Across the Tamworth region, police attend more domestic violence incidents than any other crime – more than seven calls a day.

In 2014, the Oxley area police command recorded nearly 2800 of those calls.

Across Australia each week, two women are killed by their partner or ex-partner. 

These figures are shocking enough, but what is more disturbing is that one-in-four young Australians still don’t think it’s serious when guys slap their girlfriends during a drunken argument. 

Disturbing new evidence shows that one in five young people blame the victim of a sexual assault, three in five people believe violence is caused by men being unable to control their anger – and one in five believe women often say “no” when they mean “yes”.

In a week when the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a $100 million package to fight domestic violence, there have been harrowing and shocking new stories of more women killed – and allegedly at the hands of their partner or their ex-partner. The procession of painful images of women dealt a violent death has become a daily diet in our news.

In regional areas like Tamworth, domestic violence is the king of all crime. 

And so it is heartening to see that about half of some of the federal funding will be directed into regional areas – where’s there’s often few or enough services to help women in need. 

Today, The Northern Daily Leader joins with other Fairfax newspapers in a campaign against domestic violence.

In an effort to change people’s perspective about the issue, we’ve joined the Our Watch organisation in a new family violence campaign.