en-dash vs an em-dash), then Gossy is plain wrong.

          Hell, I’m a Grade 5 bureaucrat and even I had difficulty finding vaguely relevant bits in some of gossy’s links. It would have been simpler if he’s just done the link with, say, “page 37 figure 5.1” so we could see what planet he was on.

          But he was just doing a dox version of a gish gallop. He knows how to argue (we’ve crossed links several times), and he wasn’t doing it. He just wanted to be a jerk.

        • weka 5.2.1.2
          24 March 2017 at 1:35 am

          I have no idea if he was right or wrong. As McFlock points out, he knows how things work here and he didn’t demonstrate anything meaningful about what he was asserting. Nor did he really make an argument. He just dropped some shit in the thread multiple times that was going to take other people a lot of work to figure out if it was true or not. I looked at the first link which referenced a document in Spanish and understood he was just pulling any old shit off google to run lines that were inflammatory with not intention of backing them up.

          He could have raised the issue in a different way, but my guess is he was way more interested in shit stirring than he was in what DV is actually about.

          tl;dr he trolled.

          • Antoine 5.2.1.2.1
            24 March 2017 at 1:42 am

            Not disagreeing with you there

          • David C 5.2.1.2.2
            24 March 2017 at 7:40 pm

            Oh come on weka you know he was right, A casual glance at the links proves his argument, but the message didnt suit so you smashed him.

            But hey that is your right.

            [read the Policy and About. You can argue just about whatever line you want here but you don’t get to criticise authors/moderators, nor tell lies about their motivations. In this case my motivation was that I think that women and DV survivors have more rights to this space than people with patterns of troll behaviour like Gosman. He had his chance to make an actual argument, he didn’t take it. He knows how it works here. You’ve been here long enough to know the rules too – weka]

  6. james 6
    23 March 2017 at 12:20 pm

    All domestic violence is bad – and there is no doubt that there are issues in parts of NZ culture.

    But I wonder how they make the measurement – to make us the worst in the world – take some countries where women get little to no rights like Saudi Arabia – I would guess that there is more violence toward women – although the measurements (or reporting) would be somewhat different.

    Regardless – concentrating on NZ – I have no idea how to tackle it – but something needs to be done.

    • Gosman 6.1
      23 March 2017 at 12:28 pm

      James, that is easily countered by the fact that they are only meaning the ‘developed’ world (although why that is important is not made clear). That is why places where there is a massive problem with domestic violence like South Africa are not included. However even if we accept that as being a valid measuring stick the statistics being used are majorly suspect as I have pointed out.

      • weka 6.1.1
        23 March 2017 at 12:36 pm

        see moderation note above.

      • Draco T Bastard 6.1.2
        23 March 2017 at 1:21 pm

        Actually, the only thing that’s majorly suspect is you and your insistence that we’re not the worst in the world.

        James, that is easily countered by the fact that they are only meaning the ‘developed’ world (although why that is important is not made clear).

        It’s fairly important distinction. See, we of the developed world should have similar statistics and similar standards. That’s what ‘developed’ pretty much means. The fact that we’re falling behind in many of those standards and are going up in some pretty bloody statistics is a serious cause for concern.

        The fact that you then come in and say but we’re not the worst WAAAAAAH as an attempted distraction from the worsening conditions here just show how sociopathic you are in you defence of a status quo that’s causing irreparable harm to so many.

        • james 6.1.2.1
          24 March 2017 at 9:11 am

          You deliberately missed 2/3’s of my post.

          Your hatred blinds you.

        • Korero Pono 6.1.2.2
          24 March 2017 at 9:41 am

          It is no coincidence that the rate of abuse/violence in New Zealand has increased in conjunction with free market reforms. The fact that New Zealand has the worst DV rates in the developed world perhaps provides anecdotal evidence that the free market experiment has failed. Women and children are at risk of being locked into abusive relationships by a Government that has undermined and devalued the role of parenting, a government that has forced women into unstable, low paid work and forced single mothers to juggle the demands of children, employers and a society who constantly judges them for their supposed failings.

