Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As my friend the member for Lalor just mentioned, we're coming up to Human Rights Day. There are 16 days of activism around gender based violence that begin today. The effort to end violence against women never ceases, and the responsibility rests with all of us. As the member for Lalor just mentioned, we know that in Australia, the lucky country, on average one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner. That's pretty sobering, but I come from the Northern Territory and our stats make for extremely sober reading. In the NT there are 61 incidents of domestic and family violence a day. We have the highest rates of victimisation, homicide and sexual assault in the country. We're not proud of that and we're working hard on it.

But the prevention of family violence is everyone's business. We need to make it easier for women who are in violent relationships to go somewhere safe, to have a safe place for themselves and, if they've got kids, for their children. We need the government to do the right thing and introduce domestic violence leave. That would be a great start.

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