THE MELBOURNE and Gold Coast Suns will link arms in the lead-up to Saturday’s game at TIO Traeger Park as part of the ‘No More’ campaign.

Much-loved Northern Territory ABC sports commentator and human rights campaigner Charlie King addressed the Melbourne team in the lead-up to the round 10 clash and spoke of the importance of the ‘No More’ campaign.

“’No More’ comes from talking to old Indigenous men. This was about 15 years ago and we were telling them about family violence and how big the problem was,” he said.

“When we told them how big it was, and how about half-a-million women in Australian either get sexually or physically abused every year – it’s about one every minute … they looked at us and said ‘no more’, which is the Aboriginal way of saying ‘let’s get rid of this’.

“So, we told other people about that and that’s how we came to linking up arms – because it’s a symbolic statement.”

King said money wouldn’t fix the problem and it was up to every male individual to say ‘no more’ to family and female violence.

“Aboriginal women in the Territory are 35 times more likely to be hospitalised from family violence than non-Indigenous women, so it’s a real problem. That’s not to say that non-Indigenous women don’t finish up in hospital as well,” he said.

“We have a real problem with family violence in the Territory – a massive problem and millions of dollars is spent on it.

“But we know one thing – when football teams make a strong statement, there is a dip in family violence. When you guys (Melbourne) came up here last year and walked out [arms linked], it made a strong symbolic statement and it said ‘no more family violence’. There was a dip in family violence, which was a good thing.”

The players will link arms after their pre-match warm-up on the ground – before the match starts at 4.05pm, local time.