Domestic and family violence awareness, attitudes and experiences. Preliminary findings /

Serious attention to various forms of violence and abuse within different family relationships has emerged gradually over the past 40 to 50 years, beginning with efforts to address child abuse, followed by abuse of women by their current or former intimate male partners, then elder abuse and, more recently, adolescent-to-parent abuse. While the term ‘domestic violence’ was initially used in Australia to refer to abuse of a woman by her current or former intimate male partner, it has meant different things to different groups within the broader community. Further, many Indigenous Australians prefer the term ‘family violence’ (Blagg, 2000; Memmott, Stacy, Chambers, & Keys, 2001; Nancarrow, 2010). This has resulted in the term ‘domestic violence ’being applied more broadly than it was intended initially and it is often used interchangeably with ‘family violence’. In some jurisdictions within Australia (e.g. in commonwealth policy and law, and in Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory) the term ‘family violence’ has replaced ‘domestic violence’ in official policy and legislation and the term ‘domestic and family violence’ is used in Queensland, for example. As a result there is often confusion about what type of relationships are included in various policy or legislative initiatives and other terms, such as intimate partner abuse and adolescent-to-parent abuse have emerged. The different terms, and different conceptualisations of the problem, are also a consequence of the various relationship types being the primary concern of different sectors, such that there are those concerned primarily with intimate partner violence (or violence against women), those concerned with elder abuse and those concerned with adolescent-to-parent abuse. While there appears to be considerable overlap between the various groups of relationship violence, as well as some defining features, the sectoral separation of spheres of interest are also reflected in the research literature. This research is an early attempt at gathering information on Australians’ awareness, attitudes and experiences of violence across these various types of relationships. Preliminary findings are presented in this report and further analyses will be the subject of future publications