Where We're Failing: A Frank Conversation on Domestic Violence Prevention with Cassandra Kalpaxis

Speaker A: We are falling short in the way that our DV system is policed and it is so subjective, dependent upon your postcode, your economic status, your ability to be able to verbalise what is going on when you get to the station. It's almost like a checklist that you need to have before you go. And as a victim survivor, I could not imagine being more devastated then having the strength to go in and tell somebody what I was living through, only to be met with a dismissive attitude.

Speaker B: Welcome to Future Fit Leadership, a podcast for leaders at every stage who want to stay relevant in a world that keeps changing. Leadership has shifted. The pace is faster, the expectations are higher, and the future is calling for a different kind of leader. One who is human centered, grounded and able to balance capability with empathy. These conversations bring together global perspectives on the skills and mindsets that help people and organizations thrive. Hello and welcome to Future Fit Leadership. I hope wherever you are listening to this podcast, you are well. Today's episode goes to the place we don't talk about nearly enough domestic and family violence. Not just the headlines, not just the statistics, but the quite hidden everyday reality that far too many people are living with One woman a week is being killed in Australia, and that number has barely shifted in decades. And when you hear it, it's easy to feel overwhelmed or helpless, or to quietly hope it has nothing to do with your world. But here's the truth. It probably does. Because for every headline, there are countless stories that never make the news. Stories that live behind closed doors, in text messages that suddenly get shorter, in friendships that slowly disappear, in people who seem fine at work but are, uh, holding their breath at home. In this conversation, I sit down with family lawyer Cassandra Kalpaksis, and what struck me immediately was this. She does not talk about domestic violence as a concept. She talks about people, about fear, about control, and about the slow erosion of someone's sense of self. Cassandra shares that in her practice, around 95% of her cases now involve domestic violence. Not always physical, often invisible. Coercive control, financial abuse, emotional and psychological harm that leaves people doubting their own reality. We talk about the warning signs that friends, colleagues, leaders and families often miss. What support looks like when someone is not ready to leave. Why pressure can push people further into danger, not out of it. And why simply staying present can literally save a life. We also talk about where our systems are failing. Policing, early intervention, accountability, education, and the role workplaces and good men must play if we are serious about change. And not just the statements. This conversation also lands in the lead up to International Women's Day. And while RWD often asks us to celebrate progress, it also asks us to be honest about what has not shifted, about the systems that still fail women, about the violence that remains stubbornly present, and about the responsibility we all carry. Not just governments or advocates, but workplaces, communities, leaders, and men, to do more than acknowledge the problem. This is not an easy conversation to listen to, but it is an essential one. If you have ever worried about someone in your life, if you are supporting someone and do not know what to say or do, or if any part of this conversation feels uncomfortably familiar, uh, please stay with us. This episode discusses domestic and family violence. If this is something you need to sit out, that is completely okay. We will catch up with you next week. If you or someone you know needs support, confidential help is available, you can contact 1800Respect, which is 1-800-737-732, where support is available 24 hours a day. Here is my conversation with Cassandra Kalpaksis. Hello, Cassandra. Welcome to Future Fit Leadership. How are you today?

Speaker A: I'm really well excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker B: Looking forward to our conversation. I want to start first by asking you what were the earliest signs for you that you were going to go into law as a career? Because you didn't go and work anywhere else, you, you know, sort of kind of finished uni, went into chose law, finished it, and then opened up your own business. So I kind of read that and I go, did you actually have an inkling at a very young age that's what you wanted to do?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's always been the plan for me, I think. For me, I've really always enjoyed helping people, people who were, uh, in very difficult situations. I've always had a bit of a skill set for being able to read in between the lines of conflict. So when one party's trying to say something but the words actually aren't coming out properly, being able to unpack that and problem solve and get to the root of why they're there and what the solution might be has kind of always been something that I was good at and enjoyed. So, um, law, for me just kind of made sense with that skill set.

Speaker B: And so your business, Calpaxis Legal, you cover a whole range of, and particularly family law. Maybe give us a bit of a background on, on what you, what you do cover.

Speaker A: So we predominantly only do family law in my firm. Um, we do a range of different umbrellas off the family law topic, which include surrogacy fertility law, really complex international crossovers, but it's really at the root of it, families, individuals who are going through a separation with their relationships, their finances, and need somebody to help them navigate that. And that's really what we do. From what you, from what I've read

Speaker B: about you and how you speak about, uh, divorce and separation, you come at it from a very human lens, which I like. I think for all of us who've been through a divorce or separation, that's a really good place to come from. What does a good outcome look like versus a legal outcome?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. I think a good outcome, number one, is something that is family focused, so it meets the needs of everyone, including the children, Predominantly the children. It's something that people can live with. They might not be entirely happy with it, but can it work for them now and into the future? Yes. Is there great flexibility to be able to grow with the individual needs of the parties and the children, particularly if they're young or they're neurodiverse and being able to do that early and not having to spend lots and lots of money to get to that outcome. Sometimes a good outcome is a bit different to the legal outcome in that we bring in an array of different people to help us reach that outcome that are not adversarial. We're not pitting these experts against one another and saying, well, my expert's better than yours. It's really about this person's come in. They look at the entire situation and then globally provide everyone with advice that suits the family's needs, not just one individual party. And that's really my best case scenario for everyone who comes through where I say, if I was in your shoes, this is the way I would do it. This is how I think, um, you'll get the best outcomes. Where in 10 years time, when you're reflecting on your separation and you think, could I have done anything differently? You're probably going to have the least amount of regret.

Speaker B: Do you find that the lawyers on the other side are quite happy to work with you in that way? Because otherwise you end up spending all of the money that you're trying to split up and, you know, decide who gets what, it all gets spent on the lawyers. At the end of the day, I'm with you.

