00:00:00:06 - 00:00:04:02 [Chelsey Taylor] Welcome to today's webinar on the power of community sport to prevent gender-based violence presented by our watch. My name is Chelsey Taylor. I’m the Sport Implementation Lead at Our Watch, and I'm joined by Jemma Taylor Cross, our manager for Prevention Implementation in Sport. We are so excited to bring an insightful conversation on sports role and violence prevention from people who are actively working in the community sports sector to prevent gender-based violence. We'll be taking questions in the chat box. However, we may have limited time to address these today, and as a result we’ll collate the questions and provide our audience with a FAQ sheet after this webinar along with the recording. We would like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we meet across Australia today. For me, that's the lands of the people of the Kulin nation who have never ceded their sovereignty, and we pay our respects to Aboriginal Elders, past, present, and future, as well as acknowledge any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may be joining us today. We acknowledge the decades-long work and advocacy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in working to prevent and address violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.

Our Watch is the national leader in the prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia. We work to embed gender equality and prevent violence where Australians live, learn, work and socialise. Our Watch is an independent, not-for-profit organisation established in 2013 by the Victorian and Commonwealth Governments. Since then, all state and territory governments have joined as members. In sport, Our Watch has developed the Equality and Respect in Sport Framework which addresses, or which provides rather, tools and resources to sporting organisations to use to implement prevention activities. We also work closely with national sporting organisations, professional sporting clubs, athletes, sports media, stadiums and major events to build capacity for gender equality and spread prevention messaging in and through sport nationally.

We know that violence against women is widespread across our society and touches the lives of many people. If the topics discussed today raise any concerns for you, there are a number of useful services that you can contact for support, including 1800RESPECT, that is, 1800 737 732, which is the National Sexual Assault Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service. The Men's Referral Service, which provides assistance for men seeking support about relationships, anger or mental health. And Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples can also contact 13YARN, on 13 92 76. I would now like to introduce Jemma Taylor Cross, the Manager of Prevention Implementation in Sport at Our Watch, who will provide an overview of the power of community sport to prevent gender-based violence.

00:03:21:23 - 00:03:45:15 [Jemma Taylor Cross] Thanks so much, Chelsey and hello everyone. I would also like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands that I'm coming to you from today, the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. Thank you for your interest in today's important topic. Before we get into our exciting panel discussion today, we thought it would be helpful to provide a brief introduction to the power of community sport to prevent gender-based violence.

There's been some fantastic steps towards gender equality and visibility in Australian sport over recent times. We've seen the continuous growth and promotion of the AFLW, NRLW and A-League Women's competitions, pay equality for the Australian Rugby Sevens and Australia's female cricketers inching closer to equal pay after a landmark deal announced last year. And with our mighty Matildas smashing viewership records, selling out stadiums and inspiring a new generation of girls to play football, there is no doubt that there is significant shift in momentum for women's sport in Australia.

But despite the significant gains continuing to be made for women's sport, women's voices and representation remain a minority. Discrimination, disrespect and gender inequality still happens across our sporting community, from national sporting organisations and professional clubs all the way through to the grassroots community clubs. The most recent National Community Attitudes Survey found that 91% of people thought that violence against women is a serious problem in Australia. But only 47% thought that it was a problem within their own suburb or town. However, statistics show the violence happens to women across all socioeconomic backgrounds and in all communities across Australia. One in three Australian women has experienced physical violence by a partner or other known persons since the age of 15. One in four has experienced emotional abuse by a current or former partner. One in five has experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. And half of all Australian women have experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime. So statistically, it is likely that there are women within your clubs, your friendship groups, or your families who have experienced or are currently experiencing violence, abuse or sexual harassment. You may not be aware it is happening, similar to when people experience mental health or other personal issues, as it isn't always obvious and can often be hidden as people try to put on brave faces in public.

So, what causes violence against women to occur? Well, the evidence tells us that violence against women is driven by gender inequality, and there are specific ways in which gender inequality manifests that contribute to cultures and environments where violence against women is more likely. These are what we call the gendered drivers of violence against women by attitudes, values and behaviours that we have all learned over time. They happen everywhere across our society, including within our households, friendship groups, workplaces, in the media, religion, schools, universities and within sport. And because they happen everywhere, each and every one of us can impact and influence these drivers. We see examples of these drivers play out across our sporting communities. For example, sporting clubs may contribute to the excusing or condoning of violence against women by failing to take reports of sexual harassment seriously or not having adequate policies and processes to address reports when they are made.

Across sport and in many other industries, women are still widely under-represented in leadership and governance positions. We still hear those rigid gender stereotypes about what it means to be a man or a woman, reinforced from the sidelines each week, with some coaches still telling boys to “stop kicking like a girl” or to “man up and stop being soft”. In some communities, girls are discouraged from playing at all because it isn't seen as ladylike or out of fear that they might get hurt. And across some clubs, there is still an underlying culture that accepts the locker room as an inner sanctum, where men disrespecting and objectifying women as a way of bonding with each other is passed off as a bit of harmless banter. When these disrespectful and unequal attitudes, behaviours and structures go unchallenged, it creates a culture in which violence against women is more likely. If we think about it like an iceberg, it's what sits beneath the surface, creating the foundations for violence, abuse, and harassment to occur. And while not all disrespect and inequality leads to violence, all violence starts with inequality and disrespect. It is critical to remember that gender inequality also intersects with other forms of discrimination and oppression to shape how different people experience violence and inequality. This includes racism, ableism, ageism, classism, homophobia, and transphobia, to name a few. We need to consider and address these many intersecting forms of inequality that women face in order to effectively prevent violence against all women. If gender inequality is at the heart of the problem, it means that gender equality is at the heart of the solution.

