Federal and state governments will launch the second phase of a taxpayer-funded advertising campaign to combat domestic violence at a national summit in Adelaide on Wednesday.
Scott Morrison last month cancelled the Council of Australian Governments meeting originally scheduled for this week, with the October premiers’ meeting a casualty of the leadership upheaval.
But the national summit on reducing violence against women and their children, scheduled to coincide with that Coag meeting, is proceeding, and the second phase of the national advertising campaign will be launched by the federal minister for women, Kelly O’Dwyer.
Phase one of the $30m campaign kicked off in April 2016, with the focus on developing positive attitudes towards women in children. The opening phase of the campaign was geared to shifting attitudes and behaviour among men and boys.
The new phase of the campaign will focus on adults, and encourage them to talk to young people about the importance of respectful attitudes.
The advertising campaign followed research revealing high levels of victim-blaming when Australians were told about cases of girls and young women experiencing disrespectful and aggressive behaviour from their male peers.
The research firm TNS concluded late in 2015 there was a need for primary prevention targeting younger audiences and the involvement of “influential others” such as mothers, fathers, older siblings, teachers, sporting coaches, religious leaders, managers and peers.
Ahead of the launch of the new ads on Wednesday, O’Dwyer said: “The statistics on this issue are shocking – one in six women have experienced physical or sexual violence by a current or former partner since the age of 15.
“This figure increases to nearly one in four women when violence by boyfriends, girlfriends and dates is included.
“It’s also concerning that one in four young people are prepared to excuse violence from a partner.”
She said violence against women started with disrespectful attitudes, and throwaway remarks like “boys will be boys” or “he did that because he likes you”. She said they could “make young people think disrespect is a normal part of growing up”.
The Morrison government says phase one of the campaign had resonated with the public, with the material viewed more than 43m times online. It says evaluation research found that more than two-thirds of adults who saw the campaign took action and people started to adjust some of their deeply held attitudes.
