Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 1998, 31(3): 267-286

This article employs the 1996 "Women's Safety Survey" (1997) to determine the prevalence of partner abuse in New Zealand and women's experiences of this. The author asserts that in order to understand partner violence, one must appreciate the perspective of women on this issue. The findings point to relatively high levels of violence towards women perpetrated by their male partners. Many women disclosed that the negative consequences of psychological abuse were greater than that of physical violence. The data from the "Women's Safety Survey" is compared with results from the Canadian "Violence Against Women Survey" (1993). The author discusses a range of methodological issues that could potentially influence the results and subsequent conclusions drawn from studies of this kind.