Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Community Services ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Far too many Australian women today are experiencing violence—one in three will have experienced physical violence from the time they are 15 and one in five will have experienced sexual violence.

Globally, sadly the situation is much worse.

Earlier this month, I led the Australian delegation to the 57th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York, alongside the Global Ambassador for Women and Girls, Ms Penny Williams, and Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick.

Officers from the Office for Women and four exceptional NGO delegates also joined me on the Australian Delegation:

The theme for this year’s CSW was the elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls.

I delivered Australia’s Country Statement to CSW and our message to the world was simple: violence, in all its forms—physical, sexual or psychological—is unacceptable. Australia has no tolerance for violence against women and girls in Australia, or internationally.

We know that violence is a universal issue and it affects women from all over the world, of all backgrounds, races, cultures and economic circumstances.

As one speaker at CSW said, if violence against women and girls was viewed in terms of a disease or a virus, then we would have a worldwide pandemic on our hands.

The Australian Government is committed to working with our international counterparts to ensure the safety and wellbeing of women and girls across the world.

During my time in New York, I ensured I met with relevant ministers from many countries who are responsible for women's affairs. These included those from Samoa, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Laos, Afghanistan, the United Kingdom and Liberia, who is the current Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women.

In these meetings, I urged the ministers to stand with Australia during the negotiations and to push for a strong, global response to ending violence against women, in all its forms.

Australia was very disappointed that there were no agreed conclusions at last year's Commission on the Status of Women.

So, today, I am extremely pleased to report that after some quite difficult negotiations, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women has ended in a landmark agreement on this vital issue.

All United Nations member countries have signed up to historic firsts in committing to drive global action to eliminate and prevent all forms of violence against women and girls.

One of the most significant breakthroughs was the recognition that custom, tradition or religious consideration should play no part in denying women equality or justifying violence against them.

I cannot stress enough this achievement.

The agreed conclusions faced strong opposition during the negotiations and Australia and its delegates worked hard to bring about this result.

During my time in New York, I also met with Michelle Bachelet, head of UN Women, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Bangura, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Herve Ladsous, and other senior United Nations representatives. I took the opportunity to promote Australia's work on the women, peace and security agenda, which is a priority for Australia during our term on the United Nations Security Council.

As part of this agenda, Australia is pushing for three critical elements:

I shared with my international counterparts Australia's National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, under which Australia is promoting efforts to protect women’s rights and increase their participation in conflict resolution and in peace efforts.

I could see at the Commission on the Status of Women that Australia is actively contributing to a world where women and girls can thrive and where their safety is guaranteed.

Here at home, we are implementing the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children—internationally recognised as best practice. Central to the 12-year national plan is a strong emphasis on primary prevention and community engagement, as well as recognition of the critical role that men and boys play in reducing violence against women. The government has committed $86 million to actions under this national plan.

One initiative I am particularly proud of is The Line—a $17 million social marketing campaign. It encourages respectful relationships amongst young people, with research indicating the campaign changes young people’s attitudes. I was able to share our experiences at the Australian hosted side event at the commission on using new technology and social media to address violence against women and girls.

I also had the opportunity to promote some of Australia’s word-leading work at the Equal Futures Partnership event. Australia has partnered with the United States and other nations to expand economic opportunities for women and to increase women's participation in politics and civil society. As part of this partnership, Australia has committed to:

Internationally, Australia is also committed to preventing violence and improving gender equality, which are key pillars of Australia's aid and development program. In responding to and preventing violence against women, our aid program centres on ensuring women have access to support services and to justice.

Australia is working to improve the stability, security and sustainable development of the Pacific islands region. We work closely with our Pacific island neighbours to assist them achieve their development objectives. At the Pacific Islands Forum last August we saw the historic Pacific leaders gender equality declaration—a strong commitment to empowering women in the region.

Australia supports this declaration through the Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development initiative and the Australian government is providing $320 million in funding over three years to this initiative. It will work to increase women's participation in leadership and political roles, to improve economic opportunities for women through better access to finance and markets, and to improve their safety through prevention of violence and access to justice.

It is essential that the pacific region is represented strongly at international forums, in particular those relating to gender equality, so that issues facing women across our region are raised at the highest levels internationally. Australia provided $50,000 in funding to support members of the Pacific delegation to attend the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, to ensure that there was a strong voice for women across this region.

I was fortunate to meet with a number of heads of delegations from the Pacific, including the Prime Minister of Tuvalu and Vice-President of Kiribati, to discuss our shared vision for the region. Australia also co-hosted a side event with New Zealand, chaired by Ambassador Williams, where panellists discussed the progress and challenges relating to gender equality in the Pacific context.

Australia and this government are deeply committed to realising the goal of a world that is safe for women and girls, a place where each can achieve her full potential.

This requires us all to work together in a spirit of cooperation, with purpose and resolve.