          Reported DV is just the tip of the iceberg and for some women may be the lesser of two evils when the alternative is entering a draconian and punishing benefit system that is psychologically abusive and degrading or a family court system that forces women into close proximity and communication with their abuser further traumatizing them and their children. Every which way victims of violence turn there are barriers that make it extremely difficult for them to leave their abusers – and that is before they even start to untangle and overcome the psychological impacts of the abuse in their domestic relationship – only to find themselves in an abusive relationship with the state and a society that judges women, particularly those with children and reliant on benefits.

          • Andrew O 6.1.2.2.1
            26 March 2017 at 4:24 pm

            Korero Pono:

            It is no coincidence that the rate of abuse/violence in New Zealand has increased in conjunction with free market reforms.

            Correlation is not causality. It’s most likely to coincide with society’s growing intolerance to it and the consequences of introducing DPB. Solo parenting is definitely a major cause of family violence.

            Research proves it:

            [deleted]

            [It looks like you have cut and paste from either the source document or a website reprint. Either you or where you got it from have changed some of the original wording. You didn’t provide a link, which is required if you are cut and pasting, but also the references are meaningless without the reference list. You criticise another commenter about correlation and causation but it looks to me like the research you are trying to use to back your argument doesn’t in fact claim what you do and that you are equating correlation with causation yourself. All of that is bad enough, but to do it under a post on such a sensitive topic as domestic violence is out of bounds.

            Banned until 1 month after the election for all that and wasting moderator time. You don’t comment much here, but my suggestion is that you read the About and Policy if you decide to come back, and then learn how the place works – weka]

            • Bill 6.1.2.2.1.1
              26 March 2017 at 5:19 pm

              Daddy O, Andrew O!

              Twisted ‘cherry picking bullshit’ behaviour will see the life expectancy of your commenting ability here diminish to zero in something like double quick time.

            • Korero Pono 6.1.2.2.1.2
              27 March 2017 at 4:38 pm

              Andrew O, it is a pity that I wasn’t able to read the rest of your post, which I have no doubt is just as ignorant as the statement “Correlation is not causality. It’s most likely to coincide with society’s growing intolerance to it and the consequences of introducing DPB. Solo parenting is definitely a major cause of family violence”.

              Did I hit a raw nerve? You have not substantiated your claim but from a purely academic point of view it would be great to see the research that “proves it” as you claim. I have read plenty of research showing the correlation between sole parenting, poorly paid work and child abuse. Of course that is quite complex but interestingly shows that children who live in homes with a single parent (usually women) are more likely to be abused if those women are forced into low paid, unstable working conditions…pretty much the situation that the Natzis have forced upon women and children across New Zealand under the guise of protecting ‘vulnerable’ children.

              • weka …
                27 March 2017 at 4:51 pm

                It was a long cut and paste. The source document appears to be this (below), but Andrew had changed the wording of what he was quoting and appeared to be taking things out of context and misrepresenting the research. Far too complicated to parse and make sense of as a moderator.

                I’d be interested to know what you think of the research though.

                http://www.waitakere.govt.nz/WhaHap/itc/pdf/fatheringourcity.pdf

                • Korero Pono …
                  28 March 2017 at 2:08 pm

                  I see what you mean about this document. My immediate thoughts on the brief glance I had is I would question the validity and the theoretical underpinnings of the ‘research’ – also the author appears to be active in men’s groups that have a gripe with the family court system – It may be that they are naturally going to use research that supports their position, whilst seeking out research that suggest that women are not doing so well. One of the reference materials comes from an author with a similar agenda. I think the research may not be as objective as it should or could be.

                  • weka …
                    28 March 2017 at 2:20 pm

                    Ok, thanks. When I looked at the cut and paste and tried to google it, my first result was an MRA site. But then when I found the original document it did have statements in it about this not being about negating women or putting them down. I found it hard to judge without reading the whole thing and following up the references, but for me there was too much emphasis on the negatives of fatherless families as if all fatherless families are somehow lesser or can never be whole (which is a hugely problematic position to take).

                    It’s a hard conversation to have. There are some pretty serious issues in NZ around men and their roles, and these discussions are too often left to the MRAs.

