LAW IN ORDER PTY LIMITED

I acknowledge Elders and ancestors who fought for the resources and understanding to prevent and address and respond to family violence and who have sheltered victim survivors in their homes and in their hearts. [...] Given what we know about the extensive violence perpetrated by the State via its various agencies, the question for us is how do we de-authorise the power that the State hold? How can 20 we dismantle the violent power that they continue to hold over our families, which we witness in terms of incarceration in the deaths of our women in custody, the deaths of our women who go missing and under-inves. [...] And this includes systemic racism and ongoing discrimination, the cost of living crisis, the housing crisis and the lack of emergency accommodation for affected family members, the lack of culturally specific supports and a lack of resourcing for 40 ACCOs to run early intervention of family violence specific programs. [...] But there’s also that implicit assumption that those experiences of violence in one way or another attach to either the culture of our people, the behaviour of our communities, even in the most progressive formulation, the reverberating facts 45 of colonialism always locate the harm and behaviour in us. [...] Yes, because the assumption is, from, and 5 certainly this is right across the State - the assumption is that the male is the aggressor, in an Aboriginal household, the Aboriginal male is the aggressor, so when that can be manipulated to look different than it is.