Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Fair Work Amendment (Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2022, and making it the law of the land. I'm incredibly proud that the Labor government has prioritised this legislation.

I want to start my speech by talking to survivors—particularly, in this instance, to parents. In my first speech in this place I spoke about my mum. I said then, and I say now, that I wouldn't be here today without her and her sacrifices. In my first speech I spoke about how mum protected us. I told the story of the night that we left, how she walked us the long way around the block while explaining to me, as a very young child, that this way we wouldn't be seen by the man that we were fleeing. This was the first night that we left, but we went back. It took 10 more years before we left for good. I don't know but I can only guess how hard that must have been for her, explaining to her young daughter and her son in a stroller something so painful and complex in a way that we could digest. I have no memory of the moments before that conversation on the street. I recall feeling safer there with her in the dark than inside of our home.

Finding strategies to protect your children from the ugliness of family violence is a trauma we don't measure or account for. It is hard to measure the trauma felt by children who learn too early in life what it feels like to be unsafe in their own home. Mother-victims find narratives for their children in their best efforts to help them understand. It is a delicate narrative to tell, one that works hard to comfort them and at the same time instructs them on what is okay as they move out into the adult world. For a victim-survivor, this is a lot to carry—to be protecting yourself, your children, and finding a way to talk about it that can explain what is happening right now but also what will make sense in the future. It is just an impossible feat.

Those who are lucky enough to build a life beyond the abuse have the unenviable task of both starting from scratch and explaining what happened in a way that kids can understand throughout their stages of development. It is hard and often lonely, unenviable work. In the words of the excellent First Nations Queenslander Thelma Plum, in a song from her Better in Black album, 'She really made the best of it.'

What victims need when building a life out of abuse is security. This proposal, originally a union claim in the workplace to provide paid domestic violence leave, provides that security to survivors. It tells survivors that the people they spend the most time with, their colleagues, have their back. As a government, we are building on existing entitlements to make sure that it's closer to what workers, the experts, are telling us is effective. I want to congratulate the campaigners, the organisers and the advocates who have delivered and held the standard for decades.

We on this side of the chamber know that meaningful reform was almost always built through workplace organising. There are workplaces out there to whom this makes no difference, not because they are lucky but because they are united. When workplaces are united, they put measures in place to make sure that, when one of them falls through the cracks, the rest are there to protect. These protections shouldn't be for workers to defend each time they bargain with their boss for a pay rise. These protections should be universal, because they work.

It is unacceptable currently that workers have to face this impossible choice—a choice between keeping their jobs and escaping abuse, a choice between turning up for your shift or packing your things, a choice between filling out your timesheet or filling out a rental application. We shouldn't make victims choose between their jobs and their survival. In our communities, we are already there. We know victims need help and we rally. It only makes sense to enshrine this kindness, this practical generosity, into workplace relations. This is an urgent crisis. Labor's legislation makes sure that there is one less difficult factor in the equation. This legislation brings the law of the land in line with the way kind and decent co-workers already treat victims of violence.

I am so proud of this Labor government that has made this a priority. I am so proud of workers and union members who have campaigned for so many years. I'm so proud of survivors who have spoken up about what they need, because we know that this legislation will save lives. There's absolutely no question about that. This is a victory for tough, smart social workers, who saw a human problem and fought for a legislative solution. This is a victory for survivors, many of whom are my friends. I say thank you to you. Thank you for your defiance and your dignity. To the parents, like my own mum, we offer this small moment of progress. Slow as it is, we are finally delivering it. We know that we all have our own narratives and strategies and our own hopes. We all know ours far too well. For me, my mum's refrain is a source of dignified inspiration. She would say that tough times don't last forever.

I return to the words of Thelma Plum to finish my contribution: 'We were better off without you'.