The Good Warrior

13/08/2026

It is beyond time the domestic violence sector faced serious scrutiny.

Those of us who have lived this trauma, and continue doing the work to protect others, are sick and tired of watching people build careers, profiles and platforms from our suffering while survivor voices are ignored, diminished, pushed aside and threatened.

We are counting lives lost while parts of the sector appear more occupied with awards, recognition and protecting reputations than confronting poor behaviour and demanding meaningful outcomes.

Enough. Seriously, enough.

Those enabling this culture should be asking themselves whose interests they are actually serving.

I am deeply ashamed and embarrassed by what I am watching play out in a sector that should know better. And I am not the only one.

People often say this when they want those who carried the fight to stop talking about how they were treated along the way. Who cares who gets the credit? Who cares if politicians suddenly embrace the issue? Who cares if funded organisations begin advocating without acknowledging the survivor-led wo

30/07/2026

Can you please send this report and podcast to your local MP and ask them to support my campaign for a national domestic violence disclosure scheme.

42 women killed by violence in Australia this year.

42 lives. 42 families. 42 warnings that our systems continue responding after harm while resisting measures that could help people recognise danger earlier.

Yet this week, a well-connected Melbourne man was found guilty of two counts of r**e and one count of sexual assault, and his identity remains protected by a suppression order reportedly based on concerns for his safety. Read that again CONCERNS FOR HIS SAFETY!

When will the safety of people at risk be treated with the same urgency as the privacy of people with histories of violence? It is not a call for public naming and shaming. It is a demand for an honest examination of the balance between privacy and prevention.

A properly designed scheme is not a public register. It allows someone who may be at risk to confidentially ask whether their current or former partner has a relevant history of violence or abuse.

Information is disclosed privately, with specialist support and safety planning. South Australia already operates this model. An independent international review identified it as a model for other jurisdictions. Victim-survivors reported that the information helped them recognise patterns, reduce self-blame and make informed decisions about their safety.

Yet governments, academics and sector leaders continue to overlook this evidence. Why are people with direct lived experience routinely consulted, yet rarely given equal decision-making power?

Why do professional titles appear to carry greater authority than the knowledge of those who have survived violent partners and navigated the systems being designed for us?

Academic and professional expertise matters. But it must not automatically outweigh lived experience, particularly when victim-survivor leaders bring evidence, practical solutions and community support.

For more than 20 years, I have advocated for prevention. I am a victim-survivor, and my national disclosure-scheme campaign has been supported by more than 133,000 people. I know what it means to question your own reality while authorities may hold information you do not have.

No disclosure scheme will prevent every death. No policy can. But “not a silver bullet” has become Australia’s excuse for rejecting practical prevention while continuing to fund crisis management.

How often did authorities hold relevant information that the person at risk did not have? What evidence will governments consider sufficient if South Australia’s experience, independent research and victim-survivor testimony are still not enough?

Australia does not lack evidence. It lacks the courage to act on evidence that challenges established thinking.

I am exhausting every available avenue and the response, and the silence, have been deeply disturbing. Examine the evidence publicly. Answer it honestly. Then act.

My updated report and podcast with leading global researcher of disclosure schemes attached. Please read, listen and share.

https://thegoodwarrior.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/national-domestic-violence-disclosure-scheme-report-australia.pdf

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-voice-of-warriors/id1831174702?i=1000777619089

28/07/2026

The campaign for a national Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme has exposed an ugly side of the domestic violence industry. I thought I had seen a lot over the past twenty years, but the toxicity, game playing and political manoeuvring surrounding this campaign have been disturbing.

Like many campaigns, few people support it at the beginning. Then it gains momentum. Suddenly, people jump on, reposition themselves and attempt to exploit work they did not support when it was difficult. This time, I have zero tolerance for the political football.

We cannot afford to get this wrong. This is not a cute piece of legislation. A disclosure scheme can be the difference between saving a life and costing one. A disclosure scheme is not simply a database. It is not a public register. It is not a police check for partners. It is not a slogan to attach to the latest tragedy.