The agreement at this year’s Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations is a significant step forward.

I present a copy of my ministerial statement and ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the member for Farrer to speak for seven minutes.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Farrer speaking in reply to my statement for a period not exceeding seven minutes.

Question agreed to.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this ministerial statement on the 57th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Across this country and across the world, women and girls are the victims of violence every day. Certainly the media has highlighted a number of recent truly evil events, such as the attempted murder of Malala Yousufzai, the young Afghan girl who was shot in the head on the way home from school for the crime of criticising the Taliban's strict rules against education.

No-one could remain unmoved by the documentary that was made featuring Malala before she was shot. I remember the look on her face when she came back into her bedroom, after an event where she was excluded from school, and looked at her school bag and said, 'Thank goodness, all of my school books are still here!' And how can we not forget the recent rapes in India, those atrocious scandals. However, too often, many of the victims of violence have no voice. They may cry out, but too often their stories go unreported and they are forced to suffer in silence.

The latest government statistics outlined in the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children 2010-2022 indicate that around one in three Australian victims has experienced physical violence and almost one in five has experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. Recognising that most violence perpetrated against women occurs in the home, the former Howard government campaigned vigorously to reduce domestic violence. We introduced the Partnerships against Domestic Violence and a host of women's safety agenda programs specifically aimed to help stem this abuse.

We have to recognise also that this abuse leaves not only physical scars but also emotional ones. It is devastating to hear constituents reliving the traumas they have endured, and it does reiterate just how vulnerable and alone some people feel in the face of violence. I have heard stories of women who are beaten for spending the family budget on food or new shoes for the children, instead of buying a carton of beer or cigarettes with a partner, or who may not have the dinner on the table at exactly 6:30 pm and are caught on the telephone to a friend.

In my own electorate of Farrer, in Broken Hill alone I have the Family Violence Prevention, Legal Service and Women's Domestic Violence Advocacy Service and Lifeline, Centacare and other not-for-profit services. In a town that has approximately 19,000 residents, this gives a small indication of the vast need. This is not a speech in which one would choose to be political, but, unfortunately, the Attorney-General's Department has recently seen fit not to fund this critical domestic violence advocacy service and allocate what I assume are surplus funds to other services around the country. Nobody looking at the demographic in Broken Hill, including the large Indigenous demographic, could possibly consider that other services were more worthwhile—equally worthwhile maybe, but not more worthwhile.

So many cases of domestic violence go unreported. We know that sexual violence is one of the most underreported forms of violence against women. For many women, there is a very real element of fear or possible repercussions, or just sheer embarrassment—the very thought of reporting the abuse to local police is too great a trauma for some women to endure. In rural Australia and in small towns the telephone counselling that is available for women in this position is absolutely vital—because at the services, if they are there, it is just not possible to show your face.

I think it is important that I make the following point. It is all well and good for us to send delegations off to New York to lobby the commission's delegates and share their views, but this is little more than window dressing. The only thing that really counts is what we do in practice and how we as decision makers and authors of policy really make a change in these women's lives. We have to acknowledge the problems in our own backyard. We have to allocate the large sums of money that I know go towards international meetings such as the UN meetings that the minister has talked about. I do not criticise either the meeting or the minister's attendance at it, but we are talking about $320 million allocated to a region. I do recognise the importance of the Pacific, and I commend the government for that, but I also realise that there is a great shortage of real dollars on the ground making a difference in the lives of the poor and the dispossessed, and the people in our own country, particularly our Indigenous women, for whom there is just nowhere to turn.

The government, I believe, have dropped the ball. They are yet to establish the promised centre for excellence for data collection for domestic violence, despite this being a core promise. The Be Safe pilot commenced by the coalition in 2007 was not re-funded by those opposite. This program helped to provide protection for women who have a restraining order against a violent partner by provision of a personal alarm they could activate when threatened. This pilot program empowered the women involved, enabling them to once again feel safe in the communities in which they live, avoiding the need for many women to hide out in crisis accommodation, which throws their own lives and those of their children into sheer disarray.

The Howard government's strong commitment to policies aimed at reducing violence against women will be carried forward by any future coalition government. Government does have a vital role to play in fostering a society that has a culture of respect and harmony. A framework of stringent deterrence helps enforce the understanding of what is and is not acceptable behaviour. We have to ensure that our courts administer the appropriate penalties, ensuring that protection orders, apprehended violence orders, family violence orders and the other state-imposed orders are enforced and that those covered by these orders are given every support to reclaim their lives. This is what government has to do. As we all know, actions speak far louder than words—far louder than UN conferences and the non-binding resolutions, however grand and exciting they may seem. So I call on this government to fight the good fight against violence against women. I commend them for what they have done. I do say that we can also do more on violence against men, girls and boys. We must not condone violence, in whatever form we find it, irrespective of who the victim is.

Question agreed to.