Intimate Relationships in Australia
A report proposing a new annual longitudinal study on intimate relationships.
This report proposes a new population-based annual longitudinal study, Intimate Relationships in Australia (IRINA), to generate urgently needed evidence about how intimate relationships form, evolve and (often) end in contemporary Australia. The data collected will show how and why some relationships become abusive or violent, revealing the causes, trajectories and consequences of intimate partner violence (IPV). These insights will be critical for identifying early warning signs of stress or breakdown in relationships, strengthening prevention and early intervention policies to prevent partner violence, and ensuring that services are responsive to people’s needs.
We are creating a new and potentially invaluable data asset that will have many uses for governments and researchers. There is increasing awareness of issues around social isolation and loneliness, particularly among young people, and the impact on mental and physical health and wellbeing. Better understanding how people can form supportive, fulfilling partnerships will be critical to effectively addressing how to support meaningful connections and reduce loneliness.
Additional research conducted for this project, as referenced in the report, is available for download below.
Anne is currently a Professor of Domestic and Family Violence at the University of Technology of Sydney Business School. She has been awarded substantial funding by the Paul Ramsay Foundation and UTS to continue her innovative data-based research into domestic violence in Australia. Her report, The Choice: Violence or Poverty (2022), used previously unpublished ABS data to reveal the far greater prevalence of domestic violence than was previously known, and especially the shockingly high incidence among women who have become single mothers as a result. The report influenced the federal government to make changes in the 2023 federal budget to the payment system for single mothers, enabling these mothers to remain on the Parenting Payment until their youngest child reaches the age of 14.
Previously, Anne has advised Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, run the Office of the Status of Women, been Canberra Bureau Chief for the Australian Financial Review newspaper, been editor-in-chief of America’s leading feminist magazine Ms., editor of Good Weekend, chair of the Board of Greenpeace International and a Trustee of the Powerhouse Museum. She was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia for her services to journalism and to women in 1989; had her image on a postage stamp as an Australian Legend in 2011 and in 2017 was inducted into the Australian Media Hall of Fame.
