From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 28 March

The content of the domestic assault story was so confronting, so deeply disturbing, I had to go outside and sit in the garden.

I AM a surviving victim of domestic violence, or, more correctly, recidivistic, first-degree, criminal assault.

Recently, I turned 74! The clarity, and ferocity, of the consequential nightmares from childhood domestic assault is exponential. Since my mother’s death in 2007, the recollections have become more regular, more painful, and more vivid. While it was Beria who suffered physically, I am the psychologically scarred victim; the flotsam left bobbing in the wake of the devastating scourge.

In my childhood, Beria managed to assuage my anguish, “Listen to me sweetheart. Don’t you worry about things which don’t concern you.” Desperate for reassurance, I believed her. It was my only mechanism for coping.

As a child, I was particularly devoted to my mother. I had no interest in other children. I stayed at home and read (thank God for Enid Blyton), or listened to the wireless. Wherever Beria went she took me along. I was terrified of being alone in the house. I had a morbid fear of darkness. Witnessing the violence caused me uncontrollable, screeching hysterics.

For the bulk of my career, I was so busy charging through life I pushed the terrible, dark truth to the back of my mind. I was never discussed, not even Beria. Years later I tried, but she was implacable, “Just forget about it. It was all a long time ago.”

My mother lived with me for some years before her cancer death, aged 96. Some mornings when I woke her with a cup of tea, she would said say, “Thank God it’s morning. I had a terrible night. He (her third husband) gave me a hell of hiding.” Subsequently, throughout the day her spirits remained markedly subdued.

I have a recurring nightmare which is too graphic to share. Often, I wake-up shouting, and crying. Increasingly, over the past 15-years it has become more regular. Recently, I was an unintentional witness to a most unpleasant domestic argument. The tone of the voices and the viciousness of the language were all too familiar. I tried not to listen. It turned my stomach. Such was the flood of ugly memories, I thought, exactly like I did when I was a child.  I thought I was going to vomit.

Never will I forget the Christmas of 1958; or the day Beria tried to hang herself using the cotton tie-belt from one of her dresses.

Governments of both persuasions are guilty of a repetitively tedious diatribe about how has much has been done; how much has been achieved, and how much money has been committed. Self-praise is no recommendation. More urgent action is required.

The battered women of Australia are not interested past efforts. Collectively, and more importantly, they are interested only in what the bloody hell is being done now, and of future plans to stamp-out this crime.

I am in no doubt: if men were the victims of this horrendous lawbreaking there would be more action. The time is ripe for all those women who represent us in the parliament, at all levels, to get off their collective arses; to band together; and to start bullying the men for an immediate result. We cannot permit this patriarchal violence to continue. Women are being murdered. Lives shattered through inadequate action.

That women and children are fleeing homes, and infants are sometimes left with nowhere to sleep, is a societal indictment of this country. Surely, as a Nation, we are made of sterner stuff?

As one speaker at the Ballarat Gender Equality rally said, “We need a Prime Minister who does not need to be advised by his wife about the response to rape.”

This a national emergency, exacerbated by COVID-19, and we must act now. It demands a draconian approach. It is the only way we are going to eradicate this equally destructive pandemic.

Roland can be heard with Brett Macdonald each Monday at 10.45am on 3BA and you can contact him via [email protected].