Speaker A: Um, there is either one or two different approaches that I get. I either pick up the phone and say, hi, I'm in this. And I get someone who says, oh, ah, amazing, this is going to go really well, or I get someone on the phone who goes, oh, I cannot believe I'm going to have to go down this different pathway than what I'm used to. And I don't really want to do that because it's clearly not in my best interest to do that. And I call that early with my client if I know that I've got a really aggressive, traditional family lawyer on the other side. You will inevitably get a phone call from me if you're my client, which says we're going to have to shift gears a little bit here to try and navigate this.

Speaker B: Hmm. I'm interested to find out the headspace of people who come to you, because I know that when I got divorced and I had, uh, a lawyer who did all of the paperwork and everything else for me, but I was in such a terrible emotional place that I was happy to sign off on anything because I just wanted it to all go away. And in hindsight, I probably should have done things a bit different. Not, you know, like the outcome was. Was fine. But I know that some of the decisions that I made came. Came from a space where I wasn't thinking clearly. Do you find that happens often?

Speaker A: That is, everyone, Can I say, because you're going through one of the most difficult experiences that a human being can ever go through, it is akin to the loss of a loved one. The grief cycle is exactly the same as grieving somebody who has passed away. So I think the human approach that I like to take is very aware of that. And when I have a client who comes in and I can pick it when it happens, and they say to me, I am over this, I will sign the papers tomorrow, bring them here. I do not care about the consequences. It is incumbent upon me, not only as a human being, but as your advisor, to say to you, we need to slow this right down right now. And I know that today is difficult, and I know that it's come off the back of a really difficult week or a month, but here are some things I want you to do before we even talk shop about what's going to happen with this settlement. And the first thing I want you to do is I want you to organize a meeting with a psychologist that I want to be in for the purposes of making sure that everyone is on the same page about you being in the right mental space to engage with me properly in terms of your instructions. M. The other thing I want you to do is I want you to go away and make me a list of, um, why your instructions now are going to Benefit future you in 10 years time.

Speaker B: Such a good exercise to do.

Speaker A: And more often than not with the benefit of saying there is no prejudice. If you take a week to get this deal done, I'm going to ring the other side and tell them that there's no problem, we just need a week. Most of the time I get someone who comes back and goes, nah, sorry, bad week, chatted it through, thought about it, you're right, I just need to pivot a little bit in the way that I'm coping with this. Or what I need is X, Y and Z and we get back on track. M. And I think a lot of the time, particularly in law, there is so much pressure. We just get the deal done, get them out the door, sign off on the dotted line and let's go. And that's not what it's about. That's not what we're in the business of.

Speaker B: Yeah, I want to talk about conscious uncoupling and it's a term that's become, you know, quite widely used. Um, was it Gwyneth Paltrow, who I think used it first a few years ago when she separated from. Can't remember the band's name, but Chris Someone.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Um, what does it actually look like?

Speaker A: I think it was quite visionary when Gwyneth came out and did it. And it's become so normalized. And I remember the backlash when she said it like, what a silly idea. But this whole idea of conscious uncoupling is really remembering when you got married to this person, the love, the respect, the admiration that you had for them that once triggered you to make a promise that you were going to spend the rest of your life with them. And bringing that same energy into the divorce space. We may not be the best friends right now, we may not agree on everything right now, but what we can agree on is at one stage, you loved me enough and I loved you enough to be able to enter into this agreement together. So bringing that same level of respect into the space of we now need to unravel this situation that we're in. But together, looking after each other's interests and prioritizing that to the extent that we don't become adversarial, bitter, angry, take advantage of one another, that is really what conscious uncoupling is about.

Speaker B: Are there any behaviors that show that couples are capable of it?

Speaker A: Definitely. When I have couples who come in and I can see how they operate, they are very much people who work really well as friends, there is still a very open level of communication between them, that they are very considerate of how a message is conveyed to the other party. They are very aware of tone. They are very aware of how it gets conveyed. They are the type of client who says to me, I do not want you to send a letter at first instance. I want to go home and have a conversation. Then I would like you to do X, Y and Z. They are the type of person who is very open to having somebody in to manage what is in the best interest of the children and receiving feedback. They are very emotionally mature people. More often than not. These are not people who have had infidelity in a relationship. More often than not. They're not people who have had some level of great mistrust. More often than not, they've just fallen out of love with one another. Their careers have taken them in different pathways. They've outgrown one another, and they've decided that they would just like to operate as friends for the benefit of the children. And they are really my favorite people to work with.

Speaker B: It's an easy process, the end result, because everybody wants to have a win, win outcome out of it, which is. Which is the way it should be.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And I think I get some people who come and see me and they say, you know, I want to be amicable. And I think, okay, I mean, that's really lovely that you want to do that, but you're dealing with somebody who is so treacherous. It takes two people. It takes people who are emotionally mature. That doesn't mean that you have to be adversarial. It just means that we need to be sensible about the way that we engage with this. And it's an expectation that everybody buys into the process. M sure we're not going to agree on everything, otherwise you wouldn't be getting divorced. But it's the way that those disagreements are handled that is the difference.

Speaker B: Um, I'm interested to know what advice you give people who come to you in terms of how they manage themselves at the office. Because any separation is charged with emotion and anxiety and fear and a whole range of things. And you take a lot of that back in the office as well. What's your advice for people in terms of how they manage themselves at the office?

