Wednesday, 8 March 2023

International Women’s Day

Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (10:05): I would like to take this opportunity to join my colleagues in commemorating and celebrating International Women’s Day this week, because there is so much we have to celebrate in this building. For me, one of the highlights is that we have more women in our Parliament right now than ever before. Fifty-four per cent of Labor MPs in this place are women, and nearly two-thirds of our cabinet are women, something that decades ago simply would have been unheard of. So many achievements have been made in this place because women sit here on this side of the chamber.

As for my community of Laverton, I want to give a really big shout-out to just a couple of the fantastic women’s groups and organisations I have gotten to know. There is the Australian Vietnamese Women’s Association, which has been faithfully serving our local community since 15 January 1983 and has just celebrated its 40th anniversary, which I had the privilege of attending very recently. There are also the wonderful and welcoming sisters from Laverton’s Baitul Ma’mur mosque. They did my hijab absolutely beautifully on Sunday morning before I spent the day touring around my local community for Victorian Mosque Open Day. And of course there is Braybrook’s incredible East African Women’s Foundation, with Fartun Farah being able to join us for the celebrations here in Parliament today. They do a fantastic amount of work supporting women in our local community from East Africa. Congratulations to you all.