Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Today begins the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. This campaign is a symbol of feminist resistance. We mark this International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in the knowledge that 66 women have been killed in 2024 by violence, predominantly men's violence against women—that's according to Counting Dead Women Australia.

So when will enough be enough? The system continues to fail too many women, and while the number murdered women is front and centre of most discourse of violence, we know that for every woman who is killed there are far too many others who are abused in their own homes. Yet, because there is still a desperate shortage of places in refuges, far too many women are turned away as they try to leave, many with children. Every woman turned away is a government failure.

The political priorities of the Labor government are all wrong when they can chuck $50 billion in subsidies to climate-wrecking fossil fuel corporations but not fully fund front-line services which need just a fraction of that money. Family and domestic violence does not occur in a vacuum. Too often, still, there is victim-blaming and gaslighting. Too often, women still are not believed. We must grapple with the reality of the patriarchy and the power imbalances that we need to dismantle. We must believe that violence against women can be stopped, and gender equity is at the core of that solution.

Intersectionality must also be at the heart of these solutions. First Nations women, women of colour, trans women, queer women and women with a disability face additional barriers even trying to access front-line services or navigate the legal system. Women's rights have always been hard-fought for, so this struggle goes on, because we deserve better—every woman deserves better. We deserve to feel safe and to actually be safe, no matter where we are—in parliament, in the street, at university or in our homes. To do this, we must be unapologetic feminists and anti-racists.