So why is this an issue for sport? Well, because it's everybody's issue. It will take the whole community for us to change these underlying factors that allow violence against women to occur. Sport is an integral part of Australian culture. It is woven into the fabric of everyday lives of many Australian individuals, families, and communities. Sport has the power to influence attitudes and behaviours, and so it is an important place where real change can be made. Sporting organisations and clubs have an important role to play in promoting gender equality and ultimately preventing violence against women. Every conversation, policy and action within your club or organisation has the potential to either reinforce or challenge gender inequality and the kinds of attitudes that drive it. Sporting organisations and clubs have an incredible opportunity to influence culture within their community, including with players, parents, volunteers, officials, sponsors, supporters, and other partners. Not only does sport have significant influence, but there's also a growing expectation across our society that all organisations, including sporting organisations and clubs, will be proactive in taking action to achieve gender equality.

As a society, we want our sporting clubs to have cultures that are equal, safe and welcoming for all people. And it isn't just the right thing to do. There is also a strong business case for sporting organisations and clubs to take on this work. For clubs, increasing gender equality and diversity and inclusion more broadly leads to increased attraction and retention of players, both male and female. More members and supporters. Increased attraction and retention of volunteers and officials. Diverse voices and perspectives around the table which will enhance the overall club productivity and success in the game and increase the attraction of sponsors and partners seeking to connect with and invest in clubs aligned to their own organisational values.

So how can sporting organisations do this work? Well, everyone involved in sport, whether they're a board or committee member, CEO, manager, coach, player, official, parent, volunteer, or fan, can play an important role in preventing violence against women. To do this, sporting organisations, clubs and individuals can take actions such as showing leadership by setting a standard of zero tolerance towards all forms of disrespectful attitudes, language, and discriminatory behaviour in your sport, providing opportunities and pathways for a diverse range of women and girls to participate at all levels of your sport. Promoting women's voices and perspectives equally with men's in your organisation, using communications, social media, and events to demonstrate your commitment to gender equality, both inside and outside the club or organisation. Reviewing how safe, welcoming, equal and inclusive your club or organisation is for women. For example, surveying your members about their experiences, reviewing your policies and club facilities, and developing an action plan to identify opportunities for improvement. Leaders can use their public profile to draw attention to how gender inequality intersects with other forms of inequality. For example, condemning forms of violence experienced by First Nations women or women with disabilities, or calling out the use of homophobic or transphobic language on the sports field or in your club community. Providing training and information to your club or organisation so everyone understands their role in preventing violence against women is also a good option.

So, in a moment, we will hear from some organisations and clubs who are doing important work to build gender equality and address the drivers of violence against women in community sport in our panel discussion. I hope they will provide some inspiration to help you get started in this important work. You can also find out more about the power of sport to prevent violence against women, including a range of tools and resources for sporting organisations on the Our Watch Equality and Respect in Sport website, which is www.sport.ourwatch.org.au. I encourage you to consider the role that your organisation and club can play in leading this change, because a sporting club could be the one place that a woman, young woman or girl feels safe, like she could be herself. It might be the one place where she sees healthy relationships between men and women being modelled. It might be where she's encouraged to try new things or take on different roles and just be valued for who she is. And it might be the one place where she chooses to reach out for help. By becoming more gender equal, your sporting organisation and club can be part of the solution to end violence against women. The more gender equal our world is, the more women are valued as a group, the less likely violence will be to occur. I’ll now hand back over to Chelsey who’s going to introduce our fantastic panel. Thank you.

00:13:27:15 - 00:13:43:06 [Chelsey Taylor] Thank you so much, Jemma. And I am thrilled to introduce our incredible panel of community sport experts who are doing some wonderful work in the prevention of violence against women.

First up, we have Gabe Smith, who is the Secretary of the Mount Alexander Falcons. She is a Falcons committee member and recognises the social and health benefits of community and inclusion in sport as a player, a parent, and in her work as a physiotherapist. The Mount Alexander Falcons is an Australian Rules Football club in Castlemaine, Victoria, created for and led by women and gender-diverse people. The club is guided by principles, including creating a safe culture, establishing a welcoming club atmosphere, leading by example with their values and ensuring a diverse and resilient membership. At the core of the Falcons is a mission to get women and gender-diverse people playing footy and bringing a welcoming community together. A community where all people can thrive through sport on and off the field. Welcome, Gabe.

Next up we have Alan Tounge, who is the Community Innovation Programs Manager at the NRL. Born and raised in Tamworth, New South Wales, Alan was selected for the Canberra Raiders on a junior rugby league scholarship in 1999 and made his first-grade debut against the Brisbane Broncos in 2000. Throughout his stellar 13-year career with the Raiders, five of which he served as Captain, Alan tallied more than 200 matches and was named Lock of the Year and Captain of the Year at the 2008 Dally M Awards. Alan first became an NRL ambassador in 2012 and today is NRL Community Program Deliverer. He has been the face of the NRL Voice Against Violence program, which uses its powerful voice to help raise awareness of and prevent violence against women and children. Welcome, Alan.

Our third panelist is Dave Burt from SALT and Dave is the founder of SALT's Sport and Life Training, which is a not-for-profit health education provider that has delivered thousands of sessions into hundreds of sporting clubs, businesses and schools. Over the years, Dave has co-designed dozens of courses around wellbeing and mental health, culture and leadership, drugs and alcohol, healthy masculinity, respect and equality, sport and identity, and more. Dave was a successful sportsman in his day, as well as a teacher, coach, counsellor and chaplain. Before forming SALT, Dave attended seven sporting clubs after they had lost people to suicide. The recurring message in each club was “We never saw it coming.” This led Dave to begin SALT so that people could have the essential conversations they needed to have in the places they felt most connected to, their local sporting clubs.

