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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Thursday, 4 March 2004) . . Page.. 763 ..

I have seen, just this afternoon, some posters the federal government has brought out on the issue of respect in relationships. These are to support women suffering from domestic violence. I applaud that promotion.

MRS DUNNE (3.55): It is a little unfortunate that it is a matter of, “Oh, it’s the last sitting day before International Women’s Day, so we have to say something.” I have just gone through Hansard to see what was said last year, and there are a fair few similarities.

I think it is unfortunate that International Women’s Day becomes a cliche. We middle-class women in a middle-class city like Canberra do not have very many experiences of true oppression, true poverty and truly unliveable circumstances. Some people do, but most of us do not. I think it is a great shame that we take these symbols and turn them into cliches.

I think it is sad, in a way, that almost all of the events around International Women’s Day are marked by breakfasts, lunches and issues like that, and that it becomes a sort of food fest. I know I said something like this last year but, while we go off to the International Women’s Day Breakfast, dressed in green and purple, billions of women around the world will have no breakfast. If we go to the breakfast, we will have a sumptuous meal prepared by somebody else, while most of our sisters will not even have a breakfast—and neither will their children.

I think that, when looking at International Women’s Day, rather than patting ourselves on the back and becoming cliched about this, perhaps we should make some resolutions. We should be doing something as a legislature, or as individuals. It could be like a New Year’s resolution and we could say, on this International Women’s Day, “For the next year I will do X, Y or Z to improve the lot of women either close to me or far away.”

Last year Mr Pratt spoke at length about the role of women in refugee camps. I do not believe we are really thinking about those. What I would like to do this international women’s year is to further the cause of the women who are brought to Australia to work in servitude in brothels. That is an appalling issue. It is particularly appalling because, for some time, it has been raised across the country as an issue by people in the brothel industry and by people who have had association with the brothel industry who rescue people out of sexual servitude.

There have been inquiries, like the one run by Sandra Nori in New South Wales, which the ACT contributed to. That inquiry showed a small part of the sorry role that we in the ACT play in this murky business. When this issue was first raised, like most of the other men associated with this, the Chief Minister sort of said, “It’s not really an issue; it is all anecdotal evidence; it doesn’t happen to anybody, very much.” My contention is that, if it happens to one person—

Mr Stanhope: I rise on a point of order. I have never said any such thing. That is a gross misreading of my position in relation to this. For Mrs Dunne to stand up in this place and suggest that I have said that sexual servitude is not an issue is just crassly and outrageously wrong and false.

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