0:02 so our next speaker is Professor Augusto
0:06 um Zimmerman um he is a former West
0:08 Australian law reform commissioner and
0:10 is the current professor and head of law
0:12 at the Sheridan Institute of higher
0:14 education in Western Australia I don't
0:16 have time to go through all of his
0:18 achievements and his Awards but they are
0:20 believe me uh quite an impressive
0:23 collection um he's a distinguished legal
0:25 scholar prolific contributor to the
0:27 National discourse on freedom of speech
0:30 and the rule of law and he has been a
0:32 consistent and long-term critic of
0:35 Australia's domestic violence laws which
0:39 he argues correctly in my view seriously
0:41 compromised the presumption of innocence
0:43 and the application of fundamental
0:45 principles of due process and natural
0:49 Justice he's received multiple Awards
0:51 but um one of which is an important one
0:58 was um his International role um so um
1:00 the paper that professor
1:03 proposing to present to us the talk he's
1:05 going to give is called domestic
1:07 violence orders violate human rights so
1:09 could I ask you all please to welcome for's
1:20 moment it's a a privilege to be here and
1:24 I must thank my friend Betina for this
1:27 opportunity and um it's something that
1:30 doesn't give me any excit excitement to
1:32 have to discuss these issues because I
1:35 had to unfortunately interact with the
1:38 victims I was indeed the laform
1:41 commission uh for five
1:43 years I'm really honored and delighted
1:47 to have this opportunity to uh comment
1:50 on on this subject and express my
1:55 feelings even about uh what can indeed
2:00 occur to innocent victims of the system
2:02 you can see by my my my accent that I'm
2:06 not from New South Wes you see that by
2:07 my accent that I'm from Western
2:11 Australia my accent is
2:14 really so what I have here is a short
2:17 paper just to make sure that I actually
2:18 address everything that needs to be
2:21 addressed so you please forgive me if
2:23 I'm not being very spontaneous but I
2:26 think the information must be given in a
2:30 proper manner and some accounts of the V
2:34 victims I will disclose then after 10
2:37 years and it will be published hopefully
2:40 in quadrant magazine I'm saying this
2:43 before I communicated this to the editor
2:45 but I hope he will be kind enough to
2:46 publish this
2:50 paper although Violence by women against
2:52 men is a phenomenon that has received
2:55 little attention in the media and in
2:57 government for nearly four decades
3:00 actually five I must say
3:03 the best research reveals that men are
3:05 also frequently
3:08 targeted since the
3:12 1980s more than 200 academic Studies
3:14 have demonstrated that despite the
3:17 common assertion most part of violence
3:20 is mutual and that the woman's
3:21 perpetration of violence is the
3:26 strongest predictor of her being herself a
3:26 a
3:30 victim there is a misleading feminine
3:32 narrative aimed at presenting domestic
3:36 VI violence as solely a male problem
3:39 thus placing all the blame of men as a collective
3:41 collective
3:45 group from the nation's media
3:49 reports public inquiries and official
3:51 campaigns one should be forgiven to
3:53 think that men are the sole perpetrators
3:58 of domestic violence however data keep
4:01 keeps mounting 50 years of research
4:04 which indicate that domestic violence
4:07 may be perpetrated by both men and women
4:09 against their
4:12 Partners about 10 years ago an official
4:16 letter by the Harvard Medical School
4:18 commented on the findings of a
4:22 comprehensive analysis of more than
4:26 11,000 American men and women aged 18 to
4:29 28 and this statement concluded and I quot
4:30 quot
4:32 now when the violence is
4:35 one-sided women were the perpetrators
4:38 about 70% of the
4:41 time men were more likely to be injured
4:45 in reciprocally violent relationships
4:48 25% then were women when the violence
4:50 was one-sided
4:53 20% that means both men and women agreed
4:56 that men were not more responsible than
5:00 women for intimate partner violence
5:03 the finds cannot be explained by men's
5:08 being ashamed to admit hitting women
5:12 because women agreed with men on this
5:15 point the Harvard Medical School
5:17 statement was based on a seminal work
5:20 published in the American Journal of
5:22 Public Health in
5:25 2007 written by four experts in the
5:28 field it seeks to examine the prevalence
5:31 of reciprocal that's to a and
5:34 nonreciprocal reciprocal domestic
5:37 violence and to determine where the
5:40 reciprocity is related to violence and
5:44 injury after analyzing the data which