And finally, Charlie King, the founder of the No More program within Catholic Care NT. Charlie King OAM AM is an Indigenous Australian sports commentator and award-winning anti-family violence campaigner. He has spent decades working in community development, juvenile justice, child protection and family violence across the Northern Territory. Charlie has a unique perspective on the strengths and challenges that face his community. As a Gurinjdi man whose mother was born in Limbunya Station and grew up in the Khalin Compound, Charlie carries the legacy of the Stolen Generation. Charlie has been on the ABC since 1990, hosting Grandstand and commentating on various sports, including Australian Rules Football and cricket. Charlie was the first Indigenous Australian broadcaster to commentate at an Olympic Games in Beijing 2008. Charlie has been working in partnership with Catholic Care NT since 2006, developing men's programs and the No More campaign. No More partners with the community, especially sporting codes, to raise awareness and reduce domestic and family violence.

Now, I will hand over to our panelists to tell us about their experience within community sport and its role in preventing violence, starting with Gabe. Tell me about your experiences with community sport and how that works towards preventing violence against women.

00:17:51:21 - 00:18:15:06 [Gabe Smith] Thanks, Chelsey, and thanks to Our Watch for having me today to represent the Falcons and thank you all the participants for tuning in today. First of all, I'd like to acknowledge that I'm joining you from the Unceded lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung people, and that's in Central Victoria. So as Jemma spoke about earlier with the statistics, gender-based violence is an epidemic, but it's often an invisible problem. So, it can be easy to think that this is not a problem that's relevant to your own club or organisation. While some populations are at an increased risk, no community is immune to gender-based violence. So, everyone in the community has a role to play in preventing it.

And as also Jemma said, we know that all gendered violence sits on a spectrum with gender inequality and that is something that can be tangibly tackled. So even though we don't explicitly talk about our prevention work at the Falcons, we know that by driving gender equity we are doing prevention. That said, there are times when we do explicitly talk about the link between gender equity and prevention. For example, during the 16 days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence and in our Gender Equity and Inclusion Action Plan.

So, the Falcons is a football club in regional Victoria, and historically Australian Rules Football has been a man's world and a place where sexist jokes and attitudes were not only permissible, but there was celebrated, which thankfully is changing. We've seen the rise of and the huge success of AFLW and all of the other sporting codes, women's sport just taking such a massive leap in recent years and that's obviously starting conversations and changing minds about the place of women within football, which is no longer the canteen. It's everywhere from the playing field to the boardroom. However, there's still a way to go.

So, we recently had training in our club on how to be an active bystander and call out the disrespectful behaviours and attitudes, the things that Jemma was alluding to earlier. There are lots of organisations offering such training, which gives really practical strategies on how to deal with this in everyday situations. Other examples that we've seen that are important to us in driving gender equity is that the league that we play in was last year a brand-new women's competition attached to a long-standing men and juniors league. And this league offers the women's competition the same access as the men to a full suite of game day statistics. It's that sort of investment in the women's game while it is still developing that communicates a commitment to gender equality at a time where we often see women's sport being handed the leftovers of resources, grounds and facilities. At our club, which is for women and gender-diverse people, we have a fantastic bunch of volunteers, including many men, which is heartening to see given the way that women's labour has propped up men's community sport for such a long time. And we've seen in our club that when gender equality is at the heart of the club’s mission that flows onto the off-field behaviour of both our spectators and the opponents. We get a large number of families attending our home games, which is helped by the fact that we run kids activities to draw those people to our games. But the feedback that we've had is that a Falcons game is all the good aspects of country footy without any of the misogyny. And that is a direct quote. We've also had great feedback from umpires and opposition coaches that they've never seen such an atmosphere at a footy game and that's because we've positioned ourselves as a stand-alone club, unapologetically centring gender equality.

We've been able to bring new people to footy, bring back people to the game who have walked away because of the harmful culture in footy. And hopefully we're bringing along with us other clubs who also value gender equality but are working within established and traditional clubs. So, the more people we can get involved in the great sport of footy, the better. For lots of health and social reasons, but not the least of which being that sport's an amazing vehicle to reinforce those positive community standards about respect and equality. Just as Jemma told us earlier.

00:22:13:18 - 00:22:42:08 [Chelsey Taylor] Beautiful. Thanks, Gabe, and love hearing about the broader community impact that can happen when we centre gender equality within our sporting environments in clubs. Thank you so much for sharing. I'm going to throw to Alan now. Please tell us about your experiences with community sport through your NRL programs and the role that has in preventing violence.

00:22:42:08 - 00:23:07:02 [Alan Tongue] Thanks, Chelsey, and the Our Watch family. I'm coming to you from Ngunnawal country down here in Canberra, also home of the mighty Canberra Raiders as well. I had to throw that in there, but I want to pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging too. One of the big things that I've probably experienced out of getting involved in the community sport is probably the untapped potential that sometimes the clubs don't really understand that they have.

And I'll share a story from when I first got involved in this work. I went out to a community that had been suffering. They had a young lady had lost her life in the community only a couple of weeks before we went out there and we were holding the workshop in town, trying to get as many people as we could to come along. And we only had one man attend the workshop and it really didn't sit well with me and we know the statistics and perpetrators of violence, 95% of the time, are men and we wanted to look at where we could have this conversation with men. And when we chatted around the community, where was the best place to get in front of men? That's at your local sporting club. You've got 30, 40 of them coming down to training tonight and these are men of influence, not just in the sporting sphere, but now it's in their homes and in their workplaces. People come to watch them on the weekend. And so really trying to educate the clubs about the importance and of the role that they have is a big, big learning curve for us.

