Kylie, What Are You Thinking?

There has been a fascinating debate playing out in music over the past few weeks about whether artists should just shut up and sing.

Ed Sheeran largely thinks they should.

Macklemore very clearly doesn't.

After Macklemore used his spot on Sheeran’s US tour to speak about Palestine, and was subsequently removed from his remaining support dates, Sheeran found himself dragged into a conversation he had spent much of his career avoiding.

Sheeran initially defended his decision not to use his concerts to express his personal political views, before later speaking publicly about Gaza.

Macklemore’s position was more direct: if you have been handed a microphone, a stadium full of people and an enormous cultural platform, sometimes you have a responsibility to use it.

And that brings me, somewhat unexpectedly, to Kylie Minogue.

Today, our Kylie will walk onto arguably the biggest stage in Australia and perform before around 100,000 people at the MCG, with millions more watching around the country.

There will be sequins, nostalgia and presumably a song or two that causes half of Australia to start singing involuntarily.

I love Kylie. Who doesn’t?

But Kylie, what are you thinking?

While Australia prepares for one of its biggest sporting celebrations of the year, domestic violence services are preparing for something very different. They are preparing for women to need help.

Victoria Police says family violence incidents rose by 5 per cent on AFL Grand Final day last year, with 315 incidents recorded. In 2019, the increase was 20 per cent. One specialist family violence service has described Grand Final day as one of the most dangerous days of the year for women and children.

Just think about that.

While one part of the country stocks the fridge, fires up the barbecue and argues about whether Brisbane or Fremantle will win, another is making sure emergency accommodation is ready.

It is an appalling juxtaposition.

Football does not cause domestic violence. Alcohol, gambling and a disappointing result do not cause it either. Men who choose to abuse women cause domestic violence.

But experts have warned for years about what happens when major sporting events bring excessive drinking, gambling, heightened emotions and prolonged contact into homes where a man is already violent or controlling. We cannot keep treating the resulting spike in violence as an unfortunate footnote to the game.

So what will Kylie do with the extraordinary platform she holds today?

She would be perfectly entitled to sing. She has been booked to entertain, not solve Australia’s domestic violence crisis.

But that is precisely what makes the debate surrounding Macklemore and Ed Sheeran so interesting. What should we expect from people with enormous cultural power? Is entertaining enough, or does holding the microphone occasionally mean saying something when millions of people are listening?

Kylie has something governments spend millions trying to buy and domestic violence organisations spend years trying to build: attention.

For 20 minutes today, she will hold Australia’s attention in her hands. We cannot pretend that influence does not exist. Kylie is not merely another performer on the bill. She is one of the most loved and recognisable Australians in the world.

The question is whether she will use that power.

Imagine if, somewhere between Can’t Get You Out of My Head and Spinning Around, Kylie stopped for 30 seconds, not to lecture, deliver a political speech or wag her finger at football supporters, but simply to say that women and children should be safe in their homes, that mates should look out for mates and men should call out other men. She could also acknowledge the frontline workers who, while the rest of us watch the football, are preparing for the phone to ring.

Thirty seconds would be enough.

The AFL’s latest sexual assault controversy, involving allegations against Sydney Swans players following an incident at Melbourne’s Pullman Hotel, has also exposed something deeply uncomfortable: the power of publicity to determine which women are heard.

While the investigation was quickly assigned to Victoria Police’s Sexual Crimes Squad, other rape complainants say their cases have languished for months or even years. One woman, whose alleged attacker has since left the country, recently told The Age she wished he had been a footballer because perhaps then her case would have received the same urgency.

She has a point.

If a woman reports a rape and her case never makes a headline, did the system hear her at all?

The recent allegations involving the Swans remain under investigation and no charges have been laid. But the comparison is not about determining guilt. It is about what happens when intense public and media attention is suddenly applied to a sexual assault investigation, and what happens when that attention is absent.

The AFL Grand Final is not responsible for domestic violence, and neither, obviously, is Kylie Minogue. But when our biggest national sporting celebration consistently coincides with an increased risk of violence against women, surely that deserves more than silence.

Perhaps this is where Macklemore has a point. Having a platform and using it are two very different things.

Kylie has spent almost four decades becoming one of Australia’s most loved and successful performers. Today, she comes home to Melbourne and steps onto the largest stage this country can offer.

The songs and costumes will be fabulous, and Kylie will undoubtedly be fabulous.

But imagine if Australia’s most famous woman used Australia’s biggest stage to say something for the women who will not be having a fabulous Grand Final day.

The power is in her hands. And if Kylie chooses to use it, she might just kick the most important goal of the day.

And that would be a win for Aussie women.