5:46 contained information about domestic
5:49 violence reported by more than 11,000
5:51 respondents on
5:54 18,000 heterosexual relationships the
5:58 following conclusions were reached one a
6:00 woman's perpetration of violence is the
6:03 strongest predictor of her being a
6:07 victim of partner violence two among
6:10 relationships with no no reciprocal
6:12 violence women were reported to be the
6:16 perpetrator in the majority of
6:19 cases three women reported greater
6:22 perpetration of violence than men than
6:24 men did 30
6:28 34.8% against 11 11.4%
6:35 reciprocally the patterer abuse of state
6:39 of knowledge project is broadly regarded
6:41 as the most significant International
6:44 summary of the data available this is
6:47 undoubtedly the words largest and most
6:50 comprehensive research on domestic viol violence
6:52 violence summarizing
6:53 summarizing
6:57 1700 peer-reviewed studies and
6:59 Publishing the prestigious peerreview
7:01 Journal partner
7:05 abuse the results which are summarized
7:07 in a comprehensive
7:10 2,300 page review of the relevant research
7:12 research
7:15 literature notably identified higher
7:18 rates of female perpetrated domestic
7:20 violence than male perpetrated domestic violence
7:22 violence
7:29 21.6% across studies it was found that
7:34 40 43% of men and 41% of women reported
7:38 coercive abuse as for motivation the
7:40 authors of this literature review
7:42 concluded that men and women often
7:44 perpetrate domestic abuse from very similar
7:51 motives while domestic violence against
7:54 women is constantly highlighted by the
7:57 mass media domestic violence against men
8:00 is rarily reported
8:02 men who sustain domestic violence face
8:05 numerous obstacles when encountering the social
8:06 social
8:09 service these victims you suffer from a
8:11 complete lack of
8:14 support and there might be even the
8:17 assumption that they must be the
8:20 perpetrators to test the availability of
8:23 Social Service Providers to May victims
8:27 of domestic violence a melbourne-based
8:29 psychiatrist once once contacted the man
8:32 referral service run by the government of
8:33 of
8:36 Victoria this is how he's experienced
8:40 his uh interaction or that's how he
8:44 reported I rank then on one occasion in
8:46 relation to Mayo
8:50 victims both times I was told that if I
8:53 had dug deeper I would have discovered
8:56 that the victims were actually the
8:59 perpetrators the founding model is set
9:01 up to fit with the narrative about
9:05 gendered violence allowing funding to
9:07 only go to female victims and another to male
9:08 male
9:11 victims this means that some service
9:13 providers Embrace a radical feminist
9:15 narrative to domestic
9:17 violence for instance the referral
9:20 service contracted by the government of
9:23 New South Wales is on the record
9:27 claiming that we need to be cautious in
9:29 assuming that a man assessed by the police
9:30 police
9:34 is truly a victim we should not believe
9:36 that but that's the opposite as when a
9:37 woman makes such a
9:40 legation the information provided to B
9:44 to bed man is often predicated on the
9:47 assumption that every man must be the
9:50 perpetrator male help Seekers report
9:52 that their complaints are never taken
9:55 into consideration or
9:57 seriously yet the parteners allegations
9:59 are always given serious
10:03 fa some report experiences with their
10:07 abuse Partners misusing the court system
10:10 to block access between them and to make
10:12 it worse their Vic their children
10:16 actually or to file false allegations
10:19 with child welfare Welfare
10:22 Services it is also reported that some
10:24 men have stayed with their violent
10:27 female Partners to protect their
10:30 children from their partner as
10:33 violence these men are worried that if
10:36 they leave their violent wives the
10:38 system might still Grant custody of
10:40 their children to the
10:43 abuser to to their female partner who is
10:47 the abusive one although many men report
10:51 domestic abuse for the reasons above um
10:54 these uh these numbers are never these
10:57 numbers are never entirely clear or
10:59 accurate there is a widespread believe
11:02 that abuse can only happen to
11:05 women this prevents battered men from
11:08 coming forward due to a reasonable fear
11:10 that they are not going to be
11:12 believed for instance emergency
11:15 emergency clinics tend to ask only women
11:18 and not men about domestic violence
11:20 Origins for the
11:23 injuries this is so even after these
11:26 emergency clinics find that the men
11:30 admitted in hospital with injuries are a
11:40 violence in Australia thousands of
