A QUEENSLAND domestic violence hotline has been so overwhelmed by women calling for help that some calls have had to go unanswered.

The startling revelation was made by DV Connect Queensland, which also told a public hearing of the Senate inquiry into domestic violence in Australia yesterday that the situation was so dire now that unless a woman had broken bones her situation was not considered “serious”.

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The organisation can handle up to 120 calls daily but on Wednesday was snowed under with more than 300 calls seeking help.

DV Connect CEO Di Mangan said not only was the volume of calls increasing but the women’s situations were worsening.

“Most of them are serious to the point now where you think if someone doesn’t have fractures or serious injuries we’re actually starting to see them as not so serious,” Ms Mangan said. “We’re beyond capacity in Queensland.”

She said workers had to juggle up to nine cases at once and were forced on Wednesday to let calls go unanswered.

“I just had to send an email to the workers yesterday, for the first time, (saying) ‘and I hate to have to say this to you as a work group but you have to leave calls’,” Ms Mangan said. “I’ve been watching this trend going up over the year.”

During the hearing, Liberal senator Cory Bernardi sparked anger from Greens senator Larissa Waters when he told representatives of the state’s oldest women’s refuge they were not “experts” and there were times it was appropriate for a man to put his partner in a headlock.

Women’s House Shelta’s Barbara Crossing told the hearing a man had a protection order taken out against his partner using evidence she bit him under the arm.

Ms Crossing, a support worker since 1991, said the injury could only have been caused by the man having the woman in a headlock.

Senator Bernardi said police considered headlocks an “appropriate means of deferring an aggressor” and Ms Crossing was second-guessing the police who were the “experts”.

Senator Waters said Ms Crossing was the expert and a headlock was an example of domestic violence.

Senator Bernardi issued a statement this morning defending his comments.

“The headlines in today’s media do not accurately reflect the exchange given in the Senate domestic violence inquiry yesterday,” his statement said.

“I said it was inappropriate for witnesses at the inquiry to second-guess the decisions of police in granting a protection order after they had complete an appropriate investigation based on evidence.

“I never suggested violence in any form was acceptable; I merely pointed out the fact, when asked whether it is ever right to restrain someone, that law-enforcement officers use appropriate restraint techniques to deter aggressors in the course of their duties.”

But Ms Crossing told Fairfax Media what Senator Bernardi said was “dangerous”, and pointed out the “different power dynamic” between men and women and said Senator Bernardi had not thought how his comment could be perceived.

“It is a dangerous comment because it’s going to be much easier for men to get women into headlocks. If he was out of control, there’s no way I could get Cory Bernardi into a headlock. I would run away, but he might say if I was out of control he could put me in a headlock.”

And Senator Waters tweeted her disdain for the comments.

Yes, Cory Bernardi really did defend men using #headlocks against women: says could be self-defence. This attitude is why #DV is an epidemic — Larissa Waters (@larissawaters) November 6, 2014

However Labor’s Claire Moore, who was also on the panel at the hearing, told Fairfax media it was a “bit harsh” to say Mr Bernardi condoned domestic violence.

“He was very clear, he was not saying domestic violence was fine,” Senator Moore said.

“He was saying that just because someone was in a headlock didn’t mean it was automatically a domestic violence situation.

“I do not believe that he was making a statement that it was an appropriate thing to do in a domestic violence situation he was just saying in my opinion that you couldn’t generalise.”