THE violent actions of men – from the international arena to the home – took centre stage this past week. And PM Malcolm Turnbull found himself engaged on both fronts.

And the sideswipe was not lost on the neocon rump – including our own Senator Zed Seselja – at their regular Tuesday lunch. However, Turnbull’s 65 per cent polling numbers ensured that they kept their grumbles sotto voce and instead feasted on Tony Abbott’s contribution – the cake baked by his Canberra landlady, the versatile Peta Credlin.

BUT the real focus of the week quickly turned to domestic violence; and all Parliamentarians were happy to follow the PM’s lead in their condemnation of its horrors.

The two-part ABC series by Sarah Ferguson and the “Q&A” special that followed were devastating. The statistics alone were shocking – no fewer than 70,000 Australian men are now under domestic violence restraining orders (DVOs). In military terms, that’s five infantry divisions! It’s 10,000 more than the entire full-time cohort of the ADF. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The government’s $100 million funding will go some way to assist, but on top of the appalling behaviour exposed in the Royal Commission on child abuse, there are clearly fundamental problems to be confronted.

ON the local front, the indefatigable Simon Corbell signalled a rollout of recharging stations for electric cars to cut CO2 emissions. Nice idea, Simon, but that’s only one element in the revolution taking place in the car business. According to Industry Department projections, Uber is the forerunner of a movement that will see private car ownership become an optional extra… and that would make his expensive light rail system redundant.

ANOTHER blow came from Griffith University’s senior transport planner, Matthew Burke, who says the Gungahlin tram route “will get a few more riders than existing bus services but at great expense”. He says the system “only makes sense when it’s extended south through the Parliamentary Triangle and down to Woden. You’ll then get bureaucrats during the day travelling to other offices and tourists to those tourist sites”. Otherwise the finances don’t add up.

THEN came Simon’s decision to devote $12 million to a “surgical taskforce” next year to perform 1000 extra elective surgeries. Another good idea. The pity is that he allowed waiting times to deteriorate so much that expensive emergency funding was necessary… so it’s not surprising that Andrew Barr wants more GST money in the coffers. Indeed, the GST debate is not going well for Labor, with SA Premier Jay Weatherill the latest to break ranks with his Federal leadership. “It’s needed for health care,” he says. “It would give us a fighting chance. At the moment we’ve got none.”

Finally, while this week’s Australian Masters winner, the eponymous 56-year-old Queenslander Peter Senior, is a nice bloke, his victory was a telling commentary on the sad state of Australian golf. Player numbers are way down. Obviously, the game is too genteel for real Aussie blokes.

Maybe if play-offs were decided by duelling with five irons at the 19th hole…

robert@robertmacklin.com