Jeremy Muir’s WRD ’08 Speech

The following speech was delivered by Jeremy Muir, The Gisborne Herald Editorial Manager, at the public presentation of the Men’s Resource Centre & Safe House Proposal on 24 November 2008 at the Tatapouri Fishing Club:

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Kia ora tatou kua tae mai nei ki tenei whare, ki te whakarite i nga
whakaaro.  Ka nui te hari mo to koutou maia ki te haere mai ki te tautoko
i tenei kaupapa “Ripene Ma – White Ribbon”.  Kia tatou manuhiri,
commissioner, Gregory Fortuin, naumai, haeremai, ki te Tairawhiti.
A, huri noa to tatau whare, tena tatau katoa.

Welcome to this lunch, which The Gisborne Herald has organised in the lead-up to White Ribbon Day tomorrow as part of our stand against violence, and to stress the need for better services and support for violent men as the most important step towards achieving a violence-free future.  We whole-heartedly support Tairawhiti Men Against Violence in their bid for a resource centre and safe house for men with violence issues, and wanted to galvanise minds on how we can fund this.

First, an apology from the Gisborne Police family violence team, Chris Bunyan, Wayne Beattie and Tina Smallman, who are sitting a new family violence co-ordinator exam in Wellington this week.  They are fully behind the TMAV initiative, as is TAIN, a network of 53 organisations working in the family violence field.

Further apologies are from Michael Muir, Jim Green, Ronald Nepe, Moira Brown, Waata Shepherd and Lindsay McKenzie.

Tairawhiti has a family violence problem.  Two years ago this exploded with three attempted murder-suicides that left five people dead.  Gisborne was labelled the domestic violence capital of New Zealand.

The many people who work to prevent violence were devastated.  They knew how much was being achieved:
·        TAIN had been operating for more than 10 years, sharing information among everyone working in the field.
·        Police were taking a hard line on violence: we had the highest arrest rate for male assaults female in the country.
·        There was also a lot more reporting of minor domestic disputes and less high-end violence.
·        Police had initiated proactive visits with community workers to families with a history of violence in the lead-up to Christmas.
·        The East Coast Family Violence Circuit-Breaker had been held in 2005, followed by a Ministry of Social Development survey that identified gaps in services for men and young people – three child youth advocate positions were established.

In the wake of the tragedies in 2006, a range of actions by concerned Tairawhiti people has propelled the drive for local solutions to our family violence problem.

A group of men have come together as Tairawhiti Men Against Violence, or TMAV, with the goal of empowering themselves and other men to be great partners, parents, mates and members of the community.  About 100 men are members and a core group meets monthly to update each other and plan things they can do to promote alternatives to violence, and provide encouragement and ideas for men to be positive parents and partners.  They have organised a series of community events, the most ambitious of which – the “4 Corners, 3 Bridges March” on White Ribbon Day last year – was a huge success.  Over a thousand people, dressed in white, marched from four corners of the city then lined the banks of the Taruheru, Turanganui and Waimata rivers to form a huge white ribbon and call for an end to domestic violence.

This year TMAV has moved into publishing and movie production . . . tomorrow they will launch their impressive DVD “Matua”, which tells the stories of Tairawhiti fathers and their efforts to be positive role models for their children, families and community, as well as a 52 Whanau Night Activities Booklet.

Among providers, Barnardos has increased its range of services for families over the past two years and has seen an increase in the number of men taking part in its parenting programmes.  They have had a jump in self-referrals, with many people saying they called Barnardos because of the Government’s “It’s Not OK!” campaign.
·        Ngati Porou Hauora has been proactive in organising community groups for men, women, children and families.
·        Te Mana Pono o te Rangatira has just completed its second men’s/youth leadership programme, teaching troubled boys and men what a rangatira represents and seeing them overcome challenges and attain new outlooks on life.
·        Presbyterian Support and Family Works have noted an increasing workload over the past year and have more social workers working with affected families.
·        Gisborne Police now have one of the highest conviction rates for assaults on females and breaches of protection orders in the country, at over 70 percent – up from 48 percent four years ago.  As of this year they have two dedicated family violence co-ordinators, a detective and a detective sergeant.  They continue to visit at-risk families in the lead-up to Christmas, a time when domestic violence incidents increase, and have started a new programme of proactive policing in some of Gisborne’s more downtrodden areas.  All front-line staff have received training around the serving of protection orders in the past year.
·        Out in the community, more and more people are abandoning the notion that violence in the family is a family matter.