If Australia gets the design wrong, we risk creating a scheme that looks decisive but delivers little, excludes the people who need it and gives governments another announcement without meaningful prevention. The evidence tells us what a successful scheme requires. And yet many are ignoring it. What?

The South Australian model provides evidence Australia should be examining closely. Its independent review considered six years of operation, more than 2,500 applications and over 1,000 disclosure meetings.

It found that 98 per cent of clients considered the disclosure helpful when making decisions about their personal safety. It also found that 86 per cent of applicants were not connected with a domestic violence service when they applied.

The scheme is reaching people existing services have not reached.

I have spent more than twenty years working to prevent domestic violence and the past nineteen months leading this national campaign. I have spoken with victim survivors, researchers, legal experts, police, governments and community organisations. I have studied the evidence about why some schemes work and why others fail.

More voices are welcome. More leadership is welcome. Genuine collaboration is welcome. But collaboration must be informed. Those entering this campaign now have a responsibility to understand the evidence, acknowledge the work already completed and avoid promoting models that repeat known mistakes.

Support cannot begin and end with a headline.

I have released my report, “A National Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme for Australia: Evidence, Rationale and Recommendations,” because this debate must be grounded in evidence rather than ego, politics or positioning.

Read the report:https://thegoodwarrior.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/national-domestic-violence-disclosure-scheme-report-australia.pdf

This reform belongs to everyone. Its integrity is everyone’s responsibility.

Thank you Freddy Pawley for covering this, when many are getting it so very wrong or simply ignoring the real evidence.

‘There is no longer an excuse as to why we haven’t prevented such deaths.’ Link below.

25/07/2026

Some stories can be told in minutes. Others take years to understand.

Last night, A Current Affair shared a glimpse of a journey that began with a small dog and became something much larger, a question about home, power, belonging and what happens when an ordinary person decides that something is not right.

More than two and a half hours of conversation was recorded for this segment, yet even that could only begin to trace the contours of six and a half years. Television can capture the milestones, but not always the life lived between them, the sacrifices made in private, the consequences carried long after each hearing, and the quiet moments when continuing demanded more than anyone could see.

That is why I am especially grateful that the segment acknowledged my book, Toppling Towers of Power. It holds what a brief television story cannot, the human story behind the legal one, and the true cost of standing your ground when the balance of power is not in your favour.

A legal decision marks the moment a judgment is delivered. It does not mark the end of its human impact. Long after the courtroom falls silent, people continue to live with what the experience asked of them.

I remain proud that this journey created an outcome for people I may never meet. But its real significance was never only about an animal or a building. It was about whether our homes, communities and systems make room for human lives as they are actually lived.

That is where my attention remains as strata and many systems continue to fail in their duty of care.

The law can open a door, but it cannot teach us how to meet one another on the other side. The next chapter lies in that human space, in how we create belonging, restore dignity and build communities in which people are not required to lose themselves simply to be heard.

The segment tells part of the story. The rest is still unfolding.

Some of the responses since it aired have also revealed how quickly those who challenge established systems can become the subject of personal judgment. The way we treat people who speak up can determine whether the next person finds the courage to do the same.

Change depends not only on those willing to step forward, but on the kind of community waiting for them when they do.

https://www.nine.com.au/australia-news/a-current-affair/how-one-tiny-dog-changed-australian-property-rights-20260724-p60iei.html

https://youtu.be/hw1a47WhJnU?si=RP73DakCHbA-fMBu

When you live in an apartment, you've got to deal with the strata c...

24/07/2026

Looking for some good weekend listening? 🎧

My conversation with the leading academic and researcher of a domestic violence disclosure scheme, Dr Katerina Hadjimatheou is well worth a listen.

We talk honestly about why disclosure schemes work, share insights on the hesitations, and explore ideas that may stay with you long after the episode ends.

Because this conversations raises a lot of important questions of our government and their lack of meaningful action around Domestic Violence policies that actually make a difference.

Listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-voice-of-warriors/id1831174702?i=1000777619089

Podcast Episode · THE VOICE OF WARRIORS 🛡️💪🏽 · 20 July · 46min

21/07/2026

TW: Domestic Violence.

Today’s podcast asks a question every Australian should be asking:

Why is Australia ignoring evidence that could help people recognise danger, make informed choices and potentially save lives?

For more than 19 months, I have campaigned for a nationally consistent domestic violence disclosure scheme, often known as Clare’s Law. Such a scheme can allow someone to learn whether a current or potential partner has a recorded history of violence. More than 133,000 people have supported this campaign. Yet the strongest evidence, including substantial research involving victim-survivors in South Australia, appears to have been given far less weight than smaller studies repeatedly used to justify government hesitation.

That should trouble us all.

I'm absolutely grateful for today’s episode with leading disclosure-scheme researcher Dr Katerina Hadjimatheou

We talk about:

- People who used these schemes reported that the information helped them leave a relationship or stay away.
- Disclosures can reduce shame and self-blame by confirming that the abuse is part of a documented pattern.
- South Australia demonstrates how a properly designed, victim-centred scheme can work alongside specialist support services.
- Concerns about privacy, litigation and resources are not reasons to ignore the evidence, they are matters that responsible policy design can address.
- A disclosure scheme is not a silver bullet. No single domestic violence policy is. That is not an argument for doing nothing.

The most damning issue is not that governments are asking questions. They should.

It is that victim-survivors and more than 133,000 Australian's are still waiting for governments and local academics to demonstrate that they have seriously examined the strongest available evidence, and to explain, transparently, why it has not led to action.

Pleasantries are not policy. Acknowledging victim-survivors while giving their evidence little weight is not consultation. Funding crisis responses while refusing to seriously consider prevention guarantees that we remain trapped in crisis management.

So I am asking Australians to start asking questions:

What evidence has the government examined?
Why has South Australia’s experience not driven national action?
Whose interests are being prioritised?
What preventative alternative is being proposed?
And what will it take before victim-survivors’ voices are treated as evidence, not decoration?

This is not about political point-scoring. It is about whether information already held by authorities should reach the person whose safety may depend on it.

Listen to today’s episode of The Voice of Warriors and share it. Examine the evidence. Ask your representatives where they stand. Link in comments.

Silence and delay are also decisions, and Australians deserve to know why those decisions are being made.

15/07/2026

There is something people who have lived through abuse often learn that no textbook can teach.

You pay a price for dismissing what your instincts already knew.

Two years ago, speaking with Mark Bouris I said:

"Call it, and call it out early."

Mark replied:

“Because Someone will know about it."

I'm grateful for that conversation. Two years later, I believe those words are still so relevant.

I paid a price for ignoring my instincts in my first abusive relationship. I have never made that mistake again, which is why I will always call it, and call it out early.

Abuse often begins by testing whether anyone will speak before it grows.

There is a cost to courage. But the cost of silence is far greater.

The journey from surviving abuse to finding myself challenging an entire establishment is why I wrote Toppling Towers of Power.

This Sunday, I'll be sharing that story at my Sydney book launch with at Better Read Than Dead.

If you'd like to join us, make sure you registration. I'd love to see you there.

https://www.betterreadevents.com/events/jo-cooper-sydney-book-launch-toppling-towers-of-power

Because courage doesn't begin when the tower falls.

It begins the moment someone decides to call it.

12/07/2026

How many more lives lost to violence will be enough before our leaders truly listen?

Lived experience must help shape policy, and prevention must become the business model.

I have a great deal to say about what I have witnessed over the past month involving government, charities and parts of the domestic and family violence sector. I will say it, but not while my emotions are high.

Today, my thoughts are with the families whose lives have been forever changed.

If these deaths don't make us question whether we are listening to the right people, asking the right questions and investing in the right solutions, then when will we?

We cannot continue measuring our commitment by how much we spend responding to violence while treating prevention as optional.

The cost of maintaining the status quo is counted in human lives.