11:43 fathers have had the contact with their
11:47 children limited to a few hours and
11:50 often spending huge sums of uh on
11:53 lawyers fighting to be able to care for
11:56 the children overnight Across the Nation
11:58 thousands of very good people are
12:01 legally prevented from reconnecting with
12:03 their children and there have been told
12:06 in mediation sections or by divorc
12:09 lawyers that there is no hope of
12:11 overnight contact with
12:15 them add false accusations of domestic
12:17 violence and then the father will be
12:20 required to prove his innocence before
12:23 he is allowed within 100 meters of
12:26 distance to see the kids indeed the
12:28 restraining order even when based on
12:30 allegations that are
12:33 unsubstantiated is a powerful weapon in
12:36 the fight for primary custody and restricted
12:38 restricted
12:40 access so perhaps I now have to talk a
12:42 little bit about my experience as a l from
12:47 commissioner they were not very
12:51 pleasant but that I must say these
12:53 experiences were quite enlightening I
12:57 have learned a lot with with them and I
13:00 can talk a little bit and edly if I have
13:03 time but let's see how it goes a
13:06 domestic violence order is a restraining
13:09 order issued by a court that sets out
13:12 specific conditions that must be obeyed
13:15 preventing a per person from contacting
13:18 tracking or attempting to locate the
13:20 protected person and preventing a person
13:23 from being within a a certain distance
13:27 of the protected person the terms used
13:29 to identify dvos the domestic violence
13:34 ords defer across jurisdictions and if
13:36 not if I'm not wrong here it's called
13:39 apprehended domestic violence
13:42 order domestic violence orders are the
13:45 most broadly used legal response to
13:46 allegations of domestic
13:51 violence almost half 47% of
13:54 133,000 of all civil cases filed in the
13:59 magistrates court involved DeVos
14:02 while it's crucial that the legal system
14:06 protects all victims of domastic
14:09 violence at the same time one must
14:11 recognize that domestic violence
14:15 restraining ERS are occasionally sought
14:18 for collateral reasons for instance when
14:21 a person seeks such an order although
14:23 she's not truly a victim of
14:27 violence for years fathers groups have
14:30 complained that seal victims and
14:34 overzealous courts often misus DeVos
14:37 that should be used as a shield against
14:41 real authentic instances of domestic
14:44 violence many cases of domestic violence
14:47 have ended up in our courts where
14:50 allegations have been entirely
14:53 disproved and sometimes many years after
14:54 the alleged
14:57 offenders found themselves evicted from
15:01 their home alen ated from their children
15:04 arbitrarily arrested suffering
15:07 incommensurable damage to their personal
15:10 and professional reputation and financially
15:11 financially
15:14 bankrupted after facing huge Court
15:18 costes to defend themselves from false
15:20 and malicious
15:24 accusations the most uh cursory scrutiny
15:26 reveals that the alleged epidemic of
15:28 domestic violence is actually quite
15:32 fabric at none of the statistics
15:34 proposing to quantify the incidence of
15:36 domestic VI
15:38 violence are entirely based on
15:42 convictions through jury trials or even formal
15:43 formal
15:48 charges these accusations are based on
15:52 reports that are not necessarily
15:55 substantiated rather substantial
15:59 incentives are provided by government
16:02 founded interest groups and government
16:05 agencies for women to Manu
16:09 manufacture accusations and exaggerate in
16:10 in
16:14 incidents some members of the Australian
16:17 Judiciary have agreed that false claims
16:20 are often sought for coll collateral
16:24 reasons related to Family Court disputes
16:27 including child custody for instance a
16:29 survey of 38 me magistrates in
16:32 Queensland reveals that
16:37 74% agreed that dvos are often used for
16:42 tactical purposes related to family law
16:46 disputes likewise another survey of 68
16:49 magistrates from New South Wales
16:53 indicates that 90% of them agree that
16:56 DeVos are commonly sought as a tactical
17:00 device to Aid applicant with court
17:03 disputes and or to deprive former
17:05 partners of contact with their biological
17:07 biological
17:11 children some empirical studies indicate
17:13 that men who are accused of domestic
17:16 violence are constantly threatened with
17:18 lies during court
17:20 proceedings these important findings
17:23 show that men who fear being victimized
17:25 by false allegations of domestic
