A commentary piece from the team at Capyble who work in actively preventing violence
Pauline Hanson says domestic violence is “a two-way street.” Asked about women being abused, her advice was blunt: if you’re not somewhere you feel safe, “you shouldn’t put up with it.”
Domestic and family violence has been on the public record in Australia for almost as long as Pauline has been in Parliament.
For someone who has been in Parliament and listened to inquiries, evidence reports and debates about how we resolve this prevalent scourge in society, it is deeply disturbing and disappointing to hear rhetoric from Pauline and a growing populist party that mimics the language of abusers and those who excuse their abuse.
Let’s unpack the two key points… What is the two-way street and why don’t they just leave?
What does Pauline mean by a “two-way street”
The most common pitfall is not understanding the cycle of violence, and why someone experiencing abuse might use violence themselves to keep safe and bring on the worst of it early, on their own terms. Journalist Jess Hill, speaking on The Imperfects, describes exactly this moment: a “violent resistance or self-defense” where someone snaps and thinks “I’m not gonna put up with this anymore.” That’s not two people trading blows. That’s someone surviving a cycle they didn’t start.
As Jess said: “Sometimes that can actually be a huge wake-up call for the abuser, and it’s quite shocking. Other times, it ends up inflicting more violence”.
But also, we need to understand the statistics when it comes to who is experiencing domestic violence.
There are relationships where more than one person uses some form of violence, but look closely and this is overwhelmingly people caught in that same cycle. Someone senses the abuse is about to escalate again, and brings on the eruption themselves rather than wait for it.
One person’s actions don’t excuse another’s either way. If a manager bullies someone and that person starts copying the behaviour, we don’t call the workplace a two-way street. We call it harm that spreads. The same logic holds at home.
And the numbers don’t support “two-way” in the first place. The data shows it’s overwhelmingly women experiencing violence from men, men experiencing violence from men, and where non-binary people experience violence, it’s overwhelmingly from men too.
Approximately 1 in 14 men (7.3%) compared to 1 in 4 women (23%) have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner since the age of 15, according to national safety data.
Not only does this statement minimise and diminish the experience of people who’ve lived it, she’s doing so without research or evidence about the effect it will have.
Why don’t they stop, not why don’t they leave
Domestic violence is not a “two-way street”, nor should we be asking “why don’t they just leave”. There are more than 19 reasons why people don’t leave abusive relationships.
Rosie Batty has spent a decade making this exact case, most recently on her own podcast, Stop Saying “Why Didn’t She Leave?” Her point is simple: stop asking why someone stays, and start asking why the person using violence gets to keep choosing it.
Jess Hill makes the same turn in her own words: “why doesn’t he let her leave?” Because the reasons someone stays are rarely about the relationship failing to end. They’re about poverty, safety, children, and a system that makes leaving its own kind of danger.
There’s also a quieter reason that doesn’t make it into most public commentary: the internal one. Telling yourself it isn’t that bad. Worrying people will think you’re being dramatic if you speak up. That’s not confusion, it’s gaslighting, and it often starts inside the relationship long before anyone outside it says a word.
Conclusion
We write this because, by normalising and platforming this rhetoric, Pauline is normalising the cycle of violence and giving these myths room to spread again. This is why we felt it necessary to add our voice to those who have spoken out about this already and support their rebuke of Pauline’s words. Just like Kate Fitz-Gibbon said in her LinkedIn post: “Responsibility for family violence must always sit with the person choosing to use violence. Victim-survivors should never be blamed for the abuse they experience or be judged for the complex decisions they make to keep themselves and their loved ones safe”.
Essentially, Pauline has fallen into the trap many others have before her: minimising abuse, seeing it as single incidents rather than the cycle it’s part of. Pauline’s ignored the statistics and gone with a vibe, and in doing so she’s fallen into a trap that would catch many executives working on their positive duty and domestic and family violence obligations.
The difference is that executives, unlike politicians, would be open to individual liability as a result.
What’s missing from comments like these is the people who’ve actually lived it. Those making them aren’t speaking from experience, and they aren’t feeling the level of betrayal and confusion.
