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23
Alcohol and domestic violence:
A national blind spot
Ross Fitzgerald,
The Age
(4/1/16)
or many years, even though it
was a huge problem, Australia
managed to ignore the epidemic
of domestic violence. But since Rosie
Batty was named 2015 Australian of
the Year for placing domestic violence
on the national agenda, it has been
increasingly difficult to keep on
ignoring this issue.
Yet in some areas, ignoring the pivotal
role of alcohol in domestic violence
remains a national blind spot. This is
despite the fact that alcohol is to
violence as water is to fish.
Admittedly, we would still experience
some violence even if alcohol did not
exist but there is no doubt that binge
drinking and other misuses of alcohol
make violence much more frequent and
severe, especially in young males.
Between 80 and 100 Australian women
are killed by their male partners every
year. It is deeply shocking that an
Australian woman is more likely to be
murdered in her own home by her male
partner than anywhere else or by
anyone else.
According to the Foundation for
Alcohol Research and Education
(FARE), about half of reported
domestic violence incidents and up to
47 per cent of child protection cases
involve alcohol. Moreover, one in
seven presentations at hospital
emergency departments in Australia
were related to alcohol. In some
hospitals, it was one in three. Who
would have guessed this from the
media coverage of alcohol and drugs?
A few undoubtedly tragic deaths from
ecstasy and we have a media frenzy.
But the 15 or so alcohol-related deaths
occurring, on average, every day in
Australia still escapes our national
attention.
How is it possible that we can ignore
the carnage from our favourite drug,
alcohol, and at the same time obsess
about the much less harm from illicit
drugs? Part of the answer is that drugs
such as ecstasy provide a useful
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