But we needed to, we really needed to, as a game, look at ourselves first. And so, I think our community clubs take a lot of inspiration and learnings from the major codes. And so, as a game, we really needed to look hard at ourselves first before we tried to go out and, you know, run programs in our community clubs. So, it was really looking at ourself first and making some changes. And have we got it all right? No, we haven't. We still need to continue to do more, and we've committed to doing that, but we really needed to get that right before we went out and asked our community clubs to come on board with us and help develop these programs.

And so that was, that’s some of the experiences I’ve learned. And then to put it into a bit of a footy context, I suppose, we have a pre-season and in season and then an off season and the pre-season is obviously a bit of a hard slog and often this is the hardest bit in our community clubs is getting that first workshop or getting in there. But once we get through that first little bit and they're off and running and so that's been a real big experience, a learning curve for me. But once they understand that the role that they have, you know, the world's your oyster with where you can take the messages.

00:25:44:00 - 00:26:10:06 [Chelsey Taylor] Great, thanks, Alan, for that introduction. And so many amazing points touched on there as well, from the untapped potential of our sporting environments through to just being willing and able to make mistakes, but learning how to be in this space and that journey that goes on. I'm going to throw to Dave now. What about your experiences in community sport?

00:26:10:08 - 00:26:42:15 [Dave Burt] Yeah, thank you. And I come to you from Wurundjeri land where I'm grateful to live here and I pay my respects too to Elders past, present and future. My experience growing up was I had a dysfunctional family. It wasn't particularly happy. Even school I didn't love. But my local sporting clubs where I played cricket and footy and baseball were places that I longed for all through the week. I just dreamt of going to practice and then playing on the weekends. And that was largely because the people who I played with cared about me and as I started playing senior sport, the older players took me under their wing. I had a few behavioural problems and they helped. They were well-meaning men. And I listen to what Alan just said a minute ago about that untapped potential. These were good men doing the best that they could, but they didn't really know some of the negative influences that they were having on me because, while they wanted to be good.

I think history throughout sporting clubs as you mentioned, Gabe, had set the tone that this is how men act. And I remember going on a cricket trip at about the age of sixteen with a bunch of older cricketers to a country town, and it was an end-of-season trip, and the idea was just to drink and I'd hardly had a drink before. And so, I started drinking with these older men and then I just threw up and I was really sick and they parked me on a toilet and checked in every now and then to see if I was okay. But I remember sitting there and thinking, I'm going to have to learn how to drink, because I knew as a young, and I was an aspirational cricketer, that this was the expectation that was on me. I knew what it meant to have to be a man. And then I grew up and had kids and they started playing sport and I had this sense of disquiet that I loved so much about sporting clubs, and we all know the wonderful health benefits that they bring to our kids. But I knew too, that they were going to go through some sort of similar experience to that that I had, and that in their desire to be the best that they could, that some people were going to try and lead them down a different path. And this was just an accepted kind of a blind spot within sporting clubs.

And so as was mentioned in the introduction, I had a period of time where I was leading what was called Sports Chaplaincy Australia, in Victoria, and I went to seven clubs that experienced suicides within their clubs. And at every club I went to I heard a very similar message and that was “We never saw it coming.” Now here were these men in every case who clearly loved each other, were very committed to each other and the calibre of conversations that we had after that crisis, it hit every club, was extraordinary. There was vulnerability and openness. And this was because this crisis had brought on a change in attitude and a need to act differently. But I recognised what you said earlier, Alan, about the potential that exists in men to want to be better. And sometimes there needs to be a crisis to instil that. And when we heard the statistics earlier about domestic violence, we know there is a crisis in our country, but it's a much more covered up crisis than something like a suicide that was so clear and relevant at the time to them. And I started SALT as a way to try and have real conversations in clubs. And what we've found and I'll talk more about this later, is that men want to be the best that they can. And I heard Gerard Whateley on the radio this morning and he said, “History is not just a study of the past, it's an explanation of the present.” And we try to go into clubs and get them to look at the history and to celebrate the things that went really well. But to recognise too that we've been set on a course and, and you talked about this earlier, Gabe, where we don't just accept certain kinds of behaviours, we actually celebrate them.

And we do a course for clubs called Clubs with Heart. And it's about becoming the best that you can be. We had a club do this session, and for every outward sign, this was a club that was, that really had its act together and if you looked at their website, you would see that they have vision and mission statements and then they had committees in all the things that matter. And yet I'm going up there to work with this club because behind the scenes have been some horrific actions towards women that have been driven by five men in particular who have felt like they are immune from accountability. And we're going to have to really do a hard work within that club, because often they can appear to look like they're really heading in the right direction. So, I'll finish that up there. But I feel like, as has been said, the sporting Club has a tremendous role to play and will play it if guided in the right way. And we find those people within the club who have that potential to want to be those champions of change. Thanks.

00:30:45:16 - 00:31:17:17 [Chelsey Taylor] Brilliant. Thanks, Dave. And really important to highlight that potential of sport and the ability of sport to exemplify and set the tone for how we act in society and in our worlds. Thank you so much. I will throw to Charlie now to tell us about your brilliant work in community sport and prevention of violence, please Charlie.

