Interview with Natalie Barr, Sunrise

24 April 2024

NATALIE BARR: Well, there are mounting calls for a whole of government approach to violence against women as another Australian town mourns the loss of a daughter, a mother and a friend. 28 year old Molly Ticehurst was found dead inside her home at Forbes in New South Wales on Monday morning, Molly's ex partner who was out on bail at the time for domestic violence and rape charges against her has been charged with her murder. She has become the 25th woman to die from an act of violence this year. Let's bring in Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume. Good morning to you, Jane, we sit here and we do this every week. This is a national crisis. We are looking for answers.

JANE HUME: You're right, we should be looking for answers because anybody that thinks that there isn't a problem, a crisis with violence against women in this country needs to wake up. 25 deaths at the hands of intimate partners in one year alone is unacceptable. But the fact that it's only April, and that's the number we're looking at, should be setting off alarm bells. There has been a bipartisan and whole of government approach to violence against women. For over a decade now. The national action plan to eliminate violence against women and their children has been operating now since around 2010. And that does bring in all layers of government. It brings in business, the business sector and the private sector, the community sector as well, but more needs to be done not just on response, but more importantly, on prevention, not just on education, but also on those practical evidence based approaches to making sure that violence perpetrators cannot reoffend and don't offend in the in the first place. There's some good work that's being done right around the country. Coordinating that through a bipartisan action plan is fundamentally important, but we can and we must do better, not just for young women, like the one that we've seen in New South Wales in the last couple of days. Yeah, but for all women around Australia because thousands are living in fear every single day and that's unacceptable in a country like ours.

NATALIE BARR: Yeah and you know, what their families, their friends know about this. And then they tell us after the fact that we knew about this we tried to get help AVO’s obviously useless in many, many cases because we hear that they tried to get help. They went to the police in many circumstances before they were murdered. And then, you know, they can't do any more. So Clare, do we need to reframe this? Obviously we've heard the New South Wales premier say they are investigating the bail. The bail laws because often, as in this case, someone was led out on bail. Do we also need to reframe this as a men's issue? It feels like we're picking up the pieces on how we can protect women. But what about how we can stop men doing this?

CLARE O'NEIL: Yeah, no, I completely agree with what you've said there. And you mentioned off the top, this is the 25th death of a woman in these circumstances this year. We're only in April and it comes as it does off the back of the violence against women at Bondi and I can just tell you like it is exhausting as a woman just having to watch this and for every woman out there getting up and reading about this in the papers every day like we just can't let this continue. So I think you've made some important points. Jane talked about some of the efforts that our government has gone to that are really important. But I think you're right when you say you know laws and money is not all it needs to change here. One thing that I'm starting to see a little bit more of is that conversation starting amongst men, you know, this is not a women's issue that we can fix by fixing women, it's men and their behavior that has to change here and we need men to be stepping up having those conversations with their friends about this matter. And trying to talk about how we can change society for the better because we just can't go on like this.

NATALIE BARR: Yeah, exactly. Let's move on the social media platform X owned by billionaire Elon Musk is expected to challenge the safety commissioners orders to take down graphic content from last Monday's church attack. The matter is set to go back to court today. Clare, is there a risk that we're opening ourselves up to more of this kind of imaging imagery, this shocking imagery being shared if X actually wins here?

CLARE O'NEIL: Well, we'll see what happens in the court case Nat. But I mean, let's all just agree this is just a disgraceful act of this company. This and other social media companies are doing absolutely untold damage, creating vast problems in mental health in spreading terrible attitudes around the world. They are creating civil divisions, social unrest, just about every problem that we have as a country is either being exacerbated or caused by social media. And we're not seeing a skerrick of responsibility taken by these companies. Instead, we're seeing megalomaniacs like Elon Musk going to court to fight for the right to show terrorist content, alleged terrorist content on his platform. And I just think this tells us everything we need to know. There is no way that these social media platforms are going to do the right thing voluntarily. And we need to step up and do better as a parliament to make sure that we regulate them. And the first thing is making sure that they follow the directions that are legally given to them by Australian authorities. And that's the fight that will be happening today in the federal court. But we need to do more of this because it's just become absolutely apparent that these people have no interest in helping us fix the absolutely extreme problems that they're creating and our parliament is going to have to step up on it.

NATALIE BARR: Yeah, they're fighting back. They say it's censorship. Jacqui Lambie has just taken a stand against Elon Musk, Jane, she's deleted her X account. Would you consider doing that?

JANE HUME: Look, Nat my job is to communicate with as many Australians as possible about the issues that the Coalition feel that are important for them. And frankly, while social media is one of those platforms, you'll always find politicians are there. That said, the day that I retire I will be removing myself from X. I find it a horrible place to be. But unfortunately, it's important for the job that we do. That doesn't absolve them of the responsibility to behave like decent human beings here. That includes my colleagues as well. Around the parliament. We'll all defend the right to freedom of speech, but that does not absolve us for the responsibilities that come with that and human decency attached to it.

NATALIE BARR: Clare, do you think everyone should consider getting out of X?

CLARE O'NEIL: Look not really Nat. I mean, I think we've got to live in the real world. Social media is here to stay. It's a part of our lives here. What I don't think we should do is accept the fact that these companies think that they can do whatever they want and create all this social damage and make billions of dollars off it and just leave the rest of us to come and pick up the pieces. We just can't continue like this. I think parliaments around the world. are going to have to do a lot more in the coming years to make sure that we express what the public responsibilities are of these platforms and force those companies to undertake them. The fact that they're creating all this damage and making money off it and not doing anything to help care for the community that we live in and that we love here. In Australia. I just think it's absolutely disgusting. So support that action today and we're going to need to do more about it.

NATALIE BARR: Okay, thank you very much for your time this week. We'll see you next week.