Speaker A: So, working as a professional, it is really important for us to remember that A, we are not a mouthpiece for our clients. It is not for me to get embroiled in a dispute as a practitioner to the extent where I'm very emotionally invested. You don't want me emotionally invested in your Matter, because my job is to be objective and my job is to find the solution. And I think that's where a lot of lawyers go wrong. The other thing that I always tell my client, and I've got this beautiful sign, um, in our office space before you actually hit the conference room, and it says, before you enter this room, take three deep breaths and channel and bring in the energy into the space that you want to be able to achieve the highest outcome. Come into the space thinking clearly, thinking about what it is that you want to achieve and how that you get that done when dealing with another human being on the other side. Because often when I have a client who comes in very emotionally charged, about 90% of what I'm doing is not legal. It's not the law that I'm trying to get through to them. It's the humanity of dealing with the grief that this person is dealing with and giving them the space to unpack that and then bringing them back into the room around. I understand that what you're going through is treacherous, horrible. How do I extricate you from this as quickly as possible? That gives you your dignity, that leaves you with options and doesn't lock you into this process for the next few years. And then we ourselves do a lot of work around vicarious trauma. We unpack with a lot of therapists. There's an amazing organization that I'm working with at the moment who is very serial curious about the professionals being able to debrief and making sure that we're able to work through and recognise the signs that we're working with somebody who might also need some extra support so that we can get into that really early. And that's been really helpful.

Speaker B: I want to talk about family law and how that is evolving in Australia and it has certainly changed in a number of years. Give me your. Your thoughts on where family law sits in Australia at the moment, given that's what you specialise in.

Speaker A: Well, I started a very long time ago and I started in the black and white era, so law was very strict about what it was going to do. Family law was horrible to be in. It was very long, nasty letters with pointing fingers at everybody about who did what that was wrong. Thankfully, um, times are changing and really the only option then was court. Right. So everybody ended up in court. And that's where we hear the narrative of people even to this day about what the family court was like. There is so much change that's happening, happened even up until this year, where the family court is changing the Practice directions about the obligations of practitioners and litigants have changed. There is an absolute push towards family dispute resolution. There is a push towards being able to recognize that really only disputes that will never resolve need to be in the Family court and everybody else should try and reach an outcome for themselves because they're the best kind of outcomes that stick. And a lot of practitioners are now waking up to the fact that sending long winded letters to the other party is doing nothing to advance your case, but more importantly to resolve the problem that your client has. So that is very different. I'm also seeing a space where there is no, no longer a presumption that children belong with one party versus another. There is no longer a presumption. And I think that there is still a lot of work to be done in this space. But I think that we're getting to the stage where the court is no longer just saying, well, this child needs both parties in their lives. Even if one party has committed really horrible offences against another party. Like I said, I still think we have a long way to go around that. But it is changing and it is evolving to the extent that we're getting this whole movement through of practitioners who are pushing against the grain of traditional family law as to how it was practised 20 or 30 years ago.

Speaker B: What's the best way for, you know, or the best way that you've seen is where the child's need has been taken into account.

Speaker A: When I have really emotionally mature parents who say, and this happens a lot with kids, can I say, particularly young children, they say, one thing to Mum, um, one thing to dad, whoever, one thing to one parent, one thing to the other. And I get, uh, two parties who say to me, well, that's not what Johnny said. Johnny said he'd prefer to sleep with me four nights a week. And Johnny said to me, oh, well, I don't want to spend any nights a week with you. And having parents who are so emotionally mature that they recognize that perhaps what this child is, is caught in a loyalty bind where they're just saying whatever the other party wants to hear and says, how about we go off to a child inclusive mediator, um, whose job it is to be able to not cross examine this child, but to elicit information through an age appropriate way. It might be through play therapy, it might be questioning, it might be through other means and get that conversation and feedback into the room. And when I've got emotionally mature parents and appropriate parents, because it's not for everyone who m receives that information and they say, wow, okay, this may not be what I wanted to hear as a parent, but I accept that this is in my child's best interest. And I accept that maybe I need to pivot my thinking a little bit to be able to have the best relationship that I can with my child. That's happening a lot more these days. M and we are respecting the voices of children who quite independently are able to express an opinion that is what they really want. And most of the time, what children want in the divorce space is I don't want mum and dad to stop fighting. I want them to stop arguing about things that really make no difference for me. I want to have a relationship with both of you some weeks that might be more than the other. I want you to both turn up to events so that I can see you and I want you to be civil to each other.

Speaker B: But things, they sound that when you say them, it just sounds so simple. And yes, why wouldn't we do it? But they're the key things that get lost in that sort of dispute.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it really does become like a judge said the other day in one of my matters that I was in, you know, this, it becomes a situation of one upping the other. M and it gets really lost. And the reason most of the time it gets lost is because one party is really clinging onto the hurt. You were never there in the relationship. You didn't know none of the parenting. You were always at work, you were always around. And for most part that might be true. But the problem with that thinking is that may not be what happens once you're separated. Um, the dynamic changes and the narrative changes. And there needs to be a degree of flexibility around those things. And we forget that despite all of that, it might not be what a child wants, the same thing that you want. And we need to be respectful of those things.

Speaker B: I want to talk about financial independence, poster separation, male or female. And I want to go through a couple of layers of them. I'm going to start with the super conversation first because. And I got caught up in that when I separated. You know, the way I got worked out was because I had not worked for a period of time when I had children. We had a self managed super fund. So I got less of the self managed super fund than my partner did. And at the time I was in such an emotionally poor state, I, uh, just went, whatever. Uh, you know, I'm happy with that. When I should have said, actually no, because every woman has to take time off when they have children. Because we're the ones delivering them. What is your advice? Male or female around, you know, a scenario like that?

