Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers please note that this article mentions deceased persons.
Last week two Sydney men, Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, were murdered in what looks to be an incident of either domestic violence or stalking by an obsessed acquaintance of one of the victims. The alleged perpetrator is a police officer. It’s one of many similar tragic homicides across NSW and Australia. In 2020-21, just over 40% of the 78 domestic homicide victims were male.
The prevalence of domestic violence among serving police officers, the effectiveness or otherwise of police investigations of perpetrators within their own ranks, and the astonishing instances of officers continuing to serve despite convictions for domestic violence, have all drawn attention in NSW and other states in recent years.
The amount of coverage the crime has drawn is interesting compared to that afforded most victims of domestic homicide. The search for the victims in the wake of their killing and the alleged role of a police officer undoubtedly elicited more coverage than more quotidian domestic homicides, but the connections with the media industry of one of the victims appears to have further fuelled media interest beyond what normally is given to such crimes.
That may well be a good thing — perhaps now the media will regularly devote more resources to all victims of domestic homicide, and the way police respond to them. NSW police commissioner Karen Webb betrayed the extent to which police attitudes to domestic violence remain problematic when she referred to the murders as a “crime of passion”, a phrase that diminishes the horror of domestic homicide and automatically elevates the perpetrator to some sort of honourable status.
But despite the higher level of coverage, the horror of the murders has been strangely subsumed within a debate about whether police officers should participate in the Sydney LGBTQIA+ community’s annual Mardi Gras. Organisers have asked for police not to march this year because participants were concerned Mardi Gras be “a space to protest, celebrate, and advocate for equality, as well as to honour and grieve”.
The sheer heat of this debate has been remarkable. Police should not march, Nine’s newspaper editorialised, reflecting on the “killing of two beautiful and much-loved young men”. On the contrary, banning police would set the LGBTQIA+ community back “decades” countered a News Corp columnist. “Fuzzy-headed capitulation to victimhood” opined an LGBTQIA+ contributor to Nine. LGBTQIA+ police were pressed by News Corp to denounce the ban. The Daily Mail claimed there was “uproar”. Headline-hungry Lidia Thorpe rushed to support the ban, attacking “empty apologies and hollow gestures”.
Right-wing shock jock Ben Fordham also attacked the ban and had NSW premier Chris Minns, presumably taking a break from looking after the gambling industry and thinking of ways to silence critics of Israel, joined him to criticise it as “a regressive step”. The prime minister was then described as “weighing in” on the matter, when he had merely been asked a question by an ABC presenter. Albanese wisely said it was a matter between Mardi Gras organisers and NSW police, but couldn’t resist adding “I think it’s been very good that the police have marched.”
In other words, it’s become a culture war, with right-wing media lining up to support the right of police to participate in Mardi Gras, even if a large number of LGBTQIA+ people object, and politicians appealing to their bases. The Sydney Morning Herald, anxious to make up for its own shameful history in relation to LGBTQIA+ people in Sydney, has allied itself firmly with Mardi Gras organisers.
The stakes in this clash are, apparently, almost existential: not only is there “uproar” and individual LGBTQIA+ police officers who feel offended and angry, but the LGBTQIA+ community will be set back “decades” by what one writer described as the “fetishising of victimhood”. On the other side, Thorpe linked the issue to the killing of Kumanjayi Walker in the Northern Territory and demanded the prime minister bring together the states to fix police accountability.
To this old, straight male who has no stake in Mardi Gras and has enjoyed the privilege afforded to heterosexuals all his life, the participation of police, large corporations and even major party politicians has always seemed peculiar, given the event’s historical basis in protest — protest that was met with appalling police brutality and media complicity in that brutality. But it’s up to the LGBTQIA+ community to determine how that is addressed, not anyone else.
However, the transformation of the decision into yet another culture war by the media and politicians who either eagerly, or out of an inability to avoid the issue, have engaged with it, is emblematic of how our failing media operates. Like many culture wars, there is little or no substance behind it. It is a simulacrum of a public issue, which is why News Corp and the Daily Mail have had to expend so much breath inflating it into “uproar” and apocalyptic consequences for the LGBTQIA+ community unless they fall into line, and Thorpe has to drag in wholly unrelated events to dress it up as a systematic problem requiring urgent prime ministerial intervention.
Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, let alone the other victims of domestic homicide across NSW and the rest of the country, thus become props for the media’s game of endlessly trying to excite audiences and provoke division.
If you or someone you know is affected by sexual assault or violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.
I’m bI, and I don’t know who the hell police, the commissioner, Newscorp and Ben Fordham, the PM, and anybody else having a cry about the Mardi Gras organisers decision collectively think they are
It’s not their event, it’s an LGBTQ+ event, and we are way past time of accepting that salient fact
If anything it’s a wise decision to minimize tension at the moment, especially given the at times fractious relationship between police and the community
As this investigation unfolds, not only is the alleged murderer a cop, he used other cops/ex-cops to cover his tracks and assist with matters after the deaths of Luke and Jesse.
The whole matter reeks of police arrogance and insularity. The NSW Police Commissioner has two tin ears and one lead brain – dense and impenetrable.
Agree. The Police as an institution have a sordid history of treating minorities badly especially the non binary minority. That is still the case now despite their participation in parades and other window dressing. Most institutions that involve their members carrying guns, tasers, batons etc are inherently conservative and all minorities should fear them, or at least treat them with caution. They are no friends of outsiders.
I agree, Trent. Nor is the controversy surrounding police marching new, it’s been around for decades and with good reason, given history- including recent history. The Sackar Inquiry released its findings only two months ago.
I know I’m playing whataboutism here, but if I was organising a march for women against domestic violence, the last people I’d invite to march with us would be the police.
Good for you but my god is it ironic for people to opposing a police march!!!
Can we all just get some really concepts into our heads – freedoms are universal.
The freedom for one group to march means another group can march and indeed that freedom underpins the very freedoms that allow you to be whoever you want to be and anyone else to be whoever they want to be.
We can all do whatever we want as long as we don’t cause significant harm to others. That includes marching down the street.
Being offended is not a reason to ban stuff or restrict freedoms and all doing so does is give other people (authorities who have the power) excuses to ban things or restrict freedoms.
That’s the thing that gets missed with culture wars – quid pro quo.
Where is the irony in not inviting a hateful organisation which historically and currently persecutes the very people holding the march?
It would be like One Nation being upset at not being invited to a Sorry Day rally.
Point is moot though, Mardi Gras board are spineless.
First no matter what issues an institution or system has you cannot write off thousands of people as ‘hateful’. Learn to distinguish between people and institutions.
Second it’s nothing whatsoever like One Nation doing anything because one nation are a front for vested interests that seeks to use culture wars to distract people from issues like climate change and gun control.
Freedoms aren’t universal in practice. The cops see to that.
Freedoms aren’t universal in theory. In theory, the cops are meant to have extra responsibilities along with their guns, but lol.
Oh yes they are!
Nobody should be saying that freedoms are not universal.
This is a common theme today where people say stuff ‘free speech doesn’t consequence free speech dun dun dun”.
If there are consequences, or the consequences are so severe as to discourage people from expressing their freedoms, then they are not actually ‘free’.
Especially when most ‘freedoms’ these days are policed by civil laws v criminal laws. It’s mostly employment contracts, sponsorship agreements, non-disclosure agreement and defamation which is used to police freedom and is being used to great effect at the moment to silence critics of Israel. Ask Harvard.
Now of course in practice, including for the reasons I’ve said, freedoms are not universal and that is because authorities, including the police, crack down on them.
So back to my quid pro quo – how do you think banning and alienating the police from marching will play out when someone else wants to march and needs the police to show restraint?
As NWA so succinctly put it back in the day, fck the police – they’re not citizens when in uniform. Nobody needs to worry about the hurt feelings of ‘police’ the institution. We don’t aim to ensure they behave with decency by currying favour.
Stalking someone and deliberately taking a gun to confront them is not a “crime of passion.” It’s very deliberate and calculated.
