Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Each year, I rise in this parliament to honour the lives of women who have died in the past year through acts of violence by someone known to them. Tonight, I stand to remember and pay my respects to the 49 women who died last year at the hands of someone they knew. This equates to almost one violent death every week in 2017. Regretfully, the actual number is likely to be much higher, as the list is limited to deaths that have been publicly reported. Before I acknowledge each woman who is no longer with us, I want to acknowledge the researchers from Destroy the Joint who do the heartbreaking and difficult work of maintaining the Counting Dead Women Register, where this information is recorded. Violence against women remains entrenched in Australian society. This register provides a record of this tragic legacy as an enduring reminder of the need for us to redouble our efforts to stop violence against women and children.

In Australia in 2017 we lost the following women: Christine D'Cruz, aged 19; Alicia Little, aged 41; Pauline Farrugia, aged 67; Georgia Karatzas, aged 68; Kim Cobby, aged 51; Shirley Page, aged 72; Hee Kyung Choi, aged 34; Sarah Brown, aged 34; Blair Dalton, aged 35; Lannell Latta, aged 50; Hoa Thi Huynh, aged 44; Marilyn Burdon, aged 70; Allecha Boyd, aged 27; Tanja Ebert, aged 23; Donna Steele, aged 42; Margaret McCullough, aged 76; Jennifer Borchardt, aged 49; Rebecca Gascoigne, aged 35; Ozlem Karakoc, aged 34; Olivia Hailstone, aged 38; Raichele Galea, aged 44; Margaret Mitchell, aged 81; Patricia Phillip, aged 84, and her daughter, Sherril Pountney, aged 63; Linda Connors, aged 55; Mauryeen Kenny, aged 69; Ora Holt, aged 39; Ivanka Kraisnik, aged 78; Helen Dansie, aged 67; China Crawford, aged 32; Harjit Kaur, aged 56; Donna Green, aged 55; Tanya Burmeister, aged 32, and her daughter, Zoe Burmeister, aged 15; Khondkar Faihi Elahi, aged 29; Theresa Bradford, aged 40; Leonie Ivanoff, aged 74; Amelie Ura Tapaki, aged 64; and another 11 unnamed women.

The terrible reality is that one in four women experience intimate partner violence, and one woman every week is killed at the hands of a partner or ex-partner. Each of these deaths is a tragedy, and each death should further galvanise us to do whatever is necessary to end this scourge in our nation. 2018 is little more than a month old, but already eight women have lost their lives as a result of domestic and family violence. We simply must turn this around. I can think of no more pressing priority for this nation and this parliament. I don't want to stand here every year reciting the names of women who have been killed as a result of family and domestic violence, but I will because each and every one of them must be honoured and their deaths cannot be in vain. We have to stop violence against women and children, and we need to do it now.