Speaker A: Yeah. Look, particularly for women using that example and this is something I'm hugely passionate about and the labor government was talking about this when they came in, but lo and behold it hasn't eventuated as yet. There should be no reason that women are walking out of a relationship without there being an adjustment for their superannuation to reflect the time that they have been out of the workforce. And particularly if they are more mature in their age and are not likely to return to the workforce in a full time capacity. We need to be mindful that they are the people who need a greater superannuation adjustment.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Because when I have one party who is working and is quite high income earner and they have 20 years ahead of them, I always say to my client, cash is king, but so is your future self. And that person will go ahead and earn their super again times two. You will never be in the same financial position as them. Think about the future needs for yourself and think about what that might mean in terms of your retirement. And I see that more often than not where one party says we had a self managed super fund, so I got less. And the reality is it doesn't need to be like that. Working with a financial planner, working with an accountant is really helpful in that space to understand the options and to understand a compliance super fund and what the rollout might be and then being able to reopen and also during your relationship structuring the assets so that in the event of a separation the split can be achieved in a way that everybody ends up with something. Yeah, because we forget that super is very much a matrimonial asset. However it is structured and it absolutely needs to be reflected as part of the split.

Speaker B: I like that. I look back on it and I reflect back. You know, like when you first get married there's all this love and you are sort of, you know, glassy eyed and thinking that, you know, you're never going to be the statistic where 1 in, you know, 50 of the population or maybe even more gets, gets divorced. And so we don't go into it thinking I've got to have all this paperwork done around should something go wrong, that we are both uh, parties are protected, not necessarily one. I'm interested to know if I came to you today and I'm 30 year old woman or male because it affects the. Because more and more men are taking time off to look after kids at

Speaker A: home, change now, right.

Speaker B: The narrative has completely changed now. So male or female coming in and saying, hey, you know, we're thinking of getting married. What is the best way to protect both of us if in 30 years time we feel this isn't working anymore? What would be your advice to them?

Speaker A: I always say to them, you go into a business relationship with paperwork. It is documented what the shareholding will be. In the event of a dispute. You have dispute resolution clauses and everyone signs up not because they want to separate, but it's a commercial decision. And marriage, um, unfortunately is probably more detailed around that. And you need to approach it like a business. What do we need to do in order to make sure if we reach a road bump or we reach a situation where we no longer want to be together, what does that look like? And it might be that some people enter into what we call a binding financial agreement in anticipation of marriage. Might be a binding financial agreement that occurs during the relationship. Um, it might be that we are structuring assets in a way that it is clear that in the event that we separate, this is what it's going to look like. It might be that we're purchasing assets in a way that if we split, everyone's going to get something M and it's working with professionals who are mindful about all of those things. Because the real problem, and I have a daughter, so this is something that I'm very mindful of and I have sons, but I'm always talking to my daughter about is society, particularly in our generation, created this wonderful illusion of marriage. That you were to go into it starry eyed, hopeful, everything was going to be wonderful. There was never going to be a day where you felt like, this is rubbish and this is too hard. You were going to get princess treatment every single day and someone was there to look after you. When the reality is that's not marriage. Marriage is work. We know it, it takes a lot of effort. You've got to continue to work at it. And being aware of the fact that you need to be able to protect your interests is absolutely crucial. To be able to avoid becoming a statistic. And regrettably, this statistic unfortunately, unfairly prejudices women. Most women who go into separation over 50 end up homeless. That for me is a crime in Australia, particularly if you're a woman who has worked, who has raised children, who has taken time away from the workforce, who has contributed in other means. To be couch surfing in your 50s and your 60s, to not have access to superannuation, to not have access to Your finances. These are conversations that we should be having with our children. These are conversations we should be having with our boys around making sure that they are aware of how to structure their things, of the behaviors that you should be going into a marriage. Being able to make sure that we're having conversations about the way that finances should be split and shared and if they are the people who stay home. What is the expectation for your partner? What does it look like in terms of those years that you haven't been able to generate? Super. So going into this notion of marriage, and I hear it all the time where it's, oh, it's uncomfortable to talk about splitting up, it's uncomfortable to talk about money. Well, it's even more uncomfortable to be in a lawyer's office. Um, it's absolutely more uncomfortable for me to be sending letters to your former partner at that stage about the fact that you took time away and that you should be getting a super spleen. That conversation is more uncomfortable because it's going to cost you more money than what you wanted to spend when if we did the due diligence early on, we might have been able to avoid the heartache.

Speaker B: Good advice. I hope you're enjoying our conversation. A quick word from our sponsor. Have you ever wondered how to attract, develop and augment diverse leadership capability in your organization? Well, Future Leadership has a range of leadership solutions including executive search, interim executives, leadership development programs, coaching and workforce transformation solutions specialist. They are an Australian owned B Corp and one of very few globally accredited and connected talent solution firms. They are very proud of their 22 year history bringing more diverse leadership to Australian decision making tables. See the link in our show notes to get in touch with them.

Speaker A: For women who are rebuilding.

Speaker B: And I will focus on women because as you say, there is a cohort and they are my generation of women who are retiring into poverty and as you say couchsurfing or living with families or you know, in homes, etc, what does a rebuilding plan look like? If you have come out of a separation and financially you're not where you

Speaker A: were or where you should be, getting the right financial planner on board as part of the separation is crucial. It is something that I am absolutely so strict about. If you are working with me as a client, where I will say to you at some stage during your separation, before we're making an offer, before we're accepting an offer, we are seeing a financial planner and we are seeing an accountant and that is done collaboratively because I need to understand what your numbers are going to look like, and I need to understand what we're going to do with that because you might say to me, I want enough money to be able to put a deposit down on a house. Okay, well, what does that look like? How much money do you need? Where do you want to live? What type of house do you want to live in? And it's not a wish list. I can't create money where it doesn't exist, but I certainly can have some control about how we get there. And more often than not, when I have people who are in a room and we're throwing around numbers and the other party says, well, why would I give them that? What does that number even represent as part of this? It seems really unfair. And I can go into a mediation or a dispute resolution event and say, well, actually what that number represents is a deposit on a house so that my client has a roof over their head and somewhere to be able to know that that is where they're going to spend their rest of their retired life. That falls very differently in another room when it's not perceived to be a wish list. And I can say, here is the evidence of what a two bedroom or a one bedroom apartment looks like in X, Y and Z suburb. That's all we're looking for. And doing that protects the interests of my very vulnerable client. It allows them to make smart financial decisions that they may never have had to have made before. And with people who are able to give them the appropriate advice as to how to do that with what might be very new circumstances around getting back into work or working for the first time or not working and then having to work out what they're going to do to make sure that that money lasts.

