According to impactforwomen.org.au, a website monitoring domestic violence in Australia, at least 38 women have died as a result of relationship violence this year. Sixteen children have also died at the hand of a parent or other family member.
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This comes to well over a death a week and highlights the magnitude of this country's ongoing family violence crisis.
It is, quite simply, one of the greatest moral, legislative and social challenges of our time and reflects the sad fact abuse within relationships has been swept under the carpet as a part of our accepted cultural milieu for generations.
Many of the attacks have their roots in the now discredited belief women and children are subordinate to their husbands and fathers and can even be treated as property.
It is obvious, given the alarming comments attributed to Senator Malcolm Roberts, a member of One Nation, that this antediluvian world view is dying hard.
Roberts condemned the family law system in a video shot with Australian Brotherhood of Fathers founder Leith Erikson and the now disgraced former One Nation Queensland leader, Steve Dickson, last year.
He said the system itself was to blame for the very acts of brutality, oppression and violence it was trying to prevent.
"When you're a father and you can't get access to your kids, and you can't get access to the legal system properly, what else is there to do other than check out or hurt the other person?" he asked.
The short answer is "anything but that". Senator Roberts's claim assault, murder and suicide, usually in that order, are the only choices says more about his own blinkered and binary take on life and relationships than it does about the Family Court.
Both the review, and Hanson's pending appointment, are nothing more and nothing less than a pay-off to a hard bargaining crossbencher for support on legislation.
Given the comment came hot on the heels of Pauline Hanson's assertion she saw cases every week of supposed victims of domestic violence taking out false apprehended violence orders, it is no surprise the Australian Law Council wants all politicians to undergo urgent domestic violence awareness training.
Council president Arthur Moses SC is right to be concerned such remarks could incite further bloodshed.
Mr Moses, who described Senator Roberts' remarks as "irresponsible and plain stupid", said: "Politicians must be careful not to use words that may incite those currently engaged in the system or dissatisfied with a court outcome to engage in violence".
What is surprising is that the Federal government has yet to reconsider plans to hold another inquiry into our already over-studied family law system and to give Senator Hanson a senior leadership role on the committee.
Both the review, and Hanson's pending appointment, are nothing more and nothing less than a pay-off to a hard bargaining crossbencher for support on legislation.
By choosing to do this the Morrison government has politicised, demeaned and trivialised a very serious issue while, at the same time, giving a platform and a bottle of oxygen to a short-sighted populist.
It is all just a waste of time and resources. We have had studies, reviews and inquiries by the truckload in recent decades. The most recent, which came with 60 recommendations that have not yet been acted on, was handed down by the Australian Law Reform Commission six months ago.
The House of Representatives released its own report, along with 33 recommendations, in December 2017.
The government knows what needs to be done. It should stop playing politics and get on with the job.