Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are few issues that unite everyone in this place more than this issue. I commend Senator Ayres and the other men who have spoken on this issue here today.

While International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is one day, we have to find in this place a way to make it every single day that we stand up in this place, lead by example and do everything we can to eliminate violence against women. This unites us as women, as senators and as human beings. All of us in this place know somebody who is the victim of coercion, domestic violence, physical violence or sexual violence, and some, as we heard so poignantly. have multiple members, in the case of Senator Nampijinpa Price, whose female relatives and friends have been murdered.

We all need to stand up and say very clearly that there is no such thing as family violence and there is no such thing as domestic abuse. It is violence, it is murder and it is a crime. The diminishing of this as family violence or as things that are acceptable to remain hidden in plain sight, behind closed doors, has to end. We are in such a great position to do that because it does unite each and everyone of us.

I was very, very proud to be a member of the cabinet task force on women's safety and economic security with my other cabinet colleagues who put so much work and passion into the women's budget statements and into the many programs that we initiated with great passion for women's safety and women's economic security. Because there can be no safety without economic security.

We know, and I think we all know here today, that no matter how many policies you have and how much money we throw at this issue—as important as those things both are—nothing will change if we do not change the attitudes of all Australians. Fifty per cent of Australians don't know what to look for, they don't know what it looks like and they certainly do not know how to call it out. Not only do we have the responsibility to set the example here—to make sure we support the best possible budget statements, the best possible policies and the government of the day to implement them—but we also have to do more in our own communities and in our own families to call it out for what it is. Whether you are in an Aboriginal community in Alice Springs, or our neighbours next door, this is happening.

I want to quote from the United Nations Secretary General, who said:

Achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls is the unfinished business of our time …

How right he is, because this is not just an issue for women in other nations; it is as much of a problem in our own societies, as much as we try not to accept that this is the case.

Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating breaches of human rights in our own nation. Clearly, this is a problem for us as much as it is for anywhere else, whether it's in this nation that you are vulnerable, or overseas, whether from war, famine or the many other factors that make people vulnerable—you can be just as vulnerable in the house next door to us in all of our suburbs all around our nation. Having a look at this and accepting that this is a problem for us, and having so many men in this chamber today calling it out, is a great, great next step. Let's do what we can in this place on a multipartisan basis to make every single day a day where we work together to eliminate violence in all its forms against women and girls.