17:28 violence are fully justified in having
17:31 having such fears a major problem here
17:35 is how restraining orders are issued and
17:37 the grounds for which they can be made
17:41 there is a notorious lack of scrutiny
17:44 about the nature and substance of these
17:46 complaints of course while it's not
17:49 possible to know if every dvo is
17:51 legitimately applied some applications
17:55 are known to be grossly unmerited
17:56 unmerited
18:00 meritorious time is a possible sign that
18:02 someone is Seeking a dvo for reasons
18:05 other than concerned for physical
18:08 safety a Comm example is when after
18:11 initiating custody proceedings an
18:14 ethical lawyers instruct clients to
18:17 apply for a restraining order so as to
18:20 obain an upper hand at Family Court
18:24 proceedings according to David Kier a
18:26 retired judge from the federal Family
18:29 Court these orders have become a major
18:32 weapon in the war between parents who
18:42 children this strategy consists in the
18:46 ability to defame another person with no
18:50 need to provide evidence these
18:53 accusations can tear families apart can
18:55 tear families can tear families
18:59 apart but are based on the me
19:02 allegation of another person I have more
19:05 to say but I have only s minutes now
19:08 perhaps I should go back to what I have
19:11 promised to do to talk a little bit
19:13 about my role as a Lai form commissioner
19:14 in Western Australia and what happened to
19:16 to
19:19 me I served as a law reform
19:22 commissioner in Western Australia from
19:32 I don't like to talk so much about this
19:34 because I feel very
19:37 distressed I received many phone calls
19:39 from the
19:41 victims some of them
19:44 suicidal I just find it
19:47 unbelievable that anybody could support
19:48 such a
19:53 thing because these um laws that have
19:56 destroyed many people's lives and I feel
19:59 quite emotional about this I from CA of
20:02 people telling me that after contacting
20:05 me they would commit
20:08 suicide they have lost
20:11 everything how enough someone has the
20:14 courage to defend such a thing good people
20:16 people
20:19 children have taken their lives because of
20:20 of
20:24 this I Ser as a lot of f commission
20:26 commissioner in Western Australia from
20:29 to 2012 to
20:32 2017 during during this time my fellow
20:35 Commissioners and I conducted a comprehensive
20:36 comprehensive
20:39 review that ultimately led to the
20:41 enactment of the restraining orders and
20:44 related legislation Amendment Family
20:47 Violence violence act
20:52 2016 in December 2013 2013 our
20:54 commission published its discussion
20:58 paper presenting 53 specific propos
21:02 proposals for reform and raising 29
21:05 questions for discussion the paper fold
21:08 a comprehensive
21:11 consultation with more than 150
21:14 individuals expressing their concerns
21:17 about family and domestic violence the
21:20 commission ultimately received 43
21:24 written submissions and we conducted
21:27 additional official consultations to
21:30 resolve matters rising from these
21:34 submissions published in in June
21:38 2014 and entitled enhancing family and
21:41 domestic violence laws a final report
21:44 comprehensively addressed all the
21:46 effects of legislation dealing with
21:51 Family Violence our report explicitly
21:54 recommended among other things that such
21:57 laws should necessarily provide a fair
22:01 and just legal response to Family
22:03 Violence our recommendations were
22:07 considerably ignored by the government
22:09 the restraining orders and related
22:11 legislation Amendment
22:16 2016 in wa which received Royal assent
22:18 in on 29th of November
22:21 2016 updated the definition of domestic
22:26 violence and promoted um a new view of
22:29 domastic violence that extends to
22:33 normal interactions between pars more
22:35 specifically the new legislation
22:38 dangerously extended the Rel relaxation
22:41 of evidence rules that were available
22:45 for entering orders to final decisions
22:48 on the occasion the then attorney
22:50 general contended that a new Family
22:53 Violence order was designed to reduce
22:56 the honors of the
23:00 proof because that would be better to
23:03 deal with the matter and the police
23:07 minister of the day declared that and I
23:10 quote from her we are sending a message
23:13 to the courts that it would prefer to
23:17 her her on the side of the accuser and
23:21 ER on the side of granting such a
23:22 restraining order this woman is a
23:25 criminal because to make such a
23:27 statement is absolutely
23:29 outrageous so this is extremely
