Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Hindmarsh for his question and thank him and the other members of parliament who spoke from both sides last night on a private member’s motion in this place that related to White Ribbon Day. The member for Hindmarsh is a White Ribbon Ambassador, as are a number of members of parliament on both sides of the House, including the Prime Minister, who is a very strong advocate on behalf of White Ribbon Day, as are many other members of parliament.

One in three Australian women experience domestic or family violence in their lifetime and one in five experience sexual assault in their lifetime. Nearly half a million Australian women suffer violence each year. It is the greatest human rights violation in this country and the greatest human rights violation on the planet in terms of the number of people who are affected.

White Ribbon Day is a particularly important day because it is an opportunity for men to show their attitudes towards violence against women. It is an opportunity for Australian men and men around the world to say that they will not be violent but they will also not be silent—they will not condone violence. It is very important to have high-profile supporters of White Ribbon Day. Not only do we have the Prime Minister, state attorneys general led by our Commonwealth Attorney-General and members of parliament on both sides of the House, we have media personalities, footballers and other prominent Australians—all of them standing up and saying: ‘This is not a role model for masculinity that we want to show our sons and our grandsons. We want to show a role for men in the Australian community and in the world community of reducing violence against women.’ As Andrew O’Keefe, our White Ribbon Ambassador No. 1, said today, there is a difference between masculinity and machismo—that is, it is possible to be a strong man and a tough man without being a violent man or an aggressive man. I want to congratulate all those men who have stood up and said, ‘Not only will I not be violent but I will not be silent about violence against women.’

This government is determined to respond to domestic and family violence and sexual assault and we have moved substantially in this area. We appointed in May an expert council, bringing together some of the best brains in the country when it comes to reducing violence against women. They will be presenting me with a draft national plan in the coming weeks. The government will then respond to the draft national plan and that will be our national plan of action to reduce violence against women.

It is worth saying that an Amnesty International petition that was handed to me today included 30,000 signatures calling for a national action plan on violence against women. We have committed to that national action plan. The signatures were of course collected before we had started work on our national action plan. We are delivering on that national action plan.

The National Council to Reduce Violence against Women has engaged all across the country with people who have experienced violence; with men who have perpetrated violence; and with experts, judges, police officers and people who work in the refuge system. They have had contact with over 2,000 people and had three expert roundtables. They have done an enormous amount of work. The national plan will support the community to better support victims of violence, to improve our legal system to make sure it is effective in tackling violence and to reduce violence for future generations.

We have delivered since coming to office $1 million to the White Ribbon Foundation to support and expand their activities in rural Australia; $2 million to benchmark community attitudes to violence against women so that we can change those attitudes; $500,000 to the Australian Institute of Criminology to undertake more detailed research into domestic homicides so that we can find out where we let down too many Australian women—more than one every week is murdered by an intimate partner; and $500,000 to 22 national and local projects to support victims of domestic or family violence. These projects include Victoria’s Domestic Violence Resource Centre’s mentoring project for women with a disability, to promote their capacity to lead and facilitate activities that focus on violence prevention for women with disabilities, and the Huon Domestic Violence Service in Tasmania, for radio programs that will particularly target young people and urge them to consider their behaviour.

In conclusion, I would like to report to the House that the Attorney-General and I formally moved yesterday for Australia to become a party to the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

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