Speaker B: M. I want to shift a little bit to domestic violence and the urgency that we have in Australia right now. Yes, one woman a week is being killed. And ah, that number has not changed since the early 2000s.

Speaker A: I feel like it's getting worse, to be honest.

Speaker B: And I think last year it was worse. Yeah, uh, and the year before that it was definitely worse. Now, you working in family law, how often is domestic or family violence part of the story when it's not the headline?

Speaker A: My practice, um, I can tell you that 95% of the cases that I work on now are, uh, for people who are the victims of DV and have children who are leaving circumstances of domestic violence. And I think the reason for that is quite interesting. It's not new. We don't have a new epidemic of domestic violence. What we have now are More and more brave people who are stepping forward and talking about it and understanding that the banner of domestic violence is not once we. What we once thought it was. So I remember many years ago, domestic violence had to be physical and there needed to be obvious signs of domestic violence. Mhm. And we know that under the Family Law act now that family violence is defined very differently. It is the mental abuse, the anguish, the gaslighting, the horrible stripping of the self identity, it's the control around finances, it's the isolation of family and friends, it's the coercive m. Control and the pattern around deprivation or doing certain things to coerce you into doing something or not doing something. It's that constant state of fear. And of course, it is the physical violence. There is absolutely an element of sexual violence in family violence that I'm seeing more and more where it is now becoming more common that I have people coming through who are talking about sexual violence that have occurred during their marriage, which only became a criminal offence some time ago, but still, despite that, was not prosecuted as diligently as it should have been until today.

Speaker B: It hurries me when you say 95% of the cases that you are taking on, because what that tells me is the numbers are so much more worse.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: And. And have the potential to get so much more worse as well. What are some of the signs for friends and colleagues and families that they should look out for and what is the best way that they can help that individual? Because it takes a lot of courage to walk into an office like yours to say, I need to go because I am in fear. Coercive control, emotional abuse, mental abuse, all of those things take a lot of courage to walk into. Because there's the fear of what will the consequences be if I do that?

Speaker A: Not only that, it's. It's not just the consequences, it's. I'm, um, on my own. Can I do this?

Speaker B: Can I do this? Yeah. How am I going to survive financially? There's so many things that go through someone's mind. What's your advice in how other people can support this individual? Because quite often we actually don't know because we say, you must go to a lawyer, you must deal with this, you know. But how do we give support other than that? Because the person knows they need to go to a lawyer and sort of 100%.

Speaker A: I think the first question was, what signs do we look out for? Well, obviously there's the physical signs, but, um, more importantly there are, because by the time it's physical and the reason I say more importantly is by the time the physical violence has happened, it's been happening for so long that you're now in very dire straits. The withdrawal and isolation from family and friends is a big one. The never being able to pick up the phone or only being able to call during certain windows. Perhaps that person's at work, perhaps they're in the shower. It's the very short text messages that used to be quite long, quite emotive, quite human that become quite businesslike. It's the constant questioning or inability to make a decision without there being confirmation from another person. It's the withdrawing from social events because they don't have the finances or the permission to be able to spend the finances. It's, and this was the one that I had not long ago, uh, going to an event but looking for permission to order or looking for permission to engage in the conversation. It's the subtle body language where an abuser, uh, obviously in public is not going to physically strike someone. But for example, there was one where I had a victim where the control mechanism was the rubbing of the ear. And that was very much a sign of I am still in control. You will operate the way that I have advised you to do so in this social setting. And I'm warning you that you're crossing a territory that I don't like. It's very much this isolated, depressed, anxious state. Body image is a big one. Particularly people who are suffering from body dysmorphia because of the constant surveillance and criticism at home. And that might be a sudden interest in exercising to a degree which is not healthy. It might be eating or eating habits to the extent where it has become obsessive and compulsive. It might be this really unrealistic beauty standard that they seek to maintain in order to be considered likable or acceptable to the other person. How do you best support someone in those circumstances? And I my heart goes out to everybody supporting someone who is a DV survivor and who is living in that because it is one of the most frustrating things that you could ever live through because to you, you are ready to pack a bag and extricate them from that relationship at any given moment. Just say the word and I'm there. Y and the problem with the survivor is you are never going to get entry and permission to do that until they are ready.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And sometimes that cycle of abuse can go on for years on end. And the only thing that you can do is to continue to be supportive, turn up, continue to listen, to just show up, to be the safe space, to express concern, but to do so in a way that is genuine and loving and open. Because sometimes what happens, and I experience this as an advisor on many occasions, you become so frustrated that you say, oh, come on, let's just do it. Today is the day, let's just do it. And they become resentful.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because they feel pressured, because they're not ready to do that. And instead of you being the safe space, you become the person that they can no longer speak to because they don't feel like you're safe anymore.

Speaker B: Thank you for that, Cassandra. That is great advice. Because with the numbers being so high, many of us listening to this podcast will have someone in our life that we are supporting in some way, shape or form.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And it's really good for the supporters to hear that because, you know, and I've been a supporter previously, where you're right, the frustration of, come on, let's just do it now, I'll keep you safe. You can't keep them safe. They have to be able to make that in their own time and have everything ready to go as well. That is a big lesson that I have learned in this, is that you can't just walk out the door with your children. You have to have everything ready to leave.

