The Gowland Awards was split into two parts: ‘The Best’ – which included the presentation of two Gold Gowland Awards – and ‘The Worst’, the Howl for a Gowl ‘I Called It Out’ Awards, naming outrageous instances of domestic violence denial.

We are pleased to announce the 2017 winners for each category (determined by all your boos and howls of disdain and outrage on the night!), who join our winners from 2016:

The Gowland Awards For The Best

The Gowland Award for Excellence in Domestic Violence Awareness

2017 Winner: Rebecca Gibney
2016 Winner: Andrew O’Keefe

The Gowland Award for Acts of Resistance; that recognises acts of survivors’ strengths

2017 Winner: Leichhardt Women’s Community Health Centre for nominating their client.
2016 Winner: Dixie Link-Gordon for nominating a young Aboriginal woman and the Redfern All Blacks Women Football team.

The Gowland Awards for The Worst

The Gowland Award for calling out the Worst Survivor/Victim Blaming Statement

2017 Winner – Anita Vitanova for her nomination: 

“I immediately threw a single punch with my right hand” – Sergeant Berry, the Queensland police officer who responded to his neighbour’s call for helping during a domestic violence incident by punching her in the face and taking out an AVO against her. 

2016 Winner – Elizabeth King for her nomination:

“She put the peas on the wrong side of the plate” – de-identified.

The Gowland Award for calling out the Most Trivial or Patronising Remark about Domestic Violence

2017 Winner – Christine Robinson for her nomination:

For arresting Ms Dhu, an Indigenous single mother. The police officers were called to Ms Dhu’s house over a domestic violence incident. But instead they arrested her for $3,900.00 of fines. During the 3 days in police lock up Ms Dhu’s health seriously declined due to an infection in a rib that had not healed properly. You see Ms Dhu had suffered two broken ribs after her partner has thrown her to the ground 3 years earlier. Ms Dhu died after 3 days in police custody. 

2016 Winner – Tania Smith for her nomination:

“How does DV leave stop DV exactly? If anything it encourages it, or at least false reports. ‘Divvie’ the new ‘sickie.’ Another union rort” – Miranda Devine.

The Gowland Award for calling out the Most Inaccurate Statement about Domestic Violence

2017 Winner – Dr Glenys D’Ore for her nomination:

For nominating Gregory Riddett, a social worker and counsellor specialising in family violence who said in September 2016 “that there are double standards at play when it comes to domestic assault. We have, he argues, invested too heavily a gendered model of family violence. Simplistic feminist assumptions about male power and female oppression just perpetuate old stereotypes.”

2016 Winner – Sruti Sinha for her nomination:

“Violence against women does discriminate starkly. It is concentrated in communities with a high indigenous population, in the Northern Territory, in impoverished rural towns, in the urban fringes where the underclass lives, where welfare has emasculated men, where unemployment is high and education poor, and where drug and alcohol abuse is rife. These are the obvious preconditions for violence” – Miranda Devine.

The 2016 Gowland Award for calling out the Worst Apologist; most outrageous remark made by a 3rd party for apologising for acts of domestic violence, awarded to Dr Belinda Russon for her nomination:

“Children are used as pawns in custody battles where women make frivolous claims and believe they have the sole right to the children. Children have two parents and, until we treat mums and dads with the same courtesy and rights, we will continue to see murders due to sheer frustration and depression and mental illness caused by this unworkable system” – Pauline Hanson in her 2016 Maiden Speech.

We’re already accepting nominations for this year so be sure to keep sending them in.

We can’t wait to see you all again next year for more fun, bubbles and superior canapés to call out the worst domestic violence deniers.

Lyndal Gowland and the team at Gowland Legal