Australia: Domestic violence levy: Canberra sets an absurd precedent

Article here. Jump the paywall by Googling the first paragraph text. Excerpt:

'Canberra is the first place in Australia, probably in the world, to have introduced a domestic violence levy on all ratepayers. Canberrans who own property now will have to pay a special flat tax in what is already the highest taxed jurisdiction in Australia.
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Issues such as this become sacrosanct. Thus in a place and time where girls have better school and tertiary results, more economic power and generally better lives than before, feminism is running out of issues. But the feminist flame has to be kept burning, so domestic violence has become the issue du jour. No one is allowed to question money spent in the name of the cause.

How bad domestic violence is in Australia is a moot point. The statistics on violence show that actual assaults on women haven’t increased, although reports have. Certainly, the use of apprehended violence orders has increased to the point where they are used in everything from disputes with your neighbour to a threat of serious assault.

Expanding the definition of domestic violence to include all sorts of subtleties is simply feeding into the victim industry — great for social workers, but no wonder the police can’t distinguish between an incident likely to escalate into serious violence and a basically frivolous complaint.'