      • Muttonbird 6.1.3
        23 March 2017 at 4:47 pm

        This is a favourite ploy of rwnjs like Gosman, Hooten, and Farrar.

        When unflattering statistics are reported about the current government’s New Zealand they immediately compare us with African countries, or post-war and rationed New Zealand, and even medieval Europe.

        Also a favorite is to flood the argument with numbers and analogies completely irrelevant to the area of concern, as Farrar did when he parroted Dr Nick’s 500 Trillion litres line.

        They do this in an attempt deflect reasonable analysis of what is best for all Kiwis.

        • BM 6.1.3.1
          23 March 2017 at 4:51 pm

          You blame the government for ferals giving females the bash?

          • weka 6.1.3.1.1
            23 March 2017 at 5:00 pm

            Ferals?

          • McFlock 6.1.3.1.2
            23 March 2017 at 5:02 pm

            so now “ferals” includes Tony Veitch, not just grieving West Coast mothers & widows?

          • bwaghorn 6.1.3.1.3
            23 March 2017 at 5:31 pm

            hard not ”blame the government” to when the chief feral was pulling fucking girls pony tails and amy adams said fuck all then

            • BM 6.1.3.1.3.1
              23 March 2017 at 5:40 pm

              How was that domestic violence?

              • McFlock …
                23 March 2017 at 6:01 pm

                It was an example of what tories think is an acceptable way to treat people – if you’re rich.

                • BM …
                  23 March 2017 at 6:08 pm

                  Personally, I thought that was probably the dumbest thing Key did, having said that I don’t think he meant any malice, he was just clowning around as he does and it backfired on him rather badly.

                  What ever happened to that waitress?

                  • McFlock …
                    23 March 2017 at 6:10 pm

                    No idea. I’d be surprised if she was still employed there after the entire glucina bullshit her bosses lobbed on her. Hope she got a decent cheque.

                    BTW, loved the ‘boys-will-be-boys’ angle you just played.

                    • BM …
                      23 March 2017 at 6:15 pm

                      I read that she left that job which dosen’t really come as a surprise, it would have been a rather uncomfortable work place.

                      No idea what she’s doing now.

          • Muttonbird 6.1.3.1.4
            23 March 2017 at 6:01 pm

            They are certainly to blame for worsening indicators of social stress.

            • BM 6.1.3.1.4.1
              23 March 2017 at 6:12 pm

              Social stress, phfft, stop making excuses.

              These guys just need to grow the fuck up get a bit of control and deal with life like a fucking adult.

              • Muttonbird …
                23 March 2017 at 6:23 pm

                It’s like you don’t understand basic anthropology.

                • BM …
                  23 March 2017 at 6:26 pm

                  When you get angry or frustrated do you beat your Missus? or your kids?

                  Lots of excuse making going on here.

                  • Banjo …
                    23 March 2017 at 10:14 pm

                    Domestic violence is not just physical abuse though. Theres a whole range of controlling behaviours that can culminate into physical violence as outlined in the violence wheel.

                    It seems to me that some of these behaviours are socially acceptable in certain situations, like minimising, denying & blaming. We often see that happen in public discussion around high profile incidents – a woman speaks out and her concerns aren’t taken seriously, the blame is put on her, she was just being silly, or drunk or an attention seeker.

                    How an individual manages anger or frustration is part of the issue but there is also a wider cultural context of how women are treated in general by a society.

                    http://www.domesticviolence.org/violence-wheel/

    • adam 6.2
      23 March 2017 at 1:28 pm

      Concern trolling at i’s despicable best.

      What a winner you are james, what a winner.

    • Red Hand 6.3
      23 March 2017 at 7:08 pm

      All domestic violence is bad. I don’t think so. Violence to prevent this would be justified IMO.

      https://kindnessblog.com/2014/08/27/the-love-of-a-mother-and-her-3-year-old-daughter-who-were-attacked-with-acid-by-their-husbandfather/

  7. Antoine 7
    23 March 2017 at 12:42 pm

    Even if we did not have the highest rate of violence in the developed world, it would be good to reduce it.