00:31:17:19 - 00:31:50:16 [Charlie King OAM AM] G’day Chelsey, thanks very much. I speak to you from the lands of the Larrakia people here in Darwin. I’m a Gurinjdi person, that's my tribal connection and I'm proud of Gurinjdi people. Just a little bit of history, I worked with the Aboriginal Community Work Program in 1980 for a number of years and what was driving that work was about empowering communities, engaging the communities to empower them to deal with the issues that they think were important. And so, I got an opportunity to travel around the Territory back in 2006 to talk to Indigenous men across the Northern Territory about something completely different, about pornography. Did they understand the classifications? But I knew when I went out that men did not get involved in conversations around family bonds and those sorts of sexual issues that happened in their community. And I knew that that would be something we'd talk about but because I was at the time broadcasting footy on television around the Northern Territory, the community knew me when I turned up. So, they didn't want to talk about anything except what the footy was. Whatever sport was. We'd always have a conversation about that, that that would lead us to having a discussion at the end of those sessions, around domestic violence. And why is it that men don’t talk about it and they said an important thing to me. A couple of things are important, but one of them was, we are the problem, we are solution. Now, I never forgot that. And I still believe that today, but that's where the solution lies in those men and I’ll talk about later on about how some of those men in the prisons here in the Northern Territory to talk about some of those issues.

But they were strong men and they came up with a comment to me that also stuck with me, at Yuendumu when I visited there. People might know Yuendumu, it's the land of the Warlpiri people, it’s a big community, and we talked about family violence and the issues. And an old man got up after I told him that time that there were 500,000 acts of violence against women happening in Australia. I said 500,000. I wrote it on the board, and I said to them, “That means if you're playing football for an hour, sixty more victims of family violence, sixty more victims”. And an old man got up and he walked towards me and he shook his finger in front of my eyes, and he said, “No more, no more.” And I knew what ‘no more’ meant and I asked for someone that I was looking for that I hadn’t seen, I said, where’s that old man that say “finished, no more, he's gone.” So, I knew what they meant with ‘no more’ and I told other men about that that said “Those old Warlpiri men said no more to family violence. What do you think?” And then another old man-made Ned Hargraves, he’s still alive, he lives at Yuendumu. He said to me, “All men should link up”. When I was driving back to Alice Springs I thought two strong statements there, ‘no more’ and ‘all men should link up’ and the idea came that maybe men should link up at sporting events to show big commitment to stand against family violence. They convinced me that they wanted to do more. They weren't saying they didn't want to do it. They just wanted to know more about it. You know, the tyranny of distance around the Northern Territory makes our work more difficult than it is in any other parts of Australia, to get to some of that remote communities, where there are high levels of family violence, is very difficult to do so. And you would need so much more funding to allow you to do that sort of work. But these men were strong, and they carry that message with them. And I’ve spoken about it many times since then.

But the other idea that we came up with after having those discussions with those men was to have something called a DVAP, a Domestic Violence Action Plan. So those plans were written by the communities themselves, by those footy teams themselves. And we actually worked with them to implement what they want in those Domestic Violence Action Plans. And so, what’s central to those plans is it's what the community itself wants to do about that particular issue, not for us to tell them what they should do. It's us saying them, “What is it you want to do? And how do you want to do it? What help do you need from us?” Because if they have ownership of it, they'll probably do a much better job than me going out there saying, “Here we are to fix the problem.” Because once we drive away, it's all forgotten. So DVAPS or Domestic Violence Action Plans, their very much at the heart of what we do. We've used it in many clubs here in the Territory.

I've got to mention here the great support we get from some of the sporting codes we’re worked with over the years, who really want to do work in this space and they just need help and we need more and more people working doing this sort of work. But I think they do a great job because they know what they want to do, they write their plans, and we want to work with them in future and make sure they can have more and more organisations and sporting clubs have these plans that clearly outline what they want to do. And I meet people like Alan Tounge, who came up to Darwin. We've sat with him and had chats with him, so it'd be good to talk to you and see the great work you're doing. But, Dave, listening to you, I’m inspired by what you’re talking about. Gabe, you as well. Gives us hope that there a lots of great people in Australia doing good work, and we need to do more of it.

Look, I'm going to leave it there but I just want to say this at the end. I just did a little Google this morning and said, how many people in Australia are involved in sport? 13 million adults and 3 million children. So that's 16 million people involved in sport. Imagine if we can move all of those to be doing more in sport to stop violence. What a difference it would make. That's the challenge in front of us, of course we don't have those figures in Darwin, but they’re the figures. So, Chelsey, I’ll leave it there, and we’ll talk a bit more later on.

00:37:43:22 - 00:38:08:11 [Chelsey Taylor] Beautiful, Charlie, thank you. And so inspiring hearing you talk about the work that you've done previously, and the power we have moving forward and the potential of our sporting communities to come together to say no more, to link up in these spaces, some really key points and things that hopefully we can take with us moving forward. What we will talk about next, and in particular with you, Alan, through the Voice Against Violence program, what are some of the key learnings and outcomes you've seen in community sport through delivering this program?

00:38:40:07 - 00:39:07:06 [Alan Tounge] Yeah, I think one of the big things that we found right at the start was where we could make the most gains, I suppose. We looked around at what was already delivered in community, and we also knew right from the word go getting involved in this that we couldn't be everything to everyone. And so, we just wanted to play our part and we wanted to be backed up with expert partners to help us on this. Now we aren’t the complete experts in and around domestic violence, but we've got experts on board. We’re the experts in our rugby league clubs. And so that was a really big piece for us to connect those organisations in with our sporting club. But early on when I first started in this work, one of the key learnings that I found was how important it was for our young people and mainly with younger men I'm working with too, but the power of the language of sport and how that connected the message to them really importantly.

So, I had seen some other organisations go in and I’d observed some others going down to footy training to bring in a domestic violence program and then all of a sudden, it’d be death by PowerPoint and they knew it was coming back the following year and you wouldn't have too many people coming along to the workshop. And so, we really needed to change the way that we interacted and delivered the message. And so that was a real key learning for me to be able to do that. Meeting them at a local training night, going to their venue in a place where they feel comfortable, even though we might be having an uncomfortable conversation, was a real key learning for me and also just making sure that you're really adaptable and have every, every little trick you can up your sleeve has been something that I've had to learn along the way. Sometimes you're doing it under a street light, sometimes you're doing it outside around a little bonfire or a fire pit or something, and other times you got the best PowerPoint facilities that you've, you know, whatever that might be. But using that common language of sport to be able to connect with our audience has been really such an important way to do it. In fact, we deliver half of our workshop out on the rugby league field doing rugby league activities and drills that stay behind with the club and reinforce the message. So bringing that, well, we've gone from, you know, we have to cap our sessions because so many people come down because of the, you know, the footy that's involved and we don't want to overburden our clubs too.

