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

The murders of five women in just 10 days last month must increase the urgency of governments and communities to tackle men's violence against women and their children. Seven women—Katherine Safranko, Heather Dean, Krystal Marshall, Thi Thuy Huong Nguyen, Lilie James, Analyn 'Logee' Osias and Alice McShera—were murdered in October by men they knew, bringing the total to 43 women in 2023. These records are not kept by government, as they should be, as we do for the road toll, but kept by a volunteer organisation called Counting Dead Women.

Today, journalist and survivor Nina Funnell has written powerfully about the St Andrew's school's response to the murder of Lilie James, the school where previous students and staff were caught upskirting, sexually assaulting and even choking teenage girls. There is a link between elite institutional cultures, male entitlement and violence against women that cannot be ignored. We need to address how power and privilege play into attitudes towards girls and women. We need to stop framing men who kill women as 'good blokes who just snapped'. Men must do far more to stamp out the sexism and misogyny that breeds inequality and violence.

Let's transform harmful social norms with fully-funded expert-led education in schools, sporting clubs, workplaces and all areas of society. And let's fully fund the frontline support services that provide emergency housing, legal advice and counselling, so that everyone who seeks help can get it. Governments at all levels must prioritise this issue with funding and leadership, and everyone must drive the cultural change that we need to end the epidemic of men's violence against women in our communities. Today, I remember the 43 women murdered so far in 2023. This has to stop.