  8. Tricldrown 8
    23 March 2017 at 12:47 pm

    Looking at the Reasons why NZ has so high rates.
    Our rugby mentality
    Alcohol 75% of police time wasted on alcohol related crime.
    Combine that with family break downs.
    Poor housing high unemployment.
    Low wages.
    Poor relationship skills.
    All add up to a disaster.
    We need to do something about it.
    National have made this problem a lot worse by making housing unaffordable

  9. Greg 9
    23 March 2017 at 12:51 pm

    Another terrible statistic after nine years of national .domestic violence is a sign of socail break down and stress in the community 9 years of legends in there own time government and a big zero just terrible statistics and hopelessness thanks national . One simple thing would be to mix housing but this says it’s all to hard.

  10. Cinny 10
    23 March 2017 at 12:54 pm

    Self control and stress relief are we teaching that? How stressed is everyone? How much pressure in peoples lives? Money worries are a contributing factor. Living wage anyone? Bad things start to happen when basic needs aren’t met (food, clothing, shelter). Housing crisis? Huge volumes of people going to food banks?

    Learned behaviour, are we demonstrating that? To our children, to each other. We see adults tv, advertised during general viewing hours, nice bit of violence, death, CSI whatever, to keep minds occupied while their programme resumes.

    Educate the people, far out it really is that bloody easy. Make it unacceptable for any domestic violence within your social circle, men need to speak up about it, rather than turning a blind eye, ‘oh so and so was just drunk, you know how he gets when he drinks”. And yes there are women who beat men as well.

    Some will be embarrassed of their violent behaviour, maybe so embarrassed they find it hard to ask for or get help. What to do? How about a program on the telly? Gosh we have enough funding to pay that muppet Hoskings. How about some quality self help educational programs instead of him? That would help.

    Offer people support and advice and help and show them how to change, reducing or taking away social services does naught but add fuel to the fire.

    After eight long years of this government not doing enough to combat this massive massive problem in our country, I’ve fucken had enough too.

    Where’s the evolution? It’s the day after the spring equinox.

  11. AB 11
    23 March 2017 at 1:30 pm

    You know there’s a problem when David Cunliffe was pilloried for saying this at a Women’s Refuge:
    “I don’t often say it. I’m sorry for being a man right now, because family and sexual violence is perpetrated overwhelmingly by men against women and children.”
    This was deliberately misconstrued as Cunliffe apologising for being a man. He wasn’t – he was expressing his discomfort as a man speaking at a Women’s Refuge. That discomfort was a mark of his decency. When decency and compassion are ridiculed your society has problems.

    • Jilly Bee 11.2
      23 March 2017 at 2:29 pm

      Thank you AB, succinctly explained.

    • reason 11.3
      23 March 2017 at 2:53 pm

      thank-you AB ..,,
      and Cinny
      and Greg
      and Tricldrown
      and One Two
      and Draco …. Belladonna … Adam …Jilly Bee … and Weka

      And even Antoine……

      To fix a problem requires people to care about it …. and your answers show there are still people who care and think …..in the hard little racist society that is New Zealand.

      I thank you all for still allowing me to hope …….,.,

  12. Mrs Brillo 12
    23 March 2017 at 3:56 pm

    I think substance abuse is a big factor. Alcohol use that is nationally condoned. A major P epidemic that is getting nothing like the attention it deserves.
    And each time people put forward solutions that might rein part of it in, no government has been interested in taking the hard action because of their friends in the liquor trade – who are no friends to New Zealand.

    I also take Tricldrown’s point about the rugby mentality. Good luck in confronting that one, because there will be a lot of fingers stuck in ears.

    But imagine if they decided to promote some other sport – let’s say netball, for argument’s sake – in the deliberate way that rugby now gets precedence. Making netball the default setting for media coverage and national pride.
    All small towns with a netball court instead of a rugby field. Fawning over the players, paying them too much, treating them like little tin gods, admiring their precision and cooperative ball skills instead of their ability to tackle and swagger and sink the suds. Having PR visits of netballers to sick kids in hospital, netballers instead of footballers talking at schools, magazines reporting on netballers’ private lives and covering their weddings and house renos. Pages and pages about netball players instead of rugby players in the newspapers. Asking them what their New Year’s resolutions are and their opinion on everything in general. Trying to make the netball uniform into a national flag. Having the Prime Minister regularly turn up for photo ops with the netball players. Overlooking their criminal acts and antisocial behaviour because they’ve had a tough tour and they are just letting off steam. And if they do something truly heinous, ensuring the courts grant name suppression.

