Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Vocational Education) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I present a petition from the Illawarra branch of the Reclaim the Night campaign on strategies to prevent violence against women.

It was a great pleasure for me today to host, with my colleague the member for Throsby, a local community group, the Illawarra branch of the Reclaim the Night campaign. This is a tremendous group of locals, including front-line workers in domestic and family violence, local Indigenous workers, community members and a school student. They had come to present to me and the member for Throsby the petition that they have been collecting since October last year on action they want to see to prevent family and domestic violence. They told very powerful stories of not only their own direct experience but also what they had heard from individuals as they gathered this petition together while standing at their stall in the mall at the Wollongong markets and across various communities.

I would also like to put on the record our thanks to the Parliamentarians against Family Violence Friendship Group and its co-convenors, Tim Watts and Ken Wyatt, for meeting with the group. They heard directly from the group the information that they wanted to convey to this parliament about the great importance of us taking action on this scourge that, unfortunately, is present in all of our communities across the country.

So I commend the Illawarra Reclaim the Night group and all the work that they have done. I know that they will continue to collect petitions, and I was more than pleased to be asked to present this petition in the parliament today. (Time expired)

See this speech in context