I think that's one of the barriers that sometimes face against us, that they’re volunteers and there's more, we don't want to do that. We come in with a really clear and simple message. We give them some simple wins, we connect the dots with our other organisations around and support them. Like Charlie's work too, we come up with an action plan, but we just help them with some of those simple things that they can do to get on board and really try and bring in those local services around the town. So, when we leave, they still have those local services that they can reach out to that they can talk to.

00:41:37:19 - 00:42:07:04 [Chelsey Taylor] That's brilliant, Alan. The things that are standing out in the bit of a yarn we're having here is just the meeting people where they're at. And it doesn't have to be overwhelming and it can be done in a creative and adaptable way where we use the common language and the common power that we know sport can bring into these groups. Yeah, really appreciate what you're saying there as well. And I think this links really nicely into some of the work that's happening over at SALT in the grassroots space as well. And Dave, I’m particularly interested in some of the key outcomes you see with your community clubs in particular through your healthy masculinities programs and those types of activities. Are you able to talk to us a bit more about those outcomes?

00:42:33:13 - 00:42:55:09 [Dave Burt] Yeah, look, I'm feeling really privileged just listening to what the other speakers are saying and to pick up on, you know, what Alan said and what you just reiterated there about not over-burdening in the context of their situation. When we go in and speak to them, I guess similar to you, Alan, we know that their two favourite subjects, their two favourite subjects are themselves and their sport. And if we can intertwine a conversation around something that they're already passionate about and then find the links, then we're working in a direction where people are pulling in the same direction.

I've seen a massive change in the past ten years. When we started SALT ten years ago, I don't think there was very much awareness at all around the greater impact that sporting clubs can have on some of the issues that we face as a society. It was very much about turning up and playing sport and having an escape almost from some of the expectations that society was putting upon people. But that's changed and it hasn't changed consistently. We had some clubs that are really aware of their greater purpose and some that are, you know, head in the sand, way we know that. So, it's not a consistent swing. But I wrote down a couple of things that I have seen change over the past ten years. First one is I think we've seen a movement towards clubs seeing their bigger picture. And I think particularly coming out of COVID and seeing the impact on kids. We've got kids today with a whole range of issues, with anxiety and eating disorders and self-harming and a whole range of things, and a worried generation of parents that this time invested into sport can now be something that can build within them resilience and good coping strategies and good worldviews. And they're more aware of that than they've ever been.

I think we've seen a movement away from the tough guy image. We still have them, but sometimes we'll find a great big guy in a club and he's got tattoos up the side of his head and yet there's a softness to him that he's now willing to reveal and an awareness due to, I think, good education programs that if you're inside the man box, and we all know that that phrase, that every single outcome for you is negative, you're overrepresented in traffic accidents and imprisonment, etc., etc.. And that that is a bad outcome for everybody else. So, there's not that real need there to be just in that group. We've seen a movement towards men in particular being willing to discuss real issues and women have always been willing to do that. And if we can go into a club, the more women there are in that club, typically the better the conversation is. And who are the leaders when it comes to the open conversation and the sharing and the vulnerability is normally the women who step up and lead in that way. In the clubs that we work in now, they are beginning to realise that the more women you have in your club, the better that environment is going to be for everybody. That didn't used to be the sense and we still know if we go into a club, and it's 100% men and there's not a woman to be found, that something probably is precluding them from coming. I think there's an almost healthy awareness or cynicism around some of the negative attitudes that an older generation is trying to cling onto. And we still hear the old guard saying, “We used to drink till midnight, and we’d drive home, and those were the good old days.” And today there's not that propensity for the younger generation to go, “Yeah, we want to be like you,” because they've seen that the outcomes haven't been all that positive. There is a movement towards active listening, but we have to teach people what active listening is and not to have your position fully formed, but to listen, to put yourself in the position of other people. We're getting better at that.

There is a movement towards a better understanding of just how much influence you have as a sports person, because we put sports people on a pedestal and we don’t put scientists and others on a pedestal, but we do if you're good at sport, and you might not deserve it, but you're going to have influence. So how are you going to use that? There is a greater freedom today, I think, for the alternative thinker to speak up, to be that champion in the room, to be that person who will be the first one to develop conviction, and nod and speak and inspire others to do the same. And I think there's a gradual overcoming of fear. The fear that if we move in this direction, we're going to lose something and a greater understanding that we're going to gain something, even though it's a little bit confronting to begin with.

And lastly, there's an understanding developing of what it means to be a true ally, and that's not to just give lip service, but to actually speak up in those difficult moments when something's happening that violates your sense of what's right, your values, etc.. So they're probably the main movements that I've seen in the past ten years.

00:47:28:12 - 00:47:56:09 [Chelsey Taylor] Yeah, brilliant. Thank you, Dave, and great to hear some of the changes and knowing we've still got a way to go, but we've made some great steps forward. My next question’s going to Charlie and really keen to understand what some of the ways community sport can utilise culturally safe approaches to preventing violence against women in sport.

