Page 4050 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 26 November 2014
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and seek support, and I know that not everybody is in a situation to do that. For all of us, it is our responsibility to take a look around us and speak up when we see any forms of violence or abuse in our community.
I am absolutely 100 per cent committed to tackling these issues and reducing violence and abuse against women in our community. And these things happen daily in the ACT. So I do commend Mrs Jones for bringing this motion to the Assembly. I think the more often we talk about these things and get them out in the public, the more opportunities people have to get support from other people in our community about these terrible things that happen. I absolutely support the motion that Mrs Jones has brought into the Assembly today.
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (11.43): I welcome the opportunity to talk about this important subject as well. I do thank Mrs Jones for bringing this important matter to the Assembly, especially after White Ribbon Day yesterday. Of course, any time is the time for us to talk about this important subject in this place. I was not going to speak. However, listening to the other speakers today, I want to add my voice as a person who was the subject of domestic violence for many years. I would like to emphasise the points about the forms of violence against women mentioned in this place this morning. I found the hidden violence, the emotional, social and economic abuse, hardest to bear by not only me but also my children.
The physical violence is evident and does engender support, but the hidden violence does not always engender support. It can also cause problems with your friends and your family because they do not recognise what is happening to you. It can cause divisions within your family. It can cause your children to be torn between one parent and the other as they do not really understand what is happening to them. It was particularly hard for my children at the time as they were going through their teenage years. Although this violence started when my youngest boy, who is now a father of three children, was only a babe in arms, the violence lasted for many years.
The reason you put up with it, as I now realise, was that you fear your children will be stigmatised. You fear that you will be stigmatised. You imagine that you are going to be homeless. You imagine that your life and your children’s lives will never be the same again. Of course that is not true.
Women need much support to be able to take that step. I had the support of my friends at the time. Some women friends and some male friends said to me, “You have choices and we will support you to make those choices.” It is important, I think, for people not only to speak up about their own experience but to look to support their friends and see how they can support them to make the choices that are often extremely difficult.
We have the supports now that we have all been talking about here in this place, which are far better than they were at the time I was experiencing these things. However, I believe that we need—and I think all members in this place have acknowledged that we need—to continue to get those supports in place. We need to improve on those supports and we need to make sure that we are accurately reflecting what is happening out there so that women do not feel stigmatised and do not feel reluctant to report.
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