Speaker A: Yes. Having that safety plan in place is absolutely crucial. And there are some people who have come to see me and we've put that safety plan in place and they execute it in five years time. M. There are some people who come to see me and I get them to the stage where they leave and three months later they've reconciled because they haven't put in place the mechanisms to feel supported. So having that support system, that support network, that plan that can be executed is absolutely crucial to success. And often that looks like working with a dv and I say a DV counsellor because there are differences, somebody trauma informed, somebody who works from the lens of being able to identify what you have always known was not normal. But to label it, and more often than not, once it is labeled, once it is explained in a way that a survivor can trigger onto and go, oh, my goodness, if my daughter, my son had said to me I was experiencing these things that I recognise that as domestic violence, I wouldn't want to live through that if I were them. Why am I doing it for myself that they then leave?

Speaker B: In your view, where are we falling short as a country? The numbers aren't changing. In fact, in some instances they are getting worse. So where are we falling short in early intervention and prevention?

Speaker A: Where do I begin? This is the bane of my existence.

Speaker B: I thought it might have been.

Speaker A: I cannot for the life of me understand what is going on with the police force in New South Wales, in Queensland, across the country, we have these wonderful days of white ribbon Day, DV hotlines, whatever, uh, and victim survivors will walk into a police station and report, report the abuse. And they ah, are met with one or two responses, either an amazing DVLO who says today is the day you get an ado, or come back with more evidence. In one instance I had a client who was told I need to see some physical evidence in order to do something about this. That is far too late. We are falling short in the way that our uh, DV system is policed. And it is so subjective, dependent upon your postcode, your economic status, your ability to be able to verbalize what is going on when you get to the station. It's almost like a checklist that you need to have before you go. And as a victim survivor, I could not imagine being more devastated than having the strength to go in and tell somebody what I was living through, only to be met with a dismissive attitude on top of that when the action is taken. I have had complaints where it has been met with a decision not to prosecute because the discretion around whether or not it is prosecuted is so large and broad. It is a massive problem when we have that exercise. We have these programs that exist in the family law space. We have the men's taking, um, or men's taking responsibility course, men's behavioural change course. There is not one that is the equivalent for women. That is a problem. And also you do the course and that's wonderful, sure, but what did you learn from it? Mhm. Where is the accountability? Where is the process in which we are able to put into practice what you have learned? Who monitors that afterwards? Where is the register for people getting into a relationship to make informed decisions about whether or not they are going to be able to fall into a position of trust with somebody who has a lengthy history of abusing partners? That is learned behaviour. That is behaviour that will continue unless it is proactively addressed. We make offenders go and do these programs. If they have no emotional intelligence and they have no real insight and there is no one monitoring them and they're not able to be put in a position where they demonstrate what they have learned into practice, then it's just lip service. So my question is, are we actually serious about domestic Violence in this country? Or do we like talking about the fact that we are serious with not much practice being put in place because one woman a week is disgusting numbers for a country that prides itself on being able to be a free country, a country that gives you opportunity. A country in which you can come here and flee persecution and the horrendous atrocities that are happening everywhere. But if you are a woman, you must fear whether or not you are able to walk around freely. And as to whether or not you will become a statistic, that is unfathomable for me. And we are not doing anywhere near enough to protect these vulnerable people in a country where we have the resources to do so. It starts with education. Talk about it. Talk about the signs of DV from early ages. Talk about safe and respectful relationships. Talk about when enough is enough in terms of a boundary that is crossed. Why are we waiting? And I am, um, educating women and men in their 50s and their 40s about safe and respect relationships because they're not able to identify whether or not they are in an unsafe relationship at that age. That is crazy.

Speaker B: We should be bringing it at school.

Speaker A: Shouldn't we teach it as part of the PDHP curriculum? Yeah, we're teaching children a number of different things under a spectrum these days. Do we not value safe relationships enough to be teaching them that? Surely that has got to be something that we're serious about. Mhm.

Speaker B: How do we change the attitudes of the police force in terms of when a woman does go there and. And they get met m by, you know, wait till there's evidence.

Speaker A: Very much in a system of. And it's the same with sexual violence, which is horrendous. Bring us proof or believe you later. The proof is very hard to obtain, particularly if you've been living through it for 30 years. This. Why is it the case that the onus is on the victim? Sure. And one of the things that I'm often asked is, okay, that's fine, but what about the people who are falsely reporting? You're right. And that does happen.

Speaker B: They would be in the minority of

Speaker A: the police force, though, to be able to investigate that appropriately, to work out whether or not they are falsely reporting.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker A: But at first instance, when I am there to report a corporate crime, surely it is not appropriate that you would engage with me as if I am the aggressor. Uh, and the onus is on me. Talk to me about what it is that you like. Talk to me about what it is that I need. Talk to me about what it is that I can put things in place at the moment to keep me safe. Surely there should be a system where, if I've come to report this, that you're going to put me in touch with people who will continue to engage with me thereafter. And not just a phone call a month, because sometimes that's what's happening to make sure that I'm safe. Surely you will be able to refer me onto resources that I should mandatorily need to do to be able to keep me safe and protected.

Speaker B: Because on the other side of this is men who have been to jail and then they get, uh, paroled and then they come out and kill someone.

Speaker A: They do it again, kill the partner,

Speaker B: and they do it again. And yet we don't seem to have the understanding that if they've been violent once in their life, in whatever shape or form that looks like, there is a high probability they're going to do it again and escalate.

