Adjudication No. 972 (May 1998) [1998] APC 18

ADJUDICATION No. 972 (May 1998)

The Australian Press Council has dismissed a complaint brought by Mr John Coochey against The Age. The complaint centred on the following statement in an article published in its 16 February edition.

"In 1996, 180,000 Australian women were kicked, punched, shot at and scalded by their partners, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics."

Mr Coochey claimed that no such finding was ever made by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). He further claimed that no data had ever been collected about the number of women scalded by their partners, and added: "If this figure does exist the author should precisely give its source because it most definitely is not in the Women's Safety Survey".

The newspaper in defending the statement pointed to its reliance on page 6 of the Executive Summary of the ABS' "Women's Safety" report where it was stated that "in the previous 12 month period (1996), 104,600 women experienced physical violence by their current partner, 75,800 by a previous partner". The two figures added up to a total of 180,400.

Mr Coochey disputed the figure of 180,000 by relying on his interpretation of a different table in the ABS report. The Council finds that there was no attempt made by the newspaper to manipulate the figure. The emphasis of the newspaper was on the number of women subjected to violence.

The second point raised by Mr Coochey was that the ABS had collected no data about the number of women scalded by their partners. The newspaper made a reference to "or other" in Table 2.3 of the ABS report. As Mr Coochey rightly pointed out there was no "other" section in that table. However, this does not necessarily confirm the accuracy of Mr Coochey's point.

In any case, while "others" does not appear on Table 2.3, a graphical summary, it does appear in Table 3.10 which is the numerical summary of the data.

The newspaper had put an interpretation on data supplied by the ABS. Mr Coochey had questioned that interpretation. The Council does not have sufficient information regarding the data to determine which interpretation is the more accurate one. In any event, this is a complaint which sought to "overblow" one aspect of a detailed news report concerning a major study of domestic violence victims.