23:31 dangerous because it removes the
23:34 presumption of innocence and it assumes
23:36 that it is entirely acceptable to commit
23:39 mistakes on the side of the person who
23:42 makes an accusation the removal of
23:45 evidence erods the right to remain
23:48 innocent until proven guilty in our
23:51 final report the commission rejected these
23:51 these
23:54 moves noting that they were likely to
23:57 exacerbate the existing problem of
24:01 overuse and abuse of restraining orders
24:03 which are known to be used for tactical
24:05 purposes in the context especially of
24:07 family law
24:10 litigation the extension of the removal
24:12 of evidence even to a grant of final
24:15 restraining orders is particularly
24:19 abhorent this is totally against what
24:22 the commission recommended and I then
24:23 have to have very unpleasant
24:25 interactions with the den attorney
24:28 general I would like to just have a
24:30 piece been quiet life but then he
24:32 started to say that the changes were
24:35 based on my report and don't I don't
24:37 want to have blood in my hands of being
24:40 accused of being having such thing in my
24:43 hands so I had to speak out and I went
24:45 to the newspaper the journalist a
24:47 journalist from the Australian newspaper
24:50 contacted me asking if the these changes
24:53 were based on were based on our report
24:58 and my um comment was that this was a
25:01 choke This Is A
25:04 Lie he was not happy with my comments he
25:07 thinks that I work for him he doesn't
25:08 understand that a lot of Home commission
25:11 should have Independence to say whatever
25:13 he thinks it's appropriate that's why I
25:14 was appointed to be a commissioner
25:16 perhaps they committed a mistake to
25:19 appoint me but I was not there to serve
25:21 the government I was there to protect
25:23 the my community and the common good I
25:26 love you guys and then I started to see
25:29 these things happening on a daily basis
25:30 people calling me and doing these things
25:32 the Attorney General once called me and
25:34 said I need to talk to you as a matter
25:36 of urgency because you are not serving
25:39 the purposes of uh our agenda being
25:41 Advanced and he wanted the government
25:44 the Liberal Party to be reelected in
25:46 those days I was still a member of the
25:48 liberal party I was a senior vice
25:49 president of the liberal party in my
25:52 division and and they thought that I was
25:54 compromising the prospects of the party
25:57 to be returned and then he called me
25:59 saying I want to have a conversation a
26:01 very serious conversation with you and I
26:03 said look I'm not available for you this
26:05 week I have to pick up my kids from
26:08 school tomorrow and I have promised to
26:10 have some drinks with some of my friends
26:13 you have to wait about a month or so uh
26:15 I'll give you the time I'll give you the
26:18 time and and just to make sure that I
26:21 can put this PL this man in his place he
26:22 actually told me that I should to
26:25 reconsider my role as a commissioner
26:28 just for trying to do the right thing
26:29 and then I told him look I think you
26:32 have to reconsider your role as an
26:33 attorney general because you are not
26:36 properly qualified for the job you are
26:38 going to undermine je Pro further
26:42 undermine je process of law and you know
26:44 after this uh it's such a traumatic
26:46 terrible thing that I now write about
26:50 other subjects and uh due to this uh
26:53 experience of people calling me suicidal
26:55 people losing everything having the bank
26:57 accounts exploded the the stories are
26:59 quite similar actually of total
27:02 obliteration of a person's lives and you
27:05 think that could be um perhaps a person
27:07 who is not equipped or qualified enough
27:10 to be able to defend himself but these
27:13 are law professors have becoming the
27:15 victims these are barers BEC indiv
27:18 everybody can be victimized by this
27:20 isn't that a terrible situation in this
27:23 country that a perfect innocent person
27:26 can have his whole life utterly and
27:29 completely obliterated just on the basis
27:32 of a false accusation how enough a human
27:34 being would have the courage to defend
27:38 such a thing I just it is actually
27:42 perhaps demonstration that how evil evil
27:45 some people can be and I promise you God
27:48 willing that they continue to speak out
27:49 God bless you and protect you and
27:51 promise that they continue to fight good
27:53 fight thank you very much and God bless
27:56 you thank you very much thank you thank you
27:58 you thank
27:59 thank
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