12/07/2026

One of the most powerful moments from my conversation with international disclosure scheme researcher Dr Katerina Hadjimatheou wasn't about Clare's Law.

It was about who we consider an expert.

For much of my life, I've lived on both sides of this conversation. I spent years surviving domestic violence before dedicating more than two decades to advocating for others. Along the way, I've led landmark law reform, challenged powerful systems, met with ministers across the country, spoken with thousands of victim-survivors, and most recently led one of Australia's largest grassroots campaigns for a National Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, supported by more than 133,000 Australians.

Yet if there's one thing I've learned, it's that lived experience is still too often treated as something to consult once the research is complete, rather than recognised as a form of expertise that helps shape the research itself.

During our conversation, Katerina explained that when evaluating a disclosure scheme, the voices of the people who have actually used it are the most important evidence. More important than statistics alone. More important than the opinions of those administering the scheme. Because they are the only people who can tell us whether it changed their decisions, increased their safety or empowered them to act.

Hearing one of the world's leading researchers say that was unexpectedly emotional. Because for many victim-survivors, that has not been our experience.

Too often we are invited to share our stories, but not to share our expertise. We become case studies rather than contributors. We are consulted after decisions have largely been made instead of being recognised as partners in designing the policies intended to protect us.

Good research is indispensable. The strongest evidence is built when research, professional expertise and lived experience work together.

I have led campaigns. I have challenged powerful systems. I have changed laws and influenced legislative reform.

Of all the resistance I have encountered, the pushback surrounding this campaign has been unlike anything I have experienced.

Not because governments have questioned it. What has troubled me most is how often the resistance has come from within the very sector established to support victim-survivors.

Too often, lived experience is celebrated in speeches, accolades and acknowledged in strategies , yet diminished when it begins to influence policy, challenge established thinking or ask uncomfortable questions.

If we have reached a point where the people a sector was created to serve are treated as obstacles to reform rather than partners in it, then perhaps it is time to ask ourselves a far more important question: Have we become more committed to protecting systems than fulfilling the purpose for which those systems were created?

If we genuinely want to prevent violence rather than simply respond to it, we need to stop asking whether lived experience belongs at the table.

We need to start recognising that lived experience is not simply a story to be heard. It is expertise to be respected.

Because unless you have experienced a violent relationship, you can analyse it, you can research it and you can seek to understand it. But lived experience reveals things no textbook, dataset or policy paper ever can. That is why it is expertise, not simply testimony.

Full episode of The Voice of Warriors coming soon.

09/07/2026

It has now been 19 months since I began leading the campaign for a National Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, a campaign that more than 133,000 Australians have supported because they believe being informed matters.

This week on The Voice of Warriors, I had the privilege of speaking with internationally recognised disclosure scheme researcher Katerina Hadjimatheou.

When more than 133,000 Australians call for reform, the very least they deserve is a decision informed by the strongest available evidence. If governments ultimately decide not to proceed with a national disclosure scheme, that decision should be transparent, evidence-based and clearly explained.
That is all any citizen should ask of those entrusted with shaping public policy, and it remains my request as I continue meeting with Ministers across Australia.

Domestic and family violence is too important for decisions to be driven by assumptions, selective evidence or ideology. We owe victim-survivors, and every Australian seeking safer communities, a process that is rigorous, accountable and grounded in research.

As I continue leading this campaign, I hope governments across Australia will engage with the most up-to-date evidence, recognise lived experience as a form of expertise alongside research and professional knowledge, and genuinely listen to the thousands of victim-survivors who have contributed to and become more confident being part of this campaign. Their voices, experiences and commitment deserve to be part of shaping the policies designed to protect others.

Because when lives are at stake, evidence should never be optional.

I am incredibly grateful for people like Katerina, who take the time to understand the work, engage with the evidence and genuinely value lived experience. That willingness to listen, learn and collaborate is exactly what meaningful reform requires.

The full episode will be released soon. In the meantime, you can catch up on previous episodes of The Voice of Warriors via the link in the comments.