00:47:56:11 - 00:48:19:03 [Charlie King OAM AM] Well, I think what's important is you've got to have that willingness to engage, to empower. That's really central to it. That the ownership for the problem, it's got to be there’s. They’ll come up with a solution for, not solutions that we think work, as I talked about before, I think it’s really important. But I want to say, Chelsey, if you don't mind, that some of those big events that happen, like, you know, Sorry Day, for instance. I think that's an opportunity, so that happens on the 26th of May, it’s Sorry Day. That in that Sorry Day there should be a component around raising awareness about violence that happens to Indigenous women. I think there's an opportunity to do it at those sorts of events that happen. And even the, you know, the anniversary of the apology, which is on the 13th of February coming up next week. I was looking through some of the events that are happening, but there's nothing in there that says anything about the violence against women. I think there's opportunity, through NAIDOC week, all those things that can actually drive home that message because Aboriginal women are many times, and I want to trot out, you’ll know what the stat is, but much higher, you know, time to finish up in hospital than what non-Indigenous women are, I think it's about 34% more likely that they’ll finish up in hospital.

So those are the areas that I think we need to be talking about. But just a couple of other things I want to say. And this is very much particularly out bush that Aboriginal people, men do not like to be seen as failures in the eyes of other men, that's what they don't like. And shame is a real big issue for them. And so we're going to have the opportunity do some work in our prisons in the Northern Territory and we're hoping to be able to work with a lot of the people who were held on remand to be able to raise awareness around family violence within, because we've found this as well. The more we talk about it, the more men start to understand it, the more likely they are to want to do something about why, because if the leaders emerge that are doing good things, and those that don’t do good things, they’ll wanna be seen, as I've said before, as failures in the eyes of other men, that will be driven home with them.

So the other thing we're doing is we want to challenge the language of sport. So we want to do away, really do away with the word ‘loser’, because culturally a ‘loser’ is something you can wear, not just having lost a game out on the field, you could be a loser in general which means you're not a good person, not seen as a good person. So I want to do away with ‘loser’ when we're talking about sport. One team wins when they go out to play and one team doesn't win. So we don't have to say ‘loser’ anymore, if ‘loser’ goes forever we will be really happy with that. There's so much more work to be done out there. But there are, I can tell you this, there are some strong, committed men. We want to engage with them and we want to be able to build capacity to make change for them in their own community.

And I think the brand is the other thing, that if you're playing for the Lightening, for instance, and you do something out on the field that gets you reported, you damage the brand. That's the message we say to them, you’re damaging the brand of your club or your team, so don't, and men don't want to do that. And we actually present something people who are viewing this might be interested in doing, that coming up is the Spirit of the Game Awards, so we have a medal that gets presented for a player that plays in the spirit of the game, not necessarily the best player, but the player who plays in the spirit, protects the brand of football itself, or whatever the sport is, that plays in the spirit of it. Those medals are seen really as something to win and people wear them with pride so we keep pushing that message.

00:51:48:24 - 00:52:24:02 [Chelsey Taylor] Brilliant, thanks, Charlie, and so many great points there around our need to shift the language that is normalised within our sport. Taking away any shame from having these conversations. It's a great place to start and it's not, it's a good thing for us to be talking about what we can do and start to move forward in these spaces and then acknowledging where we're at and protecting the brand that our sport has. We want to live by our values in our sport. We go out there and we work hard for our team and our teammates. So, bringing in that suggestion that by doing something that is not respectful is actually having a damaging effect on that team camaraderie and that brand that we go out and represent every weekend. Absolutely love that. Thank you very much. What I'm keen to understand more of now is some of those features from the Falcons that ensures a safe and equitable space for all peoples to engage in community sport. Love to hear your insights and experience there, Gabe.

00:52:49:14 - 00:53:20:20 [Gabe Smith] Thanks. So, we're an Australian Rules Football Club and we launched from scratch only midway through 2021. So, while lots of people were making sourdough, at least maybe in Melbourne, during lockdowns, a group of people in Castlemaine started a football club, as you do. So, our starting point was really carefully choosing our language. So, when we first began recruitment, we've always said that we were a club for women, girls and gender-diverse people in all our media and advertising. So, this communicates to gender-diverse people that ours is a safe club for them, but it also communicates to other potential members and that’s including cisgendered women and men, that we are putting gender equity at the centre of our focus as a club.

And the other key point of language uses is that we offer pronouns when introducing ourself at training, when we have new players or new people visiting. And I understand that this is something that can feel tricky to those for whom it is new, and Dave’s already spoken about that fear of change that we can sometimes feel, but we have had feedback from multiple players that our club’s the only place that they've ever felt genuinely able to be themselves.

And as we know, sports settings have a great potential to drive social change and to prevent gender-based violence. So too are these gender equitable environments also safer for people from LGBTQIA+ communities. We're also, very encouragingly, we've seen this ripple effect with such language change that we've made, also being taken up by both opponent clubs and clubs of other sporting codes in our local community. And we’ve all spoken about how sport can be this amazing vehicle to reinforce the positive community standards about respect and equality, particularly amongst men and boys. And I think we're all in agreement on this. And Alan, Dave and Charlie have all spoken about the potential that sports clubs have to do that, but it can also be an opportunity to extend those amazing areas of personal development that we all know that sport builds like empowerment, confidence building, leadership and teamwork skills and extend those opportunities to people who've historically been excluded from these environments.

And I've reflected often on the positive experiences and friendships that I've gained by being involved in sport since a young age. But I'm fortunate that it's always been easy for me to access these spaces. These opportunities, though, should be available for everyone, sport’s for everyone. So, we're always looking for ways to broaden and extend our reach. So, one of the ways we do this is working with our sponsors to subsidise membership fees in order to reduce financial barriers for people to play. We've secured funding to offer childcare at training and all home and away games for players and other volunteers or staff who are parents. We know that parenting responsibilities within our society still fall disproportionately upon women, and we don't want our member’s caring responsibilities to prevent their participation in sport. As we’ve said at the top of today, gender inequality is a driver of gender-based violence, and gender equality is at the heart of the solution.

