The Saturday Paper uses as an example of that failure the fact that 41 per cent of Australians believe domestic violence is committed equally by both men and women. Hmm, so almost half of all Australians know the truth about domestic violence but that’s evidence of a failed policy.

The lunatics are clearly running the asylum.

Another feminist hero who found a place on the new Expert Panel is veteran Anne Summers, who obviously also has it in for Our Watch.

Most of the Expert Panel are now openly lined up against Our Watch – promising troubled times ahead for this key body which so long has controlled the domestic violence narrative and funding in Australia.

Yet we mustn’t get carried away thinking any of this means these critics are actually going to come to their senses and look at what the international evidence says about prevention of domestic violence.

It is a good start that Hill and Slater admit that shaming males isn’t working as primary prevention: “Telling men and boys that if they make sexist jokes, or fail to challenge the attitudes of their mates, they are personally responsible for the physical and sexual violence, or homicides committed by other males has not proven a compelling or successful argument.”

But the fact remains that none of these players recommend tossing out efforts to change male attitudes. Prof Slater is on the Advisory Group of the White Ribbon Australia, which is responsible for shaming boys in schools and running male-bashing workshops in endless organisations and workplaces.

With the new push against toxic masculinity, efforts to reform men are actually on the rise.

Note also that Slater, Hill and colleagues are still maintaining that tackling gender inequality is critical – they only concede that other approaches are necessary as well.

Listen to Anne Summers speaking at the Elsie Conference earlier this year: “I hope we can understand more about the monster we are confronting, and I hope this will lead us to rethink our approach. While gender equality is essential, it is not enough.”

And this mob only ever talks about violence against women. They never mention female violence. Women’s violence against men and against their own children never makes it onto the agenda.

The CEO of Our Watch, Patty Kinnersly has been busy this week appearing on Radio National and The Project, pretending she is not aware of her organisation ever suppressing data, and sticking to her guns claiming the key factors in predicting violence against women are sexism, gender stereotypes and disrespect for women. (See my article refuting her claims here.)

The one concession she has made is to acknowledge that alcohol and poverty are amongst various “reinforcing factors” that underpin the key driver of gender inequity.

The latest twist in this week’s excitement came with the release by Our Watch of a report card claiming that they have been successful in driving down domestic violence: “The national tracker from Our Watch, the national organisation for preventing violence against women and their children, found a significant 66% decline in women killed by men’s violence over the past three decades, and a decline in the harmful attitudes that drive violence over the past 20 years.”

Hmm, talk about a desperate strategy.

The claim that Our Watch’s primary prevention strategy has been successful in driving down incidents of domestic violence was obviously designed to ward off the critics.

EPIDEMIC

But it will really piss off the rest of the industry which relies on claims of an ever-growing epidemic of violence to keep raking in the government funding.

Plus, it was destined to get up the nose of the media who supports this feminist industry.

It was most amusing hearing an interview with Patty Kinnersly on Radio National this week when the host, Patricia Karvelas, grilled Kinnersly through gritted teeth about how she could possibly claim decreased violence given the current epidemic of domestic homicides. Karvelas’ irritation was very telling.

It’s all hogwash, of course.

The domestic violence industry is constantly manipulating the rates of domestic violence by moving the goal posts – expanding the definition of violence to include coercive control, for instance.

Or making changes to family law which further incentivise false allegations. None of this does anything to protect genuine victims of violence, and certainly increases the risk of suicide for falsely accused men. Current policies are killing people, men and women.

As for Prof Salter….

When he’s not throwing grenades into the domestic violence industry, he’s recently been busy trying to clean up after another feminist meltdown. His good friend Grace Tame, sexual abuse victim and former Australian of the Year, has been forced to step down as CEO of her charitable foundation.

The Australian newspaper cites “a donor backlash over its questionable governance and a half-hearted leadership style that left a scattered strategy and produced few tangible results for sexual abuse survivors”.

Amazingly, Salter is the Grace Tame Foundation director, clearly someone who should have known that this charity was running off the rails.

He has apparently been making it known around town that Tame will soon cease in the position and recruitment efforts will begin to identify a successor.

Our captive media is, as expected, ignoring this important story about the fall of this feminist icon.

I remember years ago asking a well-known journalist why no one bothered to properly investigate Grace Tame’s story.

He laughed and said that to expose Tame would be like “killing Bambi”. A career-ending move for any journalist.

But the good Professor Michael Salter certainly gets around.

It turns out he is also on the Expert Advisory Group of the eSafety Commissioner where we find another prominent feminist, Julie Inman Grant, totally running amok.

The man seems to have a talent for getting involved with women who mean trouble.

I’m tempted to suggest he might consider a new project – on toxic femininity.PC

– Bettina Arndt