By Dongyun Kwon
In 2015, Brendon Murphy created a video to raise the awareness of domestic violence with two more mates, Rick and Bill.
It’s been nearly nine years but the video is still resonating with people as domestic violence is still an ongoing issue.
Players from the local football clubs in Yarra Ranges Football Netball League, now known as Outer East Football Netball League, participated in the project.
“About nine years ago, there was a surge in domestic violence, it felt like every time you picked up a paper or turned on the TV, you were hearing about another woman being killed,” Murphy said.
“That struck a chord with me and I just wanted to try and do something with my local community to send a message that this is unacceptable.
“We asked other people to do the same and a few other leagues around Australia did the same thing. They copied our video word for word but they just used people from their community.”
The reason why Murphy made the video with local footy players was because local football was a great way to reach all of society.
“You’ve got all the young men but you’ve also got all the young women who played netball,” Murphy said.
“It’s just important that everyone needs to hear that message that violence is unacceptable.
“Women are a massive part of our lives no matter what angle you look at, and we wanted to make sure we were including everyone.”
Murphy was affiliated with the Warburton-Millgrove Football Netball Club when he made the video.
He was also on the video with his wife and one of his daughters.
Murphy said he could carry out the project thanks to support from local footy clubs.
“They were super supportive and they helped me find people who could get involved in the project,” he said.
“We went around and shot the video over two days.
“My only regret with that video is that if I had planned it out a bit better, I could have maybe had everyone in it.”
Murphy said there have been some positive changes in terms of awareness of domestic violence over the last few years.
“The changes I’ve seen are that people are more comfortable talking about it now [whereas] it was a bit of a taboo topic in 2015 and 2016,” he said.
“A lot of businesses have got a domestic violence strategy or a policy.
“I worked for Melbourne Water and I also work for Yarra Valley Water now. What I’ve noticed is both of those companies are fantastic in this space, they have policies in ways and means to help people who may be suffering from domestic violence and also perpetrators they may have, so they’ve got that policy on both sides.”
Despite the positive changes, the video creator is still frustrated that there are not enough efficient actions to reduce domestic violence.
“The number [of domestic violence incidents] this year is really concerning, so from that point of view, it’s not great, and again, this is such a multi-layered issue. When you delve into it, it touches so many different societal issues that we have like alcohol, drugs and gambling,” Murphy said.
“We’ve done a lot of research and investigations at a political level, and the actions that come out of those things are what we’re waiting for next, but we don’t actually start implementing the actions that we’ve already found out from past investigations.
“We also need to reform our bail laws, so we keep violent offenders better managed until their case is heard. How many times do we hear them out on bail?”
The video Yarra Valley Domestic Violence PSA is available on YouTube, youtube.com/watch?v=jtAjHiYrn90
