“They were killed where we live,” said the Northern Territory coroner this week, as she handed down findings in an inquest into the horrific domestic violence deaths of four Aboriginal women.
On Monday – the world day for the elimination of violence against women – Elisabeth Armitage delivered her long-awaited findings on the “senseless, shocking and preventable” deaths of Ngeyo Ragurrk, Kumanjayi Heywood, Kumarn Rubuntja and Miss Yunupingu.
They were among at least 87 women – 82 of them Aboriginal – killed by their domestic partners in the NT since 2000.
While these four women’s lives and deaths were the focus of her investigations, Armitage said she wanted to remember as many of those other women as she could.
In unflinching terms, she described the killing of 68 Aboriginal women whose deaths were reviewed in the course of the inquest.
They were beaten to death with fists, a concrete block, stomped on, stabbed, set on fire, shot, run over repeatedly with a car. They were killed in private and in public: in homes, in a hospital car park, on a beach. They suffered for hours before dying or days later in hospital.
The list of the dead is 16 pages long.
“All of them were loved and deserved to live their lives free from the violence of men,” Armitage said.
The inquest was one of two reports this week which put the “epidemic” of violence against Aboriginal women back into the national spotlight.
The second was the federal government’s response to the inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women and children. The government “noted” its 10 recommendations aimed at preventing further violence, but said they were up to all levels of government to implement.
In response, the language from almost every corner has been blunt, and despairing: this is a crisis. A terrible carnage. Aboriginal women are being killed at obscene rates, in obscene ways. The system has utterly failed them all. It is our shame, and our horror. We cannot ignore their suffering any longer.
“There is a real risk that as a community we may become desensitised to the violence, which can fuel racist attitudes and stereotypes; and lead to inaction,” Armitage said on Monday.
But by the end of the week, even as advocates urged action and the NT police admitted to being “overwhelmed” by the scale of the violence, an immediate response did not arrive.
The federal government said it has already given the NT $180m to address the problem. The NT government said it needs more time to decide how to spend it.
‘A cascade of sadness and grief’
The coroner has described a system in crisis – underfunded and overwhelmed – as well as a system that failed to help women, where instances of “systemic racism” contributed to preventable deaths.
She described the effect on the communities left behind.
“Each woman’s death sets off a cascade of sadness and grief, most keenly felt by her children, her parents, her brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews, and her friends. Each of her loved ones experiences this grief and must carry it with them.”
She found that the NT rate of domestic and family violence-related homicide was seven times the national average. More than 63% of assaults in the NT are domestic and family violence-related. About 40% of domestic and family-related assaults in the NT involve weapons, a higher proportion than any other Australian jurisdiction.
And she said this “scourge” is getting worse.
NT police reported a 117% increase in domestic and family violence over the past 10 years. They expect it to rise by a further 73% over the next decade. About 50% to 80% of NT police’s entire workload was spent on domestic and family violence matters.
Based on those figures, the cost of domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) to NT Police is projected to reach $156m by 2027 and $209m by 2030 – almost half of the entire police operating budget.
Outside court on Monday, the NT police commissioner Michael Murphy said “DV still overwhelms police and we need to do things differently.”
Murphy outlined initiatives, including a co-responder model being tested in Alice Springs, where officers attend calls with trained experts.
Government representatives told the inquest each co-responder location would need $1m, but less than $300,000 had been allocated by the NT government to fund the Alice Springs pilot.
The coroner said that was inadequate.
“I am told that once fully implemented, demand for the service will immediately surpass the pilot’s capacity in Alice Springs,” she said.
She recommended programs be appropriately funded – along with a specialised DFSV court, better services for offenders and an overhaul of police procedures, including embedding Aboriginal language translators in the emergency call centre.
Missing and murdered
After the findings were handed down, the federal government tabled its response to the missing and murdered Aboriginal women and children inquiry.
The inquiry, first announced in 2021, came after sustained campaigning by First Nations women and advocates across many sectors, including politics, media, health and the law.
Among its 10 recommendations are: to find a way to honour the murdered and forcibly disappeared, to properly track and keep data across jurisdictions, greater access to culturally appropriate family and sexual violence legal services and greater advocacy for prevention.
The report also said the media could do better in raising the profile of murdered and missing women and children and in covering the issue of DFSV.
The Indigenous Australians minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, said she wrote to the Australian Press Council to seek its help in improving reporting on the issue.
A press council spokesperson said it had received the Minister’s letter, and was revising its advisory guideline on family and domestic violence reporting.
McCarthy said it was a national priority for the government to end the “senseless violence” within a generation, and the report would help inform a standalone National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Family Safety Plan, expected to be released early next year.
“My own family members, my aunties, my cousins, have experienced horrific forms of abuse,” she said.
“As federal minister for Indigenous Australians and as a Yanyuwa Garrwa woman, I want a better future for all First Nations women and children.”
McCarthy said the commonwealth had already provided the NT with $180m in funding, and she wanted the new CLP government to “immediately release” the funds.
The Coalition’s spokesperson for Indigenous Australians, fellow Territorian Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, also said there was a “need for our authorities and police force to tackle [DFSV] more seriously”. Nampijinpa Price said she had “faith in the Country Liberal party government to be able to deliver on those recommendations, and with that funding that’s available.”
But the NT government says it needs more time.
The new chief minister, Lia Finocchiaro, told parliament her government is still deciding how to allocate the $180m. The prevention of domestic violence minister, Robyn Cahill, said she wanted more time consulting service providers in the regions.
But the Top End Women’s Legal Service’s chief executive officer, Caitlin Weatherby-Fell, said there was no more time to spare.
“It’s getting worse. It’s beyond critical. There are almost no words to describe how serious this crisis is. We need action now,” she said.
The coroner was occasionally on the verge of tears as she delivered her landmark findings this week.
“How much longer does the Northern Territory community have to live within this epidemic of domestic and family violence?” she asked.
“Why do the citizens of this jurisdiction deserve to live with this unrelenting horror in our midst, which stalks our women and haunts the childhoods of our children?”
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 988 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