Speaker A: The social science research is very clear. The moment it escalates to physical violence, you are in dangerous territory. The moment it is a choking offense, you are 85% less likely as a victim to lose your life because it escalates to somebody taking your life thereafter, quite simply. And what we see, and I was in the criminal law system for a very long time as a solicitor, we see these people doing these programs, whether it's in custody or not. They might engage with probation and parole thereafter for a short period of time, and then what? There is no ability to be able to further ensure that these people are monitored. And I would very much like, as a woman, whether it's my generation or my daughter's generation, to be able to know that when she says, I've brought home a partner, male, female, I don't care m But I want to know that that person is safe. And I want to know whether or not you've been engaged in one of those programs or whether or not you've found yourself on an offender's list for domest domestic violence. Because unless you are somebody, and there are people out there who have done this, and I've certainly acted for these people who have realized that their behavior has been driven by something that has happened to them as a child, whether they were in a violent relationship with their parents, they witnessed it or experienced it, and have taken the proactive measures to improve their life themselves. Not because it was forced upon them, because they said, I never want to do this to another human being ever again, and have reformed themselves because they've Taken the initiative then it will happen again. It will happen again. Why are we not using the resources that we have in this government that is spending wild amount of money on things that we, we should be investing elsewhere to protect those women who are the victims with one life a week that is reported. Let us not forget the unreported violence that is going on in this country.

Speaker B: What role do you think workplaces play? Especially you know, because um, so many victims are trying to hold down a job while they live in fear. What role do workplaces play play in this?

Speaker A: We as ah, a, as employers and I'm an employer myself, we have an onus and an obligation to be having conversations around it. If we are valuing employees, we have an obligation to create a safe space for them to be able to have an open dialogue, to create flexibility, to be able to support them, to provide resources, to provide the safe space, to be able to identify the signs when it's not being spoken about. To be able to ensure that that person is able to not fear that they are going to lose their place of employment if they have needed to pivot or restructure what they are able to offer a business for a period of time whilst they're navigating a very difficult situation.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And this is something that I'm often having conversations with my clients about. Can't do that because work won't let me do it. Can't do that. Work doesn't know that I'm going through DV can't do that because I don't want them to think differently of me. Why do we have a perception that people who are experiencing domestic violence might be treated differently than other people? That is crazy. And it all starts with the fact that we don't talk about it Enough.

Speaker B: Enough. What role do men have in this? One of the things I've said for many, many years, um, is that men good men and they're more good men than they are not. But good men need to stand side by side with women and take responsibility for other men in their sphere and hold them accountable. What for men listening to this podcast, what's your advice them in terms of how they can help in this space?

Speaker A: I AM um, with you 100 on that. If you are a good man, if you're a man of values, of integrity, you should be at the forefront of this fight against domestic violence. You should be the one that is calling out the behavior when it is sight unseen but you're aware that something is wrong. You should be the person who Is instigating conversations in a safe space around are you perpetrating or are you the victim? You should be the person who is advocating for some change. Being the safe space for the perpetrator to talk about perhaps what is going on and then ensuring that they are able to access treatment. To be able to be firm in your belief around the fact that it is never okay to resort to physical or non physical violence in a relationship. And one of the things that I'm really looking forward to, and I think it's going to be the year, and I say this a little bit tongue in cheek, but really wholeheartedly, is the lover boy is coming back. And I love that because for a long time we had this perception of men needing to be men in relationships that were hard. That masculinity was very much aligned with this toxic level of I am the controller, I am the person who will tell you what needs to be done. It is my way or the highway, which fed into a lot of these domestic violence patterns that we're seeing. But the shift that I'm now seeing come through is that masculine men who are owning the space of being masculine are uh, doing it in a way that is honoring their partner, that is respectful of their partner, that is treating their partner at a standard where they have elevated them to be able to provide them with happiness and joy and provision of their needs in a way where that is being a masculine man. If I have a happy partner, if I've provided for them, if I'm doing the shadow work for myself and if I'm emotionally mature, if I'm meeting their emotional needs, that is what being a man looks like. That is the lover boy that we're now seeing come back. And I think for women that is a really joyful thing to happen. And because we're now going to be in a position where if that is the norm, that toxic masculinity that was very much alive for many years will be drowned out.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And I think we need to be talking more and more about that. And there are some incredible men on social media at the moment who are doing a fantastic job of doing that. Yeah. So excited when I see that the majority of their followers are men. Because if we normalize that level of behavior, it's going to be pretty easy to point out the toxic kind of behavior that we want to get rid of.

Speaker B: Do you believe there'll be a generational change with this as well? There was, you know, a lot of the younger kids coming through now have lived through this type of behavior in their homes.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And those boys are going to choose to be different men.

Speaker A: Uh, it's amazing because I was doing some work in schools probably late last year, and I was baffled by how aware these children were. I mean, I'm working with people day in, day out. Relationships are all I do. And these are kids who were able to call out red flags so quickly that I am having conversation after conversation with mature age people about to say, no, no, that actually is wrong. You cannot do that in a relationship. So I think, uh, this generation is chef's kiss in terms of being able to identify that stuff. I also think it's not just being lived through. I think with the rise of social media and access to information that is done so quickly that people are now being bombarded with things that we took for granted in our generation. And we had to rely on our parents and our grandparents and our aunties and uncles and our friends and our cousins to talk about to be able to become aware of whether or not it was right or wrong or how things should be. So I think that that has been a really helpful thing. I absolutely think your generation, my generation, my grandmother's generation, they were very much times where it was considered appropriate to live through a bad relationship and just move on. Because that's what being married was. And you took the good with the bad. And as long as, you know, things were still okay and the finances were being paid well, you just moved on. And we now know that that is absolutely not the foundation for marriage or a healthy relationship in this day and age.

Speaker B: I want to talk about your work that you do with Not Another Girl. Tell me about that.

