Pauline Hanson slammed after claiming domestic violence is a ‘two-way street’

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been accused of victim-blaming after declaring domestic violence is a “two-way street”.

Hanson, appearing on 4BC radio in Brisbane, when asked to condemn men who engage in domestic violence, claimed that women can also “lose their cool” and suggested Australians had lost the ability to communicate properly.

“It is wrong, but it’s also a two-way street. But I’m not saying that it’s just men and women. Women can lose their cool as well,” she said.

“I think today everyone’s sitting on a time bomb because the pressures of cost of living and people having to be able to pay the bills, tension that’s going on, or if you lose your job or the kids, what’s happening with the children these days, everyone is under so much pressure, and it’s really hard.

“I don’t think we communicate enough with each other.

“We don’t explain our feelings, what’s happening at the moment. We bottle it all up, and I think that people need to be able to communicate more, to talk to each other instead of sitting on their phones.

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“If you go to restaurants now, what are they doing? Sitting opposite each other on the telephones.”

Hanson said she had previously been a victim of domestic violence and said women experiencing abuse in a relationship should make the decision to leave.

“Domestic violence is a scourge, but sometimes, look, I’m not going to go in detail, but I’ve been through it myself in my life, and I just feel that if you’re not in a house where you feel safe, you feel you don’t want to be there, then you shouldn’t put up with it,” she said.

“And if these women are getting abused by men out there, then don’t put up with it.”

Researchers and anti-domestic violence advocates have identified several factors that may prevent those in abusive relationships from leaving, including economic reasons, isolation that has been brought about by the abuser, and fear of more physical or mental harm.

A study from Anglicare Australia, released on Wednesday, said the cost of leaving domestic and family violence had risen by 71 per cent to around $7000 in the past decade, with rental costs doubling.

Her comments were called “simplistic” and out of touch by a domestic violence expert.

“The entire way that Pauline Hanson is framing domestic violence is, it’s very much a victim-blaming narrative,” associate professor from the University of Technology Sydney Jane Wangmann told nine.com.au.

“This idea that women are responsible for the violence that they experience in their lives or ‘they give as good as they get’ kind of narrative, they tap into some of the misunderstandings that people still have about domestic violence.

“I think is incredibly dangerous for some of the progress that we’ve made.”

Earlier this month, there were four cases in one week of women and girls killed by men or boys; one, Jana Armstrong, was in Hanson’s home state of Queensland.

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Wangmann said Hanson’s remarks about women leaving abusive relationships failed to acknowledge the difficulty in finding support services in some cases.

“We have a service sector that is overwhelmed with the amount of people that need assistance. We know that a number of refuges simply can’t take people when they’re trying to escape,” she said, adding Hanson’s comments ignored those complexities.

“Her comments just make it sound so simplistic, and it just completely misunderstands the need and the complexity in the sector about what causes this kind of level of domestic and family violence.”

According to the Destroy the Joint advocacy page, 27 women have been killed in violent incidents this year, while Australian Femicide Watch said 37 women and children had been killed.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found one in four women and one in 14 men had experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner since the age of 15, while 23 per cent of women and 14 per cent of men had experienced emotional abuse.

It also found 16 per cent of women and 7.8 per cent of men experienced economic abuse from a current or former partner.

Hanson’s remarks were slammed by advocate Brittany Higgins as “normalising” toxic attitudes towards domestic violence.

“‘Mutual abuse’, ‘two-way street’, ‘just leave’ – normalising this victim-blaming rhetoric in relation to domestic violence when 38 Australian women have already been lost to femicide is atrocious,” Higgins said in a post on Instagram.

Higgins alleged she was raped by colleague Bruce Lehrmann at Parliament House in 2019.

The criminal case was dropped in 2022 due to juror misconduct but a civil defamation trial brought by Lehrmann found, on the balance of probabilities, he had raped Higgins.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).