Funding for award-winning domestic violence project

A community-based project, which is helping reduce domestic violence in a remote Indigenous community in Queensland, will receive funding from the Australian Government to continue and expand into other communities.

The Domestic Violence – it’s not our game project in Normanton is run by the Carpentaria Shire to continue working in conjunction with the local Normanton Stingers rugby league team.

The $195,000 in Government funding will allow the project to continue and expand to include rugby league teams from Doomadgee, Richmond, Hughenden, Cloncurry and Julia Creek.

Since it began in Normanton, police have reported a significant decrease in domestic violence incidents and a drop in the number of breaches of domestic violence orders.

As part of the project local rugby league teams, whose players pledge not to commit actions of domestic violence, receive sponsorship. The penalty for breaching the agreement is immediate suspension and ultimately exclusion from their team.

The Stingers players are used as positive role models backed up by advertising, media campaigns and workshops to drive home the message that domestic violence is completely unacceptable.

The success of the project is testament to the commitment of the Carpentaria Shire, the Stingers footy team and the people of Normanton to take responsibility for taking positive steps to tackle domestic violence.

Through the project, the Normanton community is clearly saying that domestic and family violence is neither normal nor acceptable behaviour.

The project has won two awards at the 2009 National Awards for Local Government and they were the overall winner of the 2008 National Crime and Violence Prevention Award.

It has been replicated by four rugby teams in NSW and one in New Zealand, along with an Australian rules team in Victoria and one in the Northern Territory.