Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On many occasions, I, and many others, often say, 'What would Christopher Hitchens say about the particular debate that's before us?' I was thinking of Christopher Hitchens recently, on, of all days, International Women's Day. I went to three events in my electorate, and I'd like to speak to those. In Australia, on the ABC show Q&Awhich I was fortunate enough to be on recently—he said this when speaking of women's empowerment: 'The cure for poverty has a name, in fact. It's called the empowerment of women.' And he was right then and it is right to say now. That's not just something that applies to developing economies; it applies to our economy. The cure for productivity, the cure for fairness, and the cure for a better nation, a better Australia, is the empowerment of women.

With that, the first of the three events that I'd like to single out in my electorate is the Manningham International Women's Day event, which was put on by Manningham Council. I thank those of Manningham Council who organised it, from CEO, Andrew Day, to the emcee of the day, Lee Robson. I also single out the female councillors at Manningham. There are five female councillors: Mayor Carli Lange, Laura Mayne, Deirdre Diamante, Anna Chen and Michelle Kleinert OAM. You all represent your wards in an inspiring, highly professional and effective way and I want to thank you for your service to our community on that day.

The guest speakers included Caroline Wilson; for those who are into their football, she's a well-known sports journalist who doesn't hold her punches when she has something tough to say about a very male-dominated sport. She appears on 3AW and Footy Classified and has written in the Age. Her discussions about what it was like breaking into a male-dominated area in the early days were very inspiring. Shane Dunne was on the panel and spoke about how the Richmond Football Club are pushing the boundaries of their club to set the standard for others. Courtney Jones, who was a player for the AFLW Richmond Tigers, also spoke. I'd particularly liked Courtney's explanation of how she first started playing footy on a men's team, or a boy's team at the time, and what that was like, and how it inspired her to have a career in an area that didn't exist when she was younger.

The second event was the Doncare International Women's Day event. I want to thank the Doncare CEO, Ellen Matusko, Martine Corbett, the marketing and communications manager, Carly Kluge from Bendigo Bank and Mary-Anne Lowe, who hosted the event at Bramleigh Estate at no cost. Mary-Anne Lowe not only did that for this event; she has done it for many other events and I thank her and Bramleigh Estate for their generosity. There were 260 attendees, and Ian Goldsmith did a stellar job as the emcee. But I want to single out Jelena Dokic, who was the key speaker. What an inspiring person and inspiring Australian. Her speech was moving and powerful. The first words out of her mouth were words of abuse and terror told to her by her father. She told stories of things that happened behind the scenes, including having to cower and spend the night sleeping at Wimbledon because her dad said that she couldn't come home for the shame of losing a semi-final at Wimbledon. She is an inspiring person. I thank her for her speech that day.

The third event was the Box Hill International Women's Day event, which all the Rotary clubs organised. There were 300 attendees. It was organised by Wendy Zhang, the chair of the International Women's Day Breakfast. The theme was 'Inspiring inclusion', and I thank everyone who was involved in that event.

I also went to a local Chinese community event. It was the 25th anniversary of the Melbourne World Friendship Association of Fuqing. This is a community that exports probably more people than the Republic of Ireland, and they are very proud of it, and many are in Melbourne. For 25 years they have held onto their friends and their sense of their community, of where they have come from—and you could see that on the night. I thank the chairman, Derrick Chen, for the work he has done, and the CEO, Chino Li. It was an amazing event—one I was proud to attend and be part of.