Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. We as a parliament must agree to do more to tackle the ugly scourge of domestic violence in this country. Today marks the first of 16 days of action against gender based violence. I stand here today, a proud member of this parliament from a proud state, Victoria, that had a royal commission into violence against women and their children. It has taken significant action and will this year again take action to ensure the safety of women. It has done a lot to improve safe places and build more safe places for women and their children to stay. It has done much. It has run advertising campaigns and awareness campaigns, but in this place we seem silent. There is lots of talk but not a lot of action.

Our Watch tells us that, in 2019, 50 women have been murdered. We know that one woman a week is killed by somebody who once claimed to have loved her. One action that could be taken in this place would be to make paid domestic violence leave a reality. I call on the government to do that, because I know that we measure what we care about, and making domestic violence leave a reality means we'll measure the economic impact of domestic violence. Maybe if it costs us we'll spend something on it.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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.