
This post deals with domestic violence and might be triggering for some readers.
The Prime Minister should be wearing a black tie.
Flags should be flying half-mast.
There should be a condolence motion on the floor of the House of Representatives and news presenters should be solemnly talking of little else.
Every man with a microphone in front of him should be telling one story. This story.
This week is over and four women who should be with us are not because they were murdered by men who knew them.
Four women. In two days. In one week.
What our Prime Minister has been talking about these past few days is an offensive meme posted on a social media account overseas. What he's not talking about is that Australia's obscene crisis of family and domestic violence continues to claim and destroy hundreds, thousands of lives every week.
Four women. In two days. In one week.
These women range in age from 20 to 43.
They range in location from southern Melbourne's Narre Warren to regional Victoria's Ballarat to Sydney's Fairfield to a children's playground in central Darwin.
We know the names of only two of them at the time of publishing: Kobie Parfitt and Samr Dawoodi.
We know scant, devastating details of their circumstances: Knife wounds. Kitchen floors. Relatives sobbing on front lawns.
And almost always: A man known to the victim was arrested at the scene.
Four women. In two days. In one week.
The Prime Minister was released from quarantine on Thursday after two weeks of isolation. He said he couldn't wait to get home to his wife Jenny and their two daughters. He was looking forward to seeing the Christmas tree his girls had put up while he was shielding them from any potential harm.
It's a picture of domestic harmony that wasn't afforded to the un-named woman stabbed to her death in the streets of Darwin on Tuesday.
She was the 49th woman murdered by a man in Australia this year.
We know that grim statistic because of the work carried out by the Counting Dead Women Australia researchers of Destroy The Joint. They are the witness bearers, taking names and keeping receipts since 2012.
The idea that we need an organisation that counts dead women should be enough to sear shame into the hearts of every Australian.
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