And the rest of the world agreed; such stories barely make it into the pages of the world's newspapers anymore. It would be tempting to describe the growing list of women killed by men in Australia in a similar way.

But we cannot. We must be wary of believing somehow that the scourge of domestic violence in this country is intractable.

But it does sometimes feel that way. On Friday, hundreds of Ballarat residents gathered for a snap rally in the wake of the deaths of Samantha Murphy, Rebecca Young and, most recently, Hannah McGuire, who were all allegedly murdered in separate incidents over just 61 days.

On Saturday, a man committed a horrifying attack at Westfield's Bondi Junction shopping centre, killing six people. Five of those killed were women and NSW police are now investigating whether the killer targeted women.

According to Destroy the Joint's "Counting Dead Women" campaign, 23 women have been killed by men's violence in Australia this year, just 15 weeks in. This follows the alleged killing of at least 64 women in 2023.

All have been tragic, senseless and preventable, even as they are starting to feel commonplace, and removed from the everyday lives of most Australians.

But there has been enough campaigning over the years to remind us, no matter how much we don't want to hear it, that domestic violence occurs in every kind of home, in every demographic and almost always behind firmly closed doors.

Meanwhile, it's now 10 years since 11-year-old Luke Batty was murdered by his own father on a sports oval after cricket practice.

For the 10 previous years, Luke's mother Rosie Batty had made numerous allegations to police that Luke's father had been violent towards her.

And now, a decade later, Rosie Batty is still campaigning against domestic violence and, along with the rest of the country, still counting out this long list of dead women that never seems to end.

In a speech at the National Press Club last month to mark the 10th anniversary of Luke's death, Ms Batty, a former Australian of the Year, was adamant that little had changed in the situation for women in Australia.

"Between many things I have grappled with since Luke's death, large among them is feeling the absolute despair I carry," she said.

"That despite my campaigns, despite the hundreds of speeches I've made, despite marching, crying, and shouting from the rooftops about family violence, despite a royal commission and millions of dollars of resources to prevent violence against women and children, women and children are still being murdered at an alarming rate in Australia."

And she is the living embodiment of the perils of indifference, and the absurd public/private divide people like to cite when excusing our wilful ignorance of what goes on behind closed doors.

She still cries often and easily; she still finds it almost impossible but always imperative to talk about Luke and what happened to him.

Luke, her precious son who will never grow old, was, for that hour at least, a kind of stand-in for all these women whose lives have been cut short because people mostly wanted to look away.

Just a few days after Ms Batty's speech, the body of Hannah McGuire was found in a burnt-out car in Ballarat, where the community was still reeling from the disappearance and presumed murder of Samantha Murphy.

She had done nothing worse than pop out for a run, which is no more or less than any other woman who has died as the result of a man's violence.