Page 739 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 8 March 2016
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When women do make it to the top of their chosen field, or even to the middle, we women also have a huge power in assisting other women to come up the chain. I think we are a big part of the solution as well. In my life since coming here I have been actively seeking out women who can stand for election or preselection or stand for roles within the Liberal Party. We talk a lot about partnering with men, but there is so much we can do already. I have said to various mums who want to stand in the ACT election this year that it must be able to be done. “I’ve done it, Mrs Dunne has done it, Ms Lawder has done it—with both younger children and older children. If there are any practicalities that need explaining, I will explain them to you or explain how I have done them. Then you can make your own decisions about that.”
It behoves all of us, if we are going to talk about statistics, to do whatever we can. We are in a fortunate position because this group of people—women—are everywhere. We meet women all the time and we might be able to help them in some way to achieve their dreams and their aspirations for their lives.
International Women’s Day was marked for the first time in 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than a million people rallied for their right to work and to end discrimination. This festival, this event, has been used in various different forms over the last 100 years. It has gone through periods when it was probably not as strongly celebrated, but it is good to see a really strong resurgence of celebration of International Women’s Day.
Just to touch one more time on domestic violence, obviously we have heard that on average every week a women is killed as a result of intimate partner violence. If a woman is killed by her male partner, it is most likely to have happened in their home. Domestic and family violence is the principal cause of homelessness for women and their children, and one in five women in Australia have experienced sexual violence; that study was regarding women from the age of 18. Intimate partner violence is the leading contributor to death, disability and ill health in women under 44. It is estimated to cost the Australian economy $14.4 billion per year. One in three women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence perpetrated by someone known to them and one in four children are exposed to domestic violence, which is a recognised form of child abuse.
Since I was first made shadow minister for women, I have been calling for a better collection of statistics because the more data that we have the more accurate and more targeted our response can be. I think there is still a great deal to do.
Touching on the topic of breastfeeding and work one more time, it is very important that we realise that we are really not done yet. We are not done yet in the Assembly. I have called on the admin and procedures committee to look at ways that breastfeeding mums can vote from within the Assembly precinct but not necessarily in the chamber, if they were, once in a while, in the middle of a feed at the time that the bells rang. If we cannot get the systems here for women really smooth, at a time in their lives when they really do not feel like lobbying for change on the whole, how can we expect the broader community to get it right either?
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