Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to say a few words on this matter of public importance because today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Violence against women and their children is a persistent and shamefully prevalent issue that really needs national leadership from this parliament. While we know that domestic and family violence affects everyone, we also know that it's women who are disproportionately impacted. Family violence hurts, and its effects can be felt for generations.

In Australia today, one woman per week is murdered by a current or former partner. We know that one in three Australian women will experience physical violence in their lifetime. One in five women has experienced sexual violence, and one in four women has experienced emotional abuse by a current or former partner. Across the country, there is on average a police call-out every two minutes to a family or domestic violence incident. These statistics are shocking, they are outrageous and they are inexcusable. We should also recognise that this issue is even more prevalent for Indigenous women, who are 32 times more likely to be hospitalised due to family violence than non-Indigenous women. I join Senator Green in congratulating Senator McCarthy for speaking out on these issues in the Northern Territory and in Darwin in particular.

In 2019, it is absolutely unacceptable that this many women are the victims of violence at the hands of their current or former partners. It is important for us to know that this violence is not always physical. Men and women need to think about the ways in which aggressive, coercive and controlling behaviour can mount up and cause the physical violence that is so damaging today. These behaviours can have long-lasting impacts on women's economic independence, emotional wellbeing and psychological wellbeing as well. All of those impacts can add up to take a huge long-term and profound toll on the health of women and also of children. In fact, domestic and family violence is the largest driver of homelessness for women. It is so damaging for children as well. It affects their attitudes to relationships. It affects their emotional functioning. It affects the prospects for their own futures in a range of ways. So there is so much more to do to make sure that women can live without fear and without violence.

There are many places that we as a parliament can work together and put our attention. More support for frontline services is absolutely critical, as is more support for emergency accommodation so women can leave and more support for safe and affordable housing for people escaping violence. As a country, we really need to confront domestic and family violence now. The effort to end violence against women rests with all of us in this place. The statistics that I mentioned really suggest a national crisis—at the very least, they are a national shame. All of us have to confront the underlying causes of family violence, and that is the persistent gender inequality in this country today—gender inequality that makes women vulnerable and also limits men to traditional roles and the damaging behaviours that can go with them.

We can tackle gender inequality by focusing on supporting respectful relationships—we can do that in schools, we can do it by supporting men to understand and change their own behaviours, and we can do it by having a positive national conversation about the cultural and attitudinal changes our society needs to make through much more focus on awareness and on education. Of course, if Labor had been elected at the last election, we would have legislated 10 days paid domestic violence leave as part of the National Employment Standards, because people who are experiencing family violence shouldn't have to choose between their job and their ability to leave a violent relationship.