Jodie Belyea (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, thank you to all my colleagues in the room who have shared their stories, their experience and their support.

I am a representative of the government of the day—women and men who have been advocating hard for the support of women and children who have died at the hands of men due to domestic and family violence. I represent the Dunkley women and children impacted by domestic and family violence. Dunkley is a community where domestic and family violence and sexual violence are at the highest rate in Victoria. It is a significant issue, and I'm very conscious, having worked in the sector for Anglicare and Family Life, of the impact that it has on women, men and children and on their capacity to be educated and to participate in life.

I know this well, because I too have experienced domestic, family and sexual violence over 20 years, as a child, a young person and an adult. I know what it is to fear for my life at the hands of a man. My lived experience has meant that I pursued a career of over 30 years in the community sector, working with women, children and men. I pursued this career in the hope of supporting the women, men and children to recover and heal from domestic and family violence. Then I took the plunge and founded the Women's Spirit Project, which has supported women and children—particularly women—to recover and heal from trauma. This project was established in the Dunkley and Flinders local government and electorate areas.

I want to acknowledge the work and the diligence of Minister Rishworth, her team and the people that she has consulted with over the last few years. They have developed a unique 10-year plan—a plan that is the first of its kind and that didn't exist before now. This national first has a range of recommendations, which we are implementing. But there is much, much more that we need to do, and everyone in this chamber knows that and feels that. We need support from each other to be bold and brave and to make changes so that more women, their families and men are supported. We need to be bold as parents and as individuals in how we lead, how we communicate and how we deal with toxic masculinity. We must advocate for changes to media and social media, as we've been starting to do, to reduce the amount of content that our young boys, our young people, our young men are watching and listening to. We also need to call out the perpetrators.

I've been listening in my 11 weeks in this role. I know that there are lots of things that are being actioned and discussed and are in the inboxes of all of you here. I commend the government's investment of $3 billion through the living away from home allowance, because I know that that particular money was not committed by government until recently. The government has committed funding through the budget in a number of other areas which I know are critical to supporting women to recover and heal and to escape from trauma. That includes housing and access to parental payments for family and domestic violence leave.

This is an intricate web of issues to solve. The journey to do that is very extensive, but it is everyone's responsibility. It requires all of us in this space, as I said, to be brave and bold. Yes, there is much, much more to do. Several weeks back, when I walked with many of you here in this chamber, I felt a growing swell of energy and commitment to doing more, as I did in March 2021 when I left here with Peta. I hope that all members of parliament here tonight continue to take the role in leading this change.

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