Speaker A: Not Another Girl, for me really springboarded off the back of these numbers. Escalating, but also the devastation of sitting across from women or woman after woman who was very clearly the victim of domestic violence, but could not understand for themselves that they were. Whether that was because they had been gaslit to the extent that their own independent thought process had been stripped from them, their self identity had been absolutely ruined, that it was learned behavior from their mother where they thought that was just really normal. And, uh, I got to the stage where enough was enough. And exactly as I'm talking to you today, it became a mission for me to start talking about domestic violence in a much broader way and in a much more diverse audience. So for me, going into schools and talking about safe relationships is absolutely paramount. Talking to university students, talking to migrants, talking to diverse cultural groups about what domestic violence might look like and the Difference between, you know, safe relationships and healthy relationships to things that are actually just unlawful is something that I, great, I take great pride in and passionate, I'm quite passionate about because I really do think that that is the change. Because if we're not talking about it, it will just stay the same. Mhm.

Speaker B: What's the reaction you get when you do go into schools and universities and, and talk about, you know, what the black and white of it, the reality of it.

Speaker A: It's really interesting because there are some schools who are so oppressive, opposed to having someone in to talk about that. I just think, tell me less about your morals as a school. There are some schools who are so open to it and I love working with them because the way in which we're able to practice that conversation and put it in place and just seeing the way that the kids respond to that is really beautiful. I still get messages from schools that I've been in, from students who have been like, hey, I just want to ask you this question, is this normal? No, it's not normal. Okay, great. Being able to then talk to university students, people who are going into the most important times of their lives where they might be entering into their first serious relationship or considering contemplating marriage. Being able to educate them about the financial stability that needs to be in a relationship. Having honest, open, vulnerable conversations is so important because ultimately the sting of having this conversation and there's such a stigma of, oh, you can't talk about that on the first date. Well, I'd rather talk about it on the first date than five years into a marriage, children. So the first day didn't go well because your money values weren't aligned. Well, better you knew now than you did later on. Mhm. And being able to just be. To change the narrative around the whole, particularly in the phrase that I use and a dear friend of mine uses, is the good girl narrative around be a good girl. Don't say that on the first date. Be a good girl. Don't. Don't come off as being too inquisitive. Be a good girl. Don't talk about anything that's really too uncomfortable, like politics or, you know, finances

Speaker B: or too much of an opinion.

Speaker A: You don't have an opinion. Look pretty, be light, don't, you know, be mysterious. And that's all wonderful, but the harsh reality of marriage is that if you don't have those conversations, you're going to pay the price. And you'll pay the price in terms of the money that you have to outlay to undo it. And you'll pay the price in terms of the rebuild later on.

Speaker B: For people who are listening to this right now and maybe experiencing violence, what do you want them to know about options and safety and where to start?

Speaker A: Yeah, great question. There are law firms everywhere that specialise in db. People will say, I can't afford it. Women's Legal Service is an amazing resource. There is the 1-800-Respect hotline, which is amazing. There are firms who do free consultations. There are places where, for example, the WDV has a women's Domestic violence advocacy scheme. If you make an appointment at the local court, you can see them. The Family Court of Australia have duty lawyers in there who you can make an appointment to CNC for free. Utilize all of those resources. An amazing resource at the moment that I'm seeing a lot of women use, which is incredible. And I love AI for this is chat GPT. I'm experiencing this. Is this normal? No, it's not. Here's why I need to be able to get a plan in place. What can I put in place to just at the beginning. And you put those initial measures in place and then you go and see your lawyer. You keep talking to your friends and family and you identify your safe people. You are, uh, journaling in a safe way. And I say in a safe way because sometimes it's unsafe to do so. If it is safe to do so, you are journaling and you are reflecting every day. And a really good client of mine actually had an amazing thing that she did and it was something that a psychologist put in place for her, which is when her partner was at work and it was only ever when they were at work. She had an alarm that would come up three times a day, which had all of the things that were going on in the relationship which reminded her it was domestic violence. And it would come off and she would read it and it was rewiring the neuro pathways that had been so stripped from her during the marriage to be able to remind her nervous system that that actually wasn't love and that it wasn't connection. And in fact, all it was was her chemical imbalance in her body that needed to be rewired. M so I think the message was something like, it's not okay for you not to have access to your own money. It's not okay that you have to ask for permission to call your mum. It's not okay that you're not allowed to go out to dinner with your friends. And that was in place for about a month because we know that it takes 30 days for your sympathetic nervous system to be rewired. And after that 30 day period, she had become so accustomed to the message that it led her to step forward into my office to get some advice. And it's putting those small measures in place because it can seem like something such a big thing that needs to happen. But what I often say to clients is just break it down and do one thing. And if you do one thing, you can tick that off the list and then you can do the next big thing. Um, and it doesn't need to be done in a week, it doesn't need to be in a month. You set the pace. But I will absolutely say, if you are in an unsafe environment, if you feel like your safety is in question and your life is is in jeopardy, please get some urgent advice in place to extricate yourself before it is too late. Because the escalation of violence happens so quickly and we know from these statistics that it doesn't take much.

Speaker B: Cassandra, thank you for your time. We can hear your passion for the advocacy that you do in this space and it's such an important, you know, I think critical, particularly at the moment, m given where we stand around family violence and there's also the work that you do around family law. But thank you for your time in sharing your knowledge and your stories and your advice with us today.

Speaker A: Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker B: If you like what you've heard, please share, rate and review this podcast. And don't forget to share it with anyone who might benefit from hearing it. The producer of Future Fit Leadership is Maritza Barone from Guide youe Light Network. If you would like to reach out to me, please DM me on any of my social media platforms. I'm available for speaking at conferences or consulting to your business. Future Fit is created in partnership with Future Leadership, a capability ecosystem for boards and executives. If you'd like to join the community and receive a free takeaway each week, sign up to the Future Exchange app in my show Notes. Thank you for having me in your space. This is a Guide youe Light Network production Creating podcasts with purpose.