'For so long, I avoided Luke's story. But today I can't.'

Today, Rosie Batty praised the 29 recommendations made by the coroner and the findings of the inquest into her son, Luke Batty’s death – and I still don’t know whether I can read more than the headline.

Eleven-year-old Luke was murdered last February at the end of an afternoon training session on a cricket field in Melbourne, during pack-up time. His father, Greg Anderson, killed him with a cricket bat.

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When the news broke last year, every single thing I knew about the event came from people around me talking about it. Getting a coffee in the morning, the barista shook his head and said he couldn’t believe it, he felt sick. Friends were teary as they recounted the brutality and the fact that this 11-year-old boy was happy to see his father drop in to his cricket practice; Luke asked to have a few minutes catching up with his dad at the end of training. It was the first thing discussed in the morning hellos and how are yous at work.

In those first few days every time Luke was mentioned, I’d stop breathing and channel my energy into not crying. I ended up simply walking away from the Oh My God conversations. It was too hard.

And after I avoided the stories of Luke, and hurriedly clicked off the images of Rosie smiling in her bathers as her beautiful, happy son held a cake and sat on the arm of her chair by a pool, I would feel guilty. I can’t even read about this, yet this woman has to live it. This little boy. This woman. The pain and suffering. They joked about his hair getting long the morning he was killed.

When she was made Australian of the Year in January, I didn't read or listen to her speech. I couldn't. And throughout her tireless campaigning where she spoke about the "epidemic" of domestic violence in Australia I would make myself forget the reason she was speaking, the reason she had a platform in the first place. I made it about this other thing, over there. 

But Rosie wouldn’t give up. She spoke out about domestic violence and she spoke about her son and somehow, despite my best efforts, I saw Luke and I heard her. And that means the people who need to hear, who deny and avoid and take no responsibility for hurting, whether physically or emotionally, the people they say they love (or have loved) will hear too.

Time and time again she stood up and told her story to change legislation, to make a difference. Rosie has stood up and told so many women’s stories. She has raised awareness about an issue that is so uncomfortable, so private and so brutal that many have thought they have no choice but to turn away. It isn’t my business, that’s their business, it will go away soon. She has shown us that speaking out, speaking up, demanding to be heard is the only way.

Today I read the headline and I read the full story, and it still takes away my breath. The coroner’s recommendations are the first step. They highlight the failings in the system and indicate where change and resources are needed.

“The biggest change we need to see is how we effectively intervene with perpetrators and work to stop the violence,” Rosie Batty said clearly today, reminding us, again, that no-one is immune to intimate partner violence.

Armed with love and the cruelest loss of all, Rosie has made Luke more than a tragic news story. She made him a real; a little 11-year-old, cricket-loving boy, happy to see his father at cricket practice.

She made us see Luke smile and made us know her son.

And as the coroner said to Rosie Batty today: “Luke has not died in vain.”