Another thing the Falcons have been doing is running a fortnightly footy clinic over the last year at Tarrengower Women's Prison, in partnership with the Law and Advocacy Centre for Women and Charlie's spoken about work that he's done in that sort of area as well. So, we've seen some of the participants who've come along and have never played before, some of them are footy fanatics and they've really enjoyed the sessions run by the Falcons players and volunteers and coaches. We know that a community issue like gender inequality requires us all to work together as a community to address it and that includes for us reaching outside our little bubbles and inviting in people whom we otherwise might not interact with or cross paths with. So, these are all examples that demonstrate the importance of taking an intersectional approach to our work. We also use gender audits, surveys and consultation to understand what's needed to include everyone, and we try and avoid that death by PowerPoint, which can also be death by survey. But sometimes they're really handy and essential tools to know what we need to do. We're still small and we're still a new grassroots, community organised sporting organisation. Realistically, we only have the ability to have an impact within our local area. So, we also look for other ways to get the message out to a broader audience. In our first couple of years, we've offered several seminars on gender equity and the prevention of gender-based violence. And we make those available not only to our members but to the wider community. And then on a more national and international stage, we're really lucky to have some talented creatives at our club, which is taking our message a lot further.

So, Mitch Nivalis, who's one of our players and also a photographer and filmmaker, has made a feature-length documentary on our club following our first year and our battle to get into a league so that we could actually play. It's been getting rave reviews at film festivals here and plenty overseas also, and Mitch has taken the film on the road to public screenings. A lot of councils, local government councils are hosting screenings and other organisations within Victoria and a bunch of AFL clubs are jumping on board also. So, this is getting the message out in two directions. It's communicating the importance of gender equality and the power of inclusion in sport through this lens of football, but it's also recruiting plenty of new footy fans, so many of whom have never had an interest in football, largely because of the sexism and the gendered violence that has been associated with the sport. So, to see the film changing minds on both sides has been pretty fantastic to see.

00:58:39:18 - 00:59:13:10 [Chelsey Taylor] Awesome. Thank you so much, Gabe. There is so much great work happening at the Falcons there as well and some really tangible things that we can take away around subsidising childcare and providing environments and opportunities for our players and for our volunteers and members of the club that can take away some of that typically gendered burden and make sure that it is accessible for everybody involved. We're very close to wrapping up. So, in 30 seconds or less, each of our panelists are going to give us this one piece of advice around branching into this space. We know this work can be daunting for organisations and clubs, and there's this valid concern you might get it wrong or won't be perfect. And we're all on this continuous improvement journey. So, starting with Dave, what, in 30 seconds or less would you say to clubs hesitant about getting things wrong in this space?

00:59:38:06 - 01:00:04:22 [Dave Burt] I'd say the culture and expectations have changed. Clubs who don't change, who don't move in this direction, you will actually die. Half the population is women. We need our clubs to embrace, respect and care for women. This is not an unrealistic expectation. And if you do this, you’ll be partly responsible for saving and protecting lives, which means far more than another fading premiership flag on a wall.

01:00:04:24 - 01:00:19:05 [Chelsey Taylor] Brilliant. Thanks, Dave. And to Charlie, what is your 20 seconds-or-less piece of advice for our clubs?

01:00:19:24 - 01:00:36:05 [Charlie King OAM AM] Well, my call would be saying to sponsors, before you sponsor a club of any sort, ask them what work they're doing to prevent family violence and then decide whether you will sponsor them.

01:00:36:07 - 01:00:45:20 [Chelsey Taylor] Brilliant. Linking that into the sponsorship is really important there as well. Gabe, over to you.

01:00:45:07 - 01:00:59:20 [Gabe Smith] I think starting off with knowing you'll make mistakes, that's okay. But keep asking what's needed, keep listening to the answers. And to follow up on Charlie's point is follow the money. Our treasurer always says, have a look at your budget and it will tell you what you value. So, if you say that you value gender equality but you're spending more money on the men's programs per head than the women's, then closing that gap is a pretty good place to start.

01:00:59:21 - 01:01:19:16 [Chelsey Taylor] Absolutely. And great recommendation there as well, having a look at the books. And Alan, to finish this off.

01:01:19:18 - 01:01:42:18 [Alan Tounge] Yeah, thank you. I'll probably go from a program point of view. Little bit of a takeaway. But one of the key learnings for me is the bigger the game, the simpler the message needs to be. So, if you're thinking about running a program, keep it nice and simple. And then as a deliverer, so if somebody wants to go out in that space, it's not about knowing all of the answers. It's about empowering people to come up with the right answers and to create that culture that we all want. That's the role of a deliverer in this spice.

01:01:42:19 - 01:02:15:00 [Chelsey Taylor] Brilliant. Thank you so much. And thank you to all my panelists here today and to everyone listening in. It's amazing to start these conversations about the power we can have in sport to prevent gender-based violence. We can meet each other where we're at, start having these conversations with your peers and sporting clubs, seek support where you can and importantly talk to and actively listen to those people that you're trying to reach and trying to work with. And if you don't have anyone in that space, reach out outside your network and bring in those conversations and see what small, easy actions you can make and be willing to, be willing to learn, be willing to have a look and take a step forward from where you are today. I hope you all got something out of today’s webinar.

We'll be sharing a recording and an FAQ. Please also fill in our lovely survey. We'll also be hosting future webinar and I think Charlie's given us an ace idea for a webinar that we could run later in the year as well. So yeah, please give us your feedback. Please reach out to Our Watch if you do have any questions or would like to know more in this space and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you very much. Bye, everyone.