Men's Health Australia
A leading men’s health organisation today claimed that the Minister for the Status of Women, Hon Gail Gago MLC, misled Parliament by maintaining that false statistics on the Government’s Don’t Cross the Line anti-violence campaign website are accurate.
Men’s Health Australia also lodged an official complaint with the Ombudsman last Thursday after five months of attempting to draw the Minister’s attention to the major statistical errors on the website. The complaint alleges that the Office for Women acted unreasonably by publishing and not correcting this false and misleading information.
Men’s Health Australia spokesman Greg Andresen said, “The Facts and Stats page of the website is extremely misleading to the public. It clearly inflates statistics about domestic violence against women while understating statistics about domestic violence against men.”
Men’s Health Australia is supportive of all efforts to reduce interpersonal violence in the community but is concerned that the regular use of incorrect or misleading ‘statistics’ by Governments unfairly stigmatises men and boys as violent and abusive, while simultaneously denying services to male victims of violence.
They are also concerned that the Government’s approach is not in the interests of all children in families where there is abuse or violence, but selectively favours those children in families where violence is perpetrated by the father. The other one-third to half of children have to fend for themselves without support.
On 14th October Minister Gago defended the misleading statistics in Parliament, claiming that “the data on the Don’t Cross the Line website is sound.”
Some of the campaign’s errors alleged by Men’s Health Australia include:
· Overstating the annual number of women victims of domestic violence by almost 400%
· Overstating the number of women killed in domestic violence situations by 86% while ignoring the one in three victims of domestic homicide that are male
· Incorrectly claiming that 95% of domestic violence involves a male perpetrator and a female victim, when in actual fact at least one in three victims of family violence are male
· Ignoring the fact that as many young people have witnessed physical domestic violence by their mother against their father, as have witnessed it by their father against their mother
· Ignoring the research showing that equal numbers of young males and females have experienced domestic violence or have been forced to have sex by their boyfriend/girlfriend.
· Incorrectly claiming that domestic violence is the main cause of death, disability and illness in young women (the main causes are actually anxiety and depression, migraine, type 2 diabetes, asthma and schizophrenia).
“All victims of violence deserve campaigns based upon up-to-date accurate data, and the tax-paying public doesn’t deserve to be misled. Flawed data such as this can only lead to flawed policies and actions, and many children continue to be exposed to violence because of these myths,” said Mr Andresen.
“Inflating statistics on domestic violence against women risks generating an unwarranted climate of fear in the community, especially amongst females. It also has terrible impacts upon the self-esteem of boys and the development of their healthy masculinity.
“Understating the prevalence of domestic violence against men makes it less likely that a man will be believed when he finally summons up the courage to disclose his partner’s abuse of him. It also allows Government to continue to get away with family violence policies and campaigns that ignore male victims.”
What is the Truth.
Some women unfortunately are victims of ‘family violence’, let’s admit as evidence and acknowledge the fact.
1.2% are according to a rare example of independent University research by Bruce Headly and Dorothy Scott of Melbourne University and David De Vaus of La Trobe.
But that was a non-self-selected, random sample.
1.2%. This tiny percentage, well below the oft cited 25%, needed first aid, so bad was the violence they had experienced at the hands of a domestic partner.
And so did some men.
The same research shows 1.8% for men needing first aid, a full 50% higher.
Even smaller percentages of both needed a doctor’s attention.
But again more men than women. 1.5% men vs 1.1% women.
Moreover, the Headly, Scott and De Vaus summary measure of experiencing a range of forms of assault fails to reveal any preponderance of assaults on women:
4.7% of the sample reported being assaulted ‘in some way’ during the last 12 months; 5.7% of men and 3.7% of women. Not needing any attention to damage though.
They had had a shouting match and called each other naughty names.
Again, that is over half as many men more than women. And so far below the mythical 25%, the 1:4, terribly, awfully suffering women, as to make a total rejection of feminist lies.
What must be untangled – so that effective measures can be put into place – is the real incidence of such violence from the bogus statistical misrepresentations that are serving an entirely different agenda.
The critical issue of DV is all too often overlooked completely; it’s low experience in the community.
94.4% of people reported in Headly et al, being neither perpetrators nor victims of violence.
2.5% report both assaulting and being assaulted.
2.1% report being assaulted but not committing assault.
1.0% report assaulting their partner but not being assaulted.
No signs at all of 25% anywhere.
This Independent research showed clearly that DV affects a miniscule proportion of the population, and on every measure but one men suffered greater domestic violence from women than women did from men and in greater percentage numbers.
The one measure?
She calls the police far more often.
Well done. Our Government has been misleading the Nation as well as individual Ministers misleading Parliament. I wrote and spoke about this last year, looking back over the past decade.
Deliberately Lying about Domestic Violence in Australia. Pt.1.
http://soundcloud.com/amfortas1/amfortas-christian-j-lying-about-domestic-violence-part-1
The ‘women’s Safety Survey’ was “uncorroborated, biased and manipulated” ‘Advocacy research’ orchestrated by the Office for the Status of Women and passed off as Bureau of Statistics report. It caused an enormous row, says MRA Amfortas. Manipulated definitions and hysterical claims copied from America made innocuous behaviour criminal. DV sells commercial products to women and expropriates public funds for the fastest growing ‘Industry in Australia.
Deliberately Lying about Domestic Violence in Australia. Pt.2.
http://soundcloud.com/amfortas1/amfortas-christian-j-lying-about-domestic-violence-part-2
Three other sources of ‘official’ data which are routinely manipulated and presented to support DV lies are analysed by Amfortas and compared to Independent University research which completely contradicts the ‘official message’.” It would be generous to think that this manipulation and bias was just the result of incompetence. But as we can see there is something far darker behind it. It is corruption. It is deliberate.”
Deliberately Lying about DV in Australia. Pt.3. The Truth is out there – Somewhere.
http://soundcloud.com/amfortas1/amfortas-christian-j-the-truth-is-out-there-somewhere
Christian J narrates how the 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics Personal Safety Survey completely contradicted the Government’s 1996 survey. He also points to the attempts by feminist bureaucrats to manipulate by having ONLY female interviewers to bias the results. Results show women twice as safe as men. The Government has thrown a blanket of silence over it. Feminists maintain an undemocratic stranglehold, expropriating public monies for their anti-male ‘Industry’.
Most of the men who die as a result of Domestic Violence in South Australia have committed suicide after they have killed their partner and or children.
The figures for Domestic Violence are not the issue. The issue is the fact that there is so much violence being perpetrated in the one place where we are supposed to be safe… our homes.
I lived with Domestiuc Violence and I ask you to please stop making it a competition between men and women. It shouldn’t happen to any one.