The more things change ...

The more things change - the more they stay the same.

What an eventful few months Australian women have had to endure with the media going into a frenzy over a number of high profile verbal and physical abuse cases that, by their very brazen nature, deserved the probing glare of the nation.

The names of Trenton Cunningham, Pru Goward, Sheik Taj din al-Hilali, David Barnett and Mal Brough, featured prominently in the tabloids and evening newsreels in what would otherwise have been another uneventful month of media speculations on interest rates, exit strategies for Aussie soldiers involved in a no-brainer war in the Middle East, Telstra III share price and petrol prices.

The first story that came to the nation’s attention was the heart-rending saga of an Indigenous Tiwi Island woman, Jodie Palipuaminni, who against the advice of caring family members and the courts returned to her violent partner, Trenton Cunningham, with catastrophic consequences.

Anne Barker, speaking on Mark Colvin’s ABC Radio National show on September 20, commented that the most tragic thing about Jodie Palipuaminni's death was that it was so preventable.

“By the time her husband, Trenton Cunningham, beat her to death in May last year, she'd suffered 11 years of the most horrific domestic violence."

Cunningham had already spent 18 months in jail for two earlier assaults (including pouring boiling water over her) and at the time of her death he was on parole, with strict orders that he was not even allowed to live on the same island as his wife.

Yet parole officers admitted recently in court that, 18 months after Cunningham's release, they weren't even aware that he was again living with his wife in breach of his parole conditions.

They only became aware when, on May 25 last year, he killed her.

In that last brutal attack, Jodie Palipuaminni sustained a ruptured liver, serious head injuries, three cracked ribs, skin burns and heavy trauma to the chest and abdomen. She was pregnant at the time.

Counsel assisting the coroner, Jon Tippett QC, speaking on the same program said, "… the fact that Mrs Palipuaminni died at the hands of her husband was not surprising. It was an event that was entirely predictable and had been predicted".

Trenton Cunningham was convicted last month of manslaughter and is now serving an 11-year jail term.

This sad end to a precious life, while shocking in the extreme, is one many Indigenous people are all too familiar with. There wouldn’t be a single township or suburb with a large Indigenous population anywhere in the country that could not recount a similar ghastly affair.

The recalled events are mere reflections of the Tiwi Island tragedy: jealous partner with a history of violence and police intervention finally commits the ultimate crime that not only ends a life of a mother, sister, aunt or granny, but also has long-lasting emotional consequences for immediate family and community members.

The second infamous public outing goes to the nation’s highest Muslim cleric. The story in question, which gained international media coverage, overheated radio station switchboards and increased their monthly ratings, was a story by The Australian on Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali.

The high profile cleric was identified by the Murdoch-owned paper for a sermon last month in which he likened immodestly dressed women to “meat” that attracted voracious predators.

Speaking to the AAP on October 26, federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward said Australia's top Muslim cleric Sheik Hilali should be sacked and deported for comments which essentially excused young Muslim men who committed rape.

Ms Goward said the sheik had a history of making such comments and many would feel Australia's tolerance had been abused.

"It is incitement to a crime; young Muslim men who now rape women can cite this in court, can quote this man ... their leader in court," she told the Nine Network. "It's time we stopped just saying he should apologise. It is time the Islamic community did more than say they were horrified. I think it is time he left."

Sheik Hilali's comments were delivered in a Ramadan sermon to 500 worshippers in Sydney, a News Ltd newspaper reported.

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat," he said in the sermon.

"The uncovered meat is the problem.”

"If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (Islamic headdress), no problem would have occurred."

Ms Goward said, “This was an ugly comparison and that was vile enough.”

Most Muslims would concur with Pru Goward and her strong words of condemnation against their mufti. There are also, to the government’s increasing concern, a growing number of Indigenous people taking on the Muslim faith and these new recruits would be aghast at the inappropriateness of Sheik Hilali’s analogy of a woman’s self-expression in clothing attire to “uncovered meat”.

It would be inconceivable to believe Muslim women, including those Indigenous women of that faith, to take literally the teachings of the eminent mufti whose rantings belong in the dark ages.

The mufti should call it a day and make way for a new forward thinking and contemporary inclusive cleric to represent the nation’s large Muslim community and present a fresh articulate face to alleviate the nation’s growing level of discontent and, sadly in some quarters, fear and loathing of all things Islamic.

The third man to raise the ire of women around the nation, especially Indigenous women, was none other than Pru Goward’s husband, David Barnett.

Canberra Times columnist Barnett, on June 8, 2006, is claimed to have made racist and sexist suggestions that some Aboriginal women “wiped themselves with a rag after using the lavatory, then hung it up to dry for next time”.

He continued in his column with, “Aboriginal woman don’t do any housework”. This has got to be the most backward and insulting comment printed by a reputable broadsheet. Barnett soldiered on through murkier waters and came up with another screamer, “… the baby bonus sends a town on a drunken binge.” Wow - another gross generalisation.

Hasn’t Barnett heard about discrimination laws? Perhaps Pru Goward, who had a lot to say about Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, should warn him about these laws, seeing she is the federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner.

Or perhaps "these laws" don’t apply to a highly educated man performing his creative duty as a journalist of enlightening the common folk on the ways of a backward race of people.

I hope respected ACT Indigenous barrister, George Villaflor, follows through with his threat to take Barnett and The Canberra Times to task before a court of law.

And what would a good news story be without a gaffe from Minister Mal Brough?

The Australian reported a story on October 30 about the minister being heckled by up to a dozen locals during his speech on the opening of a $2.4 million police station for Mutitjulu, near Uluru. Ironically the new police station will be staffed by two Aboriginal community police officers who have just completed nine week’s training. They do not have the power of arrest and are not authorised to carry handcuffs or firearms.

The cause of the vocal protest and finger pointing was a result of the minister alleging, earlier this year, that there were “pedophile rings” operating in Mutitjulu, but when questioned it seems he was unable to produce evidence to support the claim.

The more things change - the more they stay the same.