‘Crime of passion’ is an unfortunate phrase, with a disturbing history:
In some countries, notably France, crime passionnel (or crime of passion) was a valid defense to murder charge. (Wikipedia)
Gay Panic was a murder defence (unused) in QLD until 2017.
yes I am aware and it was used. I remember the priest that was horrified by it , (having found the body on church grounds) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-11/petition-calls-for-end-to-gay-panic-defence/3767446
Henriette Caillaux was a Parisian socialite and second wife of the former French Prime Minister, Joseph Caillaux. On March 16, 1914, she shot and killed the editor of the newspaper Le Figaro in his office for writing bad things about her husband. She used the crime of passion defence and was acquitted.
As is often the case, the truth is revealed when you strip away the deliberately confusing words. “Crime” is an accurate description.
Anyway, we’ve all scored a satisfying “gotcha” against the police commissioner who I think was only trying to distinguish the event from the “lawful intervention” or “police overreach” things we also enjoy reading about.
So if a perpetrator is aggrieved / obsessed about a matter of love and gives time and thought to committing a criminal act as a result, it’s not a “crime of passion”. What is it then?
premeditated homicide.
Whenever I hear the term ‘a crime of passion’ it never “automatically elevates the perpetrator to some sort of honourable status.”
Quite the reverse, it convinces me the party responsible had lost all self-control, was acting illogically, viciously & against their own interests as well as the hapless victim’s.
The most grievous error seems to be the culture warriors conflating this with a Police anti-LGTBQI hate crime. When it appears to be instead either a case of domestic violence where the perpetrator happens to be a police officer, which is itself a significant and concerning issue, but there are plenty of cases of such DV among cis-hetro couples too, or just a plain old fashioned love triangle.
And that last line of yours is what demeans the whole argument.
Well that is the substance of them bulk of DV. Driving night shift cabs I took far too many women with children to shelters and aided a couple of getaways by Being in the right place at the right time. The issue is DV and people not being able to control their emotions. The other issue is insensitivity to the families that are grieving. Not even a seconds peace. If there’s a media scrum at the funeral, … I’d be giving Tony Soprano a contract.
There are serving police officers with convictions for DV. Absurd that they remain in thr Police Force.
Billy, it’s not about people not controlling their emotions, it’s the sense of entitlement that some people (mostly men) have to control their partners.
Yes, there’s a spectrum of psychological defects that appear to have higher prevalence amongst male gendered hominids. It’s even worse when that entitlement is codified by a book.
No one is doing that. Police are notoriously bad at taking intimate partner violence seriously, and that’s for cishet couples. They’re even worse when it comes to LGBTQI individuals.. For either, they’re even worse when the alleged perpetrator is a police officer.
And thats my point. The DV aspect gets lost when lazy hacks label this an anti gay hate crime.
and how many dead women – why not cancel the perpetrator or at least get some women not being gaslit and erased hey
Way too many dead women, but that’s not my point. The hysteria in some media outlets was about this being some sort of hate crime directed against the LGTBQI community. But it’s not that, it’s the case of a former partner killing a person and their new partner. It’s still a tragedy, and it’s irrelevant to that tragedy both the gender and orientation of the victims and the perpetrator. But that all gets lost if lazy journalists are allowed to label this as an anti gay hate crime, when it is not. And the police have a great deal of explaining to do about how their officer was able to take home his service pistol, kill two people with it, return the firearm with fewer rounds than when he withdrew it and no one noticed or if they did notice they said nothing. And someone else has made the assertion that other officers helped him in concealing his crime (I’ve not seen this mentioned explicitly, but I suspect the friend mentioned in some reports is another officer?). So lets not let them direct attention away from DV shall we by calling it a hate crime.
Very tired of culture wars from the right and the left so I won’t get involved in discussing this egregious case of domestic violence. All generated to manufacture outrage and culture wars. And it’s the media that works both sides of the road propagating it. I’d rather rage about the deaths of thousands of innocent people from the Levant which we are apparently not allowed to discuss.