Australia's new Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Commissioner says inaccurate data is slowing progress on addressing abuse across the nation.
Micaela Cronin recently met with frontline workers from across the domestic violence sector in Alice Springs, as services gathered to develop comprehensive training modules for the region's police and health staff.
It comes as ABS data released yesterday confirmed women in the Northern Territory experienced the highest rates of physical and sexual violence in the country.
Ms Cronin said data was currently being collected in "silos", meaning there was not an accurate picture of the prevalence of domestic violence across the country.
"All of the government systems collect data. The community sector collects data," she said.
"We're not necessarily bringing that together and analysing what it's telling us in a way that enables us to set really good targets."
Calls for better data
Chay Brown is an Alice Springs-based researcher with The Equality Institute and the Australian National University.
Dr Brown said the NT's data-collection system was deeply flawed and did not show the true extent and nature of the violence.
"Less than 40 per cent of violence against women is ever reported, and less than 10 per cent of that is ever reported to police," Dr Brown said.
She said other crucial information was being collected but not communicated.
"That's things like gender of the victim, gender of the perpetrator, relationship dynamics between perpetrator and victim," Dr Brown said.
"That stuff is actually really important because that's what we need to design interventions and effective programs."
Training needed for frontline workers
NT Police Minister Kate Worden has previously said domestic family accounted for more than 60 per cent of police call-outs but Dr Brown said police officers currently received little more than a week of internal training on the subject.
She said healthcare workers received even less.
It was hoped new training in development across the NT would increase understanding of the drivers of violence as well as risks around misidentification.
"[This] is when the primary victim is misidentified as the primary aggressor in a domestic violence incident," Dr Brown said.
"Local service providers are reporting that this is something they're seeing, and that this is a big problem."
'This is the time'
The training development was being led by Tangentyere Council, Women's Safety Services of Central Australia, and Domestic Violence Legal Services.
Tangentyere Women's Family Safety Group coordinator, and Warlpiri and Arrernte woman, Shirleen Campbell said the training was all about "two-way learning and deep listening".
Her organisation supports women across Alice Springs town camps and advocates against family and domestic violence.
"[It's about] getting service providers, stakeholders, and organisations together to start having that conversation," Ms Campbell said.
"Because if we all want to tackle family and domestic violence and sexual assault … this is the time."
Calls to stop blaming alcohol
The NT Police Force said the reintroduction of alcohol bans and takeaway alcohol restrictions earlier in the year had already reduced domestic violence call-outs.
But many in the domestic and family violence sector were concerned about the emphasis on alcohol policy.
Commissioner Micaela Cronin said alcohol exacerbated violence but did not cause it.
"I understand the need for the circuit breaker and reintroducing the bans," she said.
"But I don't think anybody thinks alcohol bans are going to stop violence."
Alcohol just one part of problem
Dr Brown argued data was flawed because attending officers defined assaults as alcohol-related or domestic violence-related at their own discretion.
"So one police officer might make that decision based off of whether they can see alcohol bottles there. Another one might be because they can smell it," she said.
"And then when you question, 'Does the perpetrator have to be drinking or the victim?', they'll say, 'Either'.
"Now, how is it an alcohol-related assault if the victim is drunk, but the perpetrator is sober?"
Dr Brown said alcohol should only be one part of addressing domestic and family violence.
She said violence had been trending up for "a long time" before alcohol bans were scrapped across the NT in July last year.
Minister acknowledges data issues
NT Police Minister Kate Worden acknowledged there were issues with how data was currently collected and communicated.
"I know that there is a lot of work going on at the moment, around data, not just police data, but data right the way across this sector," she said.
"Often there can be misidentification of perpetrators and then that data is not reflected as it should be.
"We do need to look at the way we are defining domestic family and sexual violence here in Northern Territory."
As a proud town camp resident, Ms Campbell said she had lived through countless alcohol bans and the latest would not stop problem drinkers.
"Long-term measures are needed … and if we need to have that, we will need to collaborate together," she said.