The It’s Not OK! campaign has dovetailed well with the already heightened awareness of violence issues in our community.
·        In 2001 about 950 family violence incidents were reported in Gisborne.
·        In 2006 there 1494, and in the past year about 1900 family violence incidents were reported in Gisborne.
·        This mirrors a national trend of an 11 percent increase in reporting of domestic disputes in the 04/05 year, and a 21 percent increase in 05/06.
·        Worldwide, studies have found that only 15 to 18 percent of violence is reported to police.  So it only takes small changes in community attitudes to dramatically increase the number of cases investigated.

These signs are encouraging, but we’re still waiting for a commitment from central government to fill those gaps in services for violent men identified back in 2005.  The “It’s Not OK!” campaign was a great initiative, but unless there are quality intervention services, available without court orders, people will continue to be beaten and sometimes murdered by frustrated, drunk, angry men.

A year ago today, on the eve of White Ribbon Day, people gathered at a hui at the wananga to look for ways to end the violence tearing apart families in Tairawhiti.
The messages were clear:  Services are fragmented, underfunded and rely on volunteers.
More support is needed for men.  And whanau need to take responsibility for what is happening under their noses.

That evening brought together a panel of four people who had first-hand knowledge of family violence — either through their work or personal life.  There were tears, anger and even some laughter as those gathered remembered the five people who lost their lives to domestic violence the previous year, and those who still live in abusive relationships.

Panel member Victor Walker bravely talked about his sister Maureen Matete-Walker, who was killed on November 8 by her former partner Barney Te Kani.  Fellow panel member Glenis Phillip-Barbara said the community had become too complacent about family violence.  People were so caught up in their own lives that they rarely took the chance to look within their own families and see warning signs.  If they did, they were often too frightened to say anything.
Tauha Te Kani, a former abuser and a cousin of the late Barney Te Kani, said a men’s safe-house was needed.  It made more sense to remove the man and get him the support he needed than to remove women and children from their home.
“Men need a place they can go when they are spinning out,” he said.  “No man is born consciously wanting to grow up and be an abuser.  They want help.  I wanted help, but I didn’t know where to go.”
Mr Te Kani, who is also a member of TMAV, said there was a glaring gap out there.
There were no men working for men.  Men were hard-headed.  They did not want women telling them about their anger issues.  They needed another man to tell them to grow up and be real about the issues, he said.
Fellow panel member Dreena Hawea, who has worked in the field for many years, said families used to teach their children good values but that was no longer happening.
Parents now sent their children to school hoping those values would get taught there.  She said there needed to be more collaboration in the delivery of services.  Contracts needed to be qualitative, instead of quantitative, so that people could get “hands on” with offenders and victims, instead of being stuck in an office filling out forms.

A year on from the five deaths, the panel acknowledged community efforts to address Gisborne’s family violence problem, especially the formation of TMAV.  But they said there were still many gaps and existing services were dominated by volunteers, many of them overstretched due to a lack of funding.

By the end of the night there was a consensus around TMAV’s goal of having a safe-house for men which would have a full-time male advocate to offer counselling and support.  The house would provide emergency accommodation for men who have been removed from their homes following a family violence incident.  It would be a safe and supportive place where men or concerned family members could access a full range services and information related to family violence, and where men could attend quality programmes without the need for police intervention and court orders.

Police national family violence co-ordinator Ged Byers says a men’s safe house and resource centre would be a great initiative and quite unique.  Everywhere he goes people say there is a lack of support services for men, and they often default to generalist-type services.  There are a number of men’s centres of various shapes and purposes throughout New Zealand, but they seem to have limited resources and none provide accommodation.

Dealing with the perpetrators of family violence in its immediate aftermath is always difficult, and police locally would love to have a safe house and resource centre to take men – a male equivalent of Women’s Refuge where they know a qualified person is there to support them.  As Chris Bunyan says, it’s about professionalism and a 24-hour service, and the huge issue is about continuous funding.

Our ears are still ringing with the clarion call always heard in the lead-up to elections, that our justice system is soft on criminals.  But a big problem is that in some sectors of our community, family violence is not seen as criminal.  It has been learned from parents and relations, and normalised.  It will take time and a huge amount of energy and innovation to change this.

We all know Tairawhiti is a unique place where things can work differently – TAIN is a great example of this.  Other places wanting to copy their model are unable to replicate the vast network of relationships they encompass, and focus on core agencies like police, CYF and Women’s Refuge.

TAIN recently signed an agreement with Gisborne District Council to help it work even more effectively across the region.  The two key projects at this stage are a Who Cares? campaign, and investigating and supporting the bid for a men’s resource centre.

Central government should be excited at the many positive things happening in our community to counter family violence, to the point where they get behind Gisborne’s safe house and resource centre with solid financial assistance and a long-term commitment to fund two male social workers with great communication skills and good qualifications.  Then it should step back and watch them and our community get on with helping troubled men see their way past violence.

No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatau katoa.