Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This week is Youth Voice in Parliament Week. It has been wonderful to hear my colleagues across the chamber read out so many heartfelt and articulate statements from young people setting out their vision for 2041. I'm delighted today to be able to share this speech from Gillian Gerry. Gillian is a 21-year-old student from Brisbane who is currently studying commerce and politics at the University of Canberra and who hopes one day to be standing in this chamber herself, but only if the toxic culture changes. Gillian says: '"A lying cow", "stop shagging men", "a menopausal monster", "deliberately barren"—these remarks would be reprimandable in any ordinary workplace, so why on our parliamentary floor are they acceptable? Picture this, a young girl in a study of society class being told that, as of 2015, female representation in parliament was a mere 30 per cent, and all the media could care about what the way each of these women looked—too old, frumpy, ugly, a slut. She took this as her call to action. Campaign after campaign says the future is female, yet we sit here hoping that women's interest in politics will simply reignite after she's had children, once she's finished in the workforce or after her duties as a Stepford wife at complete. Meanwhile, all she reads are derogatory headlines. Currently, there are young women, like myself, willing and ready to take on the call to action, but our concern is the Australian commentary. A young man, he has ambition. But a young woman, what could she possibly know about the world. Picture this, in 20 years, nothing has changed in our political sphere. That is a call to action.'

Thank you for letting me share your powerful words and your call to action, Gillian. I, along with my Greens colleagues, hear you, and we'll keep working to make this place somewhere young women know is a place for them.