The act was heinous, disheartening and horrifically senseless, and it reverberated around the world because grief is without borders.

Perhaps international news puts our home calamities into a kind of perspective, or maybe it just gives us a lowest common denominator we can all morally reside over.

A few moments later on the broadcast, there was a brief report of a candlelight vigil attended by hundreds in Adelaide for a woman who was murdered by a man at a shopping centre.

According to the gender equity Facebook movement ‘Destroy the Joint’, 59 Australian women have been murdered in 2018 in acts of violence against women.

In 2017, 53 women were killed.

In the past couple of weeks alone, Orange residents and groups have stood tall and made a contribution to curtailing this awful trend.

Last weekend, the students of Kinross Wolaroi School organised an attended a debutante ball, teaming up with Housing Plus to raise $5000 for The Orchard – the Orange women and children’s domestic and family violence centre.

A few weeks before that the Rotary Club of Orange Daybreak donated $5000 to go towards Orange’s domestic violence centre for women.

This says nothing of the hundreds of thousands of dollars already raised to ensure Orange’s bruised and battered women have somewhere to seek refuge before their abuse reaches the most devastating conclusion.

The topic of how best to stem the incidence of domestic violence at the root is still not being heard enough.

Negative attitudes towards women are an important part of the ingrained cultural problem and are stronger among young men - especially in some sporting subcultures - and are influenced by exposure to pornography and violence and violent role models in popular entertainment.

So far the loudest calls have been for quicker responses by police and courts to threats against women by violent partners and ex-partners.

That is definitely needed, but extensive cultural change is ultimately the bigger and more important answer.