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Australia's Domestic Violence Problem Highlighted By Brisbane News Site

A Shocking Example Of Australia's Violence Against Women Crisis
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This is the current homepage for the Brisbane Times, a Queensland-based Fairfax news site.

Not too remarkable for a major city news site, right? Murder, car crashes, a bit of lifestyle content.... nothing out of the ordinary, you might say.

Take another look.

That's six -- SIX -- stories on the front page about violence against women.

A woman died on Thursday morning after being shot in the head at a Gold Coast McDonald's. It is believed she was shot by a man known to her. The man then turned the gun on himself. The woman died at the scene, but the man has been taken to hospital in a serious condition.

A Gold Coast bikie will be charged with murder after he allegedly bashed his former partner. Tara Brown, 24, died in hospital overnight after her car was run off the road and she was then assaulted with a metal pole.

A woman was attacked with a machete on a street near Brisbane, after her car was rammed off the road on Thursday morning. The Times cites unconfirmed reports the woman was attacked by her former partner.

The site also reports on a warring couple banned from every Queensland pub, a woman shot in the buttocks, and a report stating female surgeons are bullied and sexually harassed by their male counterparts.

It's a homepage full of tragedy, and it has not gone unnoticed.

The Huffington Post Australia's Editor-At-Large, Lisa Wilkinson, posted an impassioned plea on her Instagram page after Brown's death.

This is the face of 24yo "smart, intelligent, beautiful" Gold Coast mum #TaraBrown. Tara died this morning after allegedly being viciously bashed to within an inch of her life while trapped in the car she had just crashed after her ex forced her off the road. Last Thursday in fear of her life, Tara had gone to police for help to leave her partner but was turned away and told to seek help elsewhere. Tara leaves behind her young daughter who she had just dropped off at childcare. Tara's tragic death comes on a day when another thug in Queensland who bashed his girlfriend until she passed out walked free from court, while yet another man with a criminal history was allowed out on bail to kill mother-of-two Jodi Eaton, a woman has been shot dead at a McDonalds on the Gold Coast, and as we mourn the death of a NSW grandmother and her 7 year old grandson allegedly at the hands of her own son. This country is in crisis. Real crisis. Domestic violence has reached epidemic proportions. And this is all happening against a backdrop of shelters being closed, and helplines losing funding. Please, don't let Tara's death - or all the hundreds of others we are losing in ever-greater numbers each and every year to domestic violence - just pass by unnoticed. Let's get #TaraBrown and #StopViolenceAgainstWomen trending. Let's put REAL pressure on our politicians, our beaurocrats and a "system" that turns women like Tara - and her young daughter - away in their moment of greatest need. And please, please spread the word with a double tap. Thank you. @thetodayshow #today9

A photo posted by Lisa Wilkinson (@lisa_wilkinson) on

A 2012 Australian Bureau of Statistics report on personal safety cited one in three women had experienced physical violence, while one in five had experienced sexual violence.

A 2013 National Homicide Monitoring Program report found that between 2003 and 2012, "intimate partners accounted for 23 percent of all homicide victims," while of the 2631 homicides in the same period, 1088 -- or 41 percent -- were classified as domestic/family homicides.

It is a shocking reminder that domestic violence is a problem that won't go away.

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