    Because this is what we do with rugby players. And it does set a tone, and a norm, and a model, that is aped by little boy wannabes. And not so little boy wannabes.

    And some of us are bloody fed up with the poverty of imagination that turns ball kickers into role models. And coarseness and thuggishness into a national style. We can do better.

    • Draco T Bastard 12.1
      24 March 2017 at 11:50 am

      I think substance abuse is a big factor.

      A big factor of substance abuse is what’s driving that substance abuse and that often comes down to government policy that increases financial stress on poor people – just like National’s have done over the last 8 years.

      We also have a poor alcohol culture in that we tend to binge drink.

      Because this is what we do with rugby players. And it does set a tone, and a norm, and a model, that is aped by little boy wannabes. And not so little boy wannabes.

      Yep, pisses me off when I hear that a man got let off some sort of violent behaviour because he may be/is a great quarter back and make millions. He should have thought of that before he committed the crime. If it happened to someone else they would lose their job and no one would bat an eyelid.

  13. Mordecai 13
    23 March 2017 at 5:39 pm

    “Because this problem has existed for decades, and we topped the world in 2015”

    We topped the world between 2000 and 2010.
    http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/5332717/NZ-worst-for-domestic-violence-UN-report

    Attempts to paint this as the governments fault or the result of some perceived social injustice is pathetic. Hold the perpetrators accountable, lock them up and throw away the key.

    • Muttonbird 13.1
      23 March 2017 at 6:18 pm

      New Zealand also fell short with paid parental leave, ranking 16th out of 22 with 14 weeks’ paid leave while countries such as Norway, Denmark and Sweden offered 46, 52 and 68.4 weeks respectively.

      Studies had shown that paid maternity leave increased employee retention, and reduced infant mortality and post-partum depression, the report said.

      I found this interesting. It is Labour policy to do something to alleviate drivers of society stress, particularly in poorer communities, but Bill English smashed Sue Moroney’s bill to extend PPL to 26 weeks (still miles away from Scandinavia) because it might cost his rich mates a BMW or two.

      There are a few rwnjs here at the moment (not you, I’m talking about Antoine and James) who recognise the problem National has created for low income families because of housing stress, insecure and casual contracts, and poor support for young families.

      They ask for action to improve damning statistics like these domestic violence numbers.

      They need look no further than opposition policy for this action.

      • Antoine 13.1.1
        24 March 2017 at 12:53 am

        Your classic RWNJ doesnt’t blame domestic violence on economic conditions, because they don’t accept that poverty is a valid reason for hitting someone. Nor do they have confidence that the poorer working class people of today will be materially better off under a left wing government.

        • Antoine 13.1.1.1
          24 March 2017 at 12:59 am

          So to a RWNJ the solution is simple: Don’t hit people and don’t tolerate or condone anyone else hitting people. And clearly if everyone followed this advice, the DV problem would go away.

          • Antoine 13.1.1.1.1
            24 March 2017 at 1:10 am

            And a RWNJ who follows that advice in their own life, feels like they’re doing their bit and not much more can be asked of them on the DV front.

            Hope that all enhances mutual understanding a bit…

            • Draco T Bastard 13.1.1.1.1.1
              24 March 2017 at 12:08 pm

              And a RWNJ who follows that advice in their own life

              But they don’t which is why so many of them end up in court.

              feels like they’re doing their bit and not much more can be asked of them on the DV front.

              No, it seems that it’s more that they don’t want to accept that their actions are abuse and so they prevent laws that would clearly spell out that their actions are abuse.

  14. David Mac 14
    23 March 2017 at 5:57 pm

    We’re all familiar with that moment when we are so wound up we could just scream. Rather than how we got there, I think it’s what we do when there that matters. Pointing the finger at various triggers has little value as a solution. There will always be circumstances that pushes each and every one of us to the red mist brink. It’s how we handle those moments that counts.

    Whether a person chooses to lash out or say “I need to be alone for a minute and when I’ve cooled down we need to talk about this”. In so many cases, decisions to lash out or cool down are drawn from our conditioning years. Today’s basher grew up around it, usually both emotional and physical over-lording.

    The problem isn’t what gets us mad, we’ll always have a catalyst, it’s what we do when we are that counts. I do feel that our government could be doing a better job of leading people that tend towards a knee-jerk lash-out to making better spur of the moment decisions. In the light of a new day nobody wakes up proud of thumping a person they then claim to love.

  15. Tui 15
    23 March 2017 at 6:40 pm

    shameful! i had a talk about this with my very close friend and she said its because we as women let men get away with it. too many of our wahine go back to their abusive partners!

    ~ Tui

    • BM 15.1
      23 March 2017 at 6:51 pm

      Unfortunately, Maori are massively overrepresented when it comes to domestic violence, around 50% of all DV is by Maori.

      What do you think is causing this? and what can be done to stop it?

  16. RedBaronCV 16
    23 March 2017 at 7:03 pm

    A lot of the discussion above boils down to

    “is it 1 out of every 3 women or 2 out of every 3 women that you would past on the street who has been subjected to domestic violence?”

    With a question like that who cares about the fine detail of the answer? Both are far too many and Nact have made it a real priority to water down domestic violence consequences and support services plus degrading and demeaning single parents (mainly women). But hey they have printed a poster to hang up in towns.

    So I think we can suggest that this is just opportunistic RW electioneering

  17. RedBaronCV 17
    23 March 2017 at 7:16 pm

    You can also bet that Nact want the police to collect the names addresses and children’s names of anyone who lodges a complaint. And you can bet they won’t collect the same level of detail about the perpetrator.

    “Now how many brothers do you have?” will never be asked.

  18. ropata 18
    23 March 2017 at 9:07 pm

    just wanted to share this

    Toddler Ihaka Stokes suffered two broken bones at least a week before he was allegedly murdered. https://t.co/EGXgE17CuE #facesofinnocents pic.twitter.com/riyQwYDb6o— Blair Ensor (@blairensor) March 23, 2017

  19. Sanctuary 19
    24 March 2017 at 7:24 am

    This thread sums up NZ in a nutshell. Point out we have a crisis in domestic violence, and the pernicious mythology of the Kiwi paradise brings all the trolls, deniers and defeatists out in naysaying, with the explicit aim of bogging down any form of action in a welter of accusation, insult and recrimination just so they can maintain their smug belief in the myth that New Zealand is a paradise for all. It is the same for anything – dirty dairying, domestic violence, wealth inequality – Kiwi denialism is rooted in a penny pinching belief that everything is awesome in our little lego land.

    Other countries, unencumbered with myths of their social, political and environmental exceptionalism, can recognise a problem when they see it and the argument in more mature societies is how to deal with it, rather than having a tiresome debate about whether the sky is blue or not.

    NZ is the most violent country I have ever lived in (I’ve lived in five for periods of one to five years). This shouldn’t even be up for discussion. Domestic violence is endemic. Just this morning passengers I was waiting for the train with called the police over a violent, drunken domestic incident occuring on the road next to the station. At 5.40am on a weekday. My very middle class, very aspirational ex-girlfriend is in a long term relationship with an affable, upwardly mobile guy who infrequently partly demolishes their house in drunken rages.

    The problem is, fixing violence requires money. Money for special courts, councilling services, social services, education programs, etc etc. And here in awesome Kiwi lego land we don’t like spending money on problems that we would prefer to believe don’t exist in our little paradise.

  20. Korero Pono 20
    24 March 2017 at 8:13 am

    DV is extremely complex and helping women, children and even perpetrators requires substantial investment. Services such as refuge, rape crisis and anti violence programmes. Women also need support to leave, current support is grossly inadequate. If Amy Adams is serious then she should be pushing for better funding for specialist services, better financial support for women and children, and tackling the dangerous information sharing of client level data, which will see victims avoiding vital services, further isolating them and their children.

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