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Martin Lehmann - 1 November 2004
In its ongoing campaign to demonise men, the feminist government agency, The
Office of the Status of Women, last week handed in a report to Prime Minister
John Howard that purports to show that domestic violence (caused almost
exclusively by men of course) costs the Australian economy $8.1 billion a year.
Although the report has holes you could drive a truck through it was reported
uncritically by the the lazy, lefty, politically correct media hacks.
The feminist zealots, mindful that a biased, emotive report in their own name
may not carry much weight, employed the clever ruse of commissioning the report by
well-known research firm Access Economics.
The report is hugely damaging to Access Economics' credibility. It has allowed
itself to be manipulated into producing a highly biased and inaccurate
propaganda piece.
Some of the prejudices and flaws in the report:
- Access Economics admits (page 1 of Part I) that "the main data source
(for the report) is the ABS Women's Safety Survey 1996". This fatally
flaws the report if its stated aim is to estimate the cost of domestic violence
in Australia. Its main data source is a report about violence experienced by
women.
- The executive summary baldly declares that 87% of domestic violence
victims are
women. The report then asserts "These findings support the
overwhelming international research that women and children are the main
victims of domestic violence". This assertion flies in the face of
reports on this site that reveal that domestic violence perpetrators are
equally divided between males and females. Read "the
truth about domestic violence statistics".
- Page 74 of the report states "There is almost a complete lack of
Australian data on domestic violence against men". So Access Economics
went to a US report on violence against women to extrapolate the figures for
males. The report was already prejudiced but amazingly, Access Economics
discounted the rate by a further factor of 70% because according to the
biased US report most of the violence against men was in self defence.